<
>

Amar'e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony wouldn't adjust for Jeremy Lin

Confirming what was pretty clear at the time, former New York Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni says there was some resentment among players during Jeremy Lin's star turn in New York.

D'Antoni, the new coach of the Houston Rockets, didn't mention which players were specifically resentful of 'Linsanity'. But he did say in an interview with The Vertical that both Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire were hesitant to change positions to play the way D'Antoni wanted to play, which was the system in which Lin thrived.

"The problem that we had was that for Jeremy to be really good, which he was, he had to play a certain way. It was hard for him to adapt," D'Antoni said in the interview. "Amare, Melo, whatever, kind of had to play a certain way, too, to be really, really good. So there was that inherent conflict of, 'What's better for the team? What isn't? Can they co-exist? Can they not?'

"And again, they could have co-existed if Melo went to [power forward], which he really didn't want to, and Amare came to back up Tyson [Chandler at center], which he didn't want to. So now it's like, what are we going to do? We could see how to go, and I didn't know how to get there, and with losing again and you're trying to prod them and you're trying to tell them to play harder and all the coach's speak, and communication just like deteriorated."

D'Antoni, who resigned in the final season of his Knicks contract with a 121-167 record, said he had no ill will toward Anthony. But acknowledged that he and Anthony "couldn't co-exist" at times during his tenure in New York.

"I had one vision that I wanted him to play one way, he kind of wanted to go the other way," D'Antoni said. "I couldn't get to my way. And then injuries [occurred], we weren't winning, and then that complicated everything."