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Knicks president Phil Jackson: Ball 'can't stop' with Carmelo Anthony

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New York Knicks president Phil Jackson said in an interview with the New York Post that the ball "can't stop" with star forward Carmelo Anthony.

Anthony was asked about comments Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry made about Anthony.

Q: Hawks GM Danny Ferry recently made comments about Carmelo in which he reportedly said: “He can shoot the [bleep] out of it, but he screws you up in other ways. So is he really worth $20 million? I would argue if he plays the right way, absolutely.”


A: I think there’s probably 15 players in the NBA that are very similar position. I don’t know if all of ’em are paid $20 million, but the coaches and GMs are talking about it in those type of terms — how much does this guy hurt your team, or hurt the game flow because he’s trying to score. The attempt to score, the need to score, the pressure that he feels he has to score. … Does he take away from the team game? That’s what Danny’s talking about there. And that’s where Carmelo’s gonna move forward this year in that situation — the ball can’t stop. The ball has to continually move. It moves, or goes to the hoop on a shot or a drive or something like that. In our offense, that’s part of the process of getting players to play in that rhythm.

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Anthony posted the fourth-highest usage percentage (32.3) in the league last season, a statistic defined on NBA.com as "the percentage of a team's offensive possessions that a player uses while on the court." Some observers have criticized him as a ball-dominant, ball-stopper.

In July, Anthony, 30, signed a five-year, $122 million contract with the Knicks. Over 11 seasons with Denver and New York, Anthony has averaged 25.3 points and 6.5 rebounds. Anthony was ranked 11th on SI.com's list of the top 100 players in the league.

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After going 36-45 and missing the playoffs last season, the Knicks fired Mike Woodson as head coach and hired Derek Fisher to replace him.