Disgruntled vets natural product of young squad
IT IS one thing to be asked to buy into a meritocracy. Everything about that seems right. Everything about that seems fair. The best players play. If the best players are being outplayed by their backups on a given night, the subs play. It is an easy system to endorse in theory. It is less so when you realize the rules are rigged against you. Enes Kanter is 26 years old. By any measure, that is a young man, even in a young man’s game like pro basketball. But he happens to play for the Knicks, a team where, if you are old enough to be able to rent a car on your own, they start to phase you out like some kind of basketball “Logan’s Run.” “I am here for my teammates,” Kanter said Monday night, after turning in a remarkable 23-point, 24rebound effort in an even more remarkable doubleovertime, 116-115 Knicks loss to the Bulls at Madison Square Garden. “The only thing I care about is being a good teammate.” Little about this 3-8 Knicks start has been easy, even if the consensus among team and fan base is that this is all an 82-game mulligan. It has been especially hard for Kanter, a Garden favorite last year, a guy whose tenacity (on offense, anyway) makes him an endearing presence. Kanter started the year as a starter. He isn’t a starter anymore. He didn’t start Monday night. Mitchell Robinson did.
“But Mitchell didn’t have it tonight,” Knicks coach David Fizdale said of the rookie, who had only two blocks, three rebounds and four fouls to show for 11 minutes of playing time. “So I decided to roll with Enes.”
It was the second straight game on the second straight night when Enes outplayed Robinson, but a night earlier, in Washington, Fizdale had gone with the kid despite 16 and 14 from Kanter, and Kanter wasn’t pleased. His mood didn’t improve any when Robinson drew a costly technical foul down the stretch that helped sabotage the Knicks against the Wizards.
Fizdale had called that “a teaching moment. He understands it was a bad decision to go off like that.” Kanter was more brief in his summation of the whole affair, tying a record for the shortest Twitter post in history: “.”
Assuming that wasn’t a pocket dial and was instead a commentary on how speechless he was to be benched despite playing so well, it extends a period of iciness (to be kind) or anger (if you don’t wish to be kind) about Kanter’s new role with the Knicks.
On Monday, after a superb night, Kanter had softened: “We all have to learn together as a team. That’s what it’s all about.”
“It’s definitely an adjustment for him,” Fizdale said before the game. “I think his heart is set on starting, and that’s a good thing. You want guys who feel that way on our team that way for our team but for our future and what we’re trying to do. The way we have it now is the way we have to go.”
Fizdale tried to soften the reality by suggesting that if Kanter’s production remains apace with what he did Sunday, he’s “a guy that’s going to have his hat in the Sixth Man of the Year award.” And Fizdale said that whatever the perception might be, Kanter has been “great with the guys” so far.
Still, it is one thing for the kids to be shuffled around. It’s one thing for Fizdale to go with the hot hand of, say, Emmanuel Mudiay (16 points) over Frank Ntilikina, or to design so many important plays late for Allonzo Trier (21 points) and Damyean Dotson (18), who are just happy to be here. That’s the fun part of the job for Fizdale.
The harder part is figuring a way to keep Kanter happy. Tim Hardaway Jr. is less of an issue because when he plays, he is generally scoring 25 a night. He’s exempt from the old-guys rule (also at the advanced age of 26). But lurking, at some point, is Courtney Lee (positively glacial at 33), who is smart enough to see what Fizdale’s Knicks have quickly become.
“It’s a no-brainer,” he said Monday. “You look around the locker room and everybody’s young. It’s what we have. I’m a guy who will go out there and know my role and compete and help the team as much as possible whether it’s vocally or by example. I’ll go out there and do whatever the team needs.”
See, it’s also easy to buy in when you’re wearing civvies. The Knicks are no country for old men right now.