With the Knicks off to a 20-8 start and Carmelo Anthony second in the league in scoring amidst other noticeable improvements, everyone is mentioning him in MVP talks including former coach Mike D’Antoni. Read more after the jump.
D’Antoni’s resignation from the Knicks came on the heels of their disappointing play as well as his inability to work with and successfully coexist with Anthony.
Before the Lakers faced the Knicks on Christmas Day, D’Antoni was asked to give his thoughts on Anthony this year, and the Lakers head coach said he believed his former player was having an MVP season.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said, when asked if Anthony should be in the MVP conversation. “They’re one of the top teams, and he’s definitely a big reason why they’re there so yeah, you’d have to talk about him.”
When asked who else he thought should be considered, D’Antoni went with some other obvious choices.
“Durant’s always there, LeBron’s always there,” he said. “I think you have to be one of the top three or four records. Right now somebody’s probably slipping by, but I would say those are the names.”
The name that was “slipping by,” obviously, was that of his own star player, Kobe Bryant.
Bryant leads the league in scoring at 29.9 points per game, but D’Antoni knows that his team would have to show measurable improvement for Bryant to even be considered this season.
“Well, if we can get up to where we need to get up to,” he said, referring to the Lakers slow 14-14 start after being reminded that Bryant’s name was noticeably absent from his list. “But we’ve got to get up there. I don’t think you can put anybody [as] MVP when you’re below .500. That just doesn’t work.”
