The Source Of Grumpiness

Some say there is a ancient spring somewhere in upstate New York, or maybe Scotland, where all the worlds grumpiness oozes forth and is spread throught the world.

Some say that grumpiness comes from a gene that only humans and wild pigs share.  And maybe bears.

Both of those sound feasible to me.  I'm not going to argue about it.

But in terms of the Carmelo-to-NY grumpiness that has overtaken me, I've been thinking about how to articulate why I feel that way.  Am I being irrational?  Do I love the Cock too much?  Is it possible to love the Cock too much?

You don't have to answer that.

Anyway, Amar'e Stoudemire was on a bus with a bunch of kids riding through Times Square to see he new billboard.  Apparently, he couldn't take his eyes off it, but I'm not going to worry about that.  He mentioned that he had underestimated how psyched Knicks fans would be at his signing.  I think he's genuinely emotionally moved by that.  That's cool.   So far, I love Amar'e.

But of course, they asked him about Carmelo, and he said "He's a phenomenal player - I hope he comes here".  And for a second, I was like, "Wow, Amar'e thinks he's great - maybe I should get on the Carmelo bandwagon".  And then I started thinking about it, and the grumpiness crystallized within my soul into a solid diamond of rational championship fury.

See, Amar'e is awesome.  He's an intimidating force on offense.  With defense and rebounding, he's capable, but he really is a big believer in offense.  He lives to score on you - not so much to stop you from scoring, at least most of the time.  That's OK, nobody's perfect, and Amar'e is very dominant on offense and decent in the other things, so it adds up to a positive impact player.

And it's understandable that he thinks Carmelo's awesome, because Carmelo's the same way.  And Amar'e, naturally, thinks that Carmelo would make the Knicks even more awesome.  And in terms of scoring, and the number of victories and lopsided victories you'd get during the season, maybe he would.  But in terms of grinding through all rounds of the playoffs?  My soul-diamond of championship fury winks provacatively and whispers, "No."

Here's the thing.  With Carmelo and Amar'e, you'd have two superstars as the undeniable focal points of your team.  Those guys would be the top dogs.  And those guys' attitudes would dominate the team.  Now, there's nothing wrong with their attitudes, per se.  But they're similar in that they are offensive-dominant attitudes.

With Felton, Gallo, Toney, and Turiaf surrounding Amar'e, you have a counterweight to his offensive dominant mindset and a core that believes in defense.  You may say Gallo isn't a great defender and you may be right - but the way he gets competitve about defense and hungers to slow down the best is something Amar'e and Carmelo - for all their awesome basketball talents - don't really have.  If you exchange Gallo for Carmelo, you change the balance of power on the team.

Long and short of it - I believe it's more likely that Gallo becomes a scoring force in this league than it is that a Carmelo / Amar'e anchored team can play good enough defense to win a title.

Now, many of you probably don't agree with me.  And neither, I'm sure, does Coach D'antoni.  But when grumpiness gets transmutated on a Friday morning into some sort of carbon crystal of eventual NBA glory, I ain't gonna question it.