New York Knicks: J.R. Smith’s behavior off the court is a major problem for the Knicks
As most people know, J.R. Smith is quite the character. His style on the court and craziness off the court is what makes him such an exciting player especially in such a big city like New York. Earlier this summer JR posts a picture on Instagram with his hair dyed blonde (a day later Woodson made him change it back). Just to piss off Woodson even more, he then dyes his hair red. Typical JR.
A couple weeks later JR pops up in the news again not for his hair, but for spending 450,000 on an armored German vehicle that looks like a tank on wheels. This is also a typical JR thing to do. He then starts dogging it out with Brooklyn Nets forward Paul Pierce as mentioned in Buckets over Broadway Staff Dedrick Hendrix article and says Pierce’s “words have consequences and he’s going to have to pay for them. ” And one more time, this is typical JR. JR should become a verb – when someone does something erratic, they JR’d it.
Now while these events are all fun and games, today’s news on a 5-game suspension for violating the NBA anti-drug policy without question crosses the line. This is when JR being JR actually affects the Knicks and this is when he needs to stop. Not only is he missing up to 2 weeks of the regular season recovering from knee surgery, but on top of that, he will miss games due to a suspension.
This year we saw what JR can do when he’s focused – he could play defense, score like a maniac, and play overall team ball. And because of his great play, he was rewarded with a 6th man award. Now after seeing his behavior this summer, accompanied with an intentional elbow to the head of Celtics Jason Terry in Game 4 of the playoffs and his alleged partying and drinking before Game 5 of the playoffs, it seems like JR has reverted himself back his old-self on Denver.
He tweets about winning a championship, and keeps stabbing at the Knicks rival, the Brooklyn Nets, but when he goes out and violates the NBA anti-drug policy, he loses all his credibility. And not only does it make him look foolish, but it takes away all the seriousness of the Knicks team.
How much longer will Woodson and the Knicks organization put up with JR and his recklessness? When will they tell him enough is enough. Just because he is the reigning 6th Man of the Year and signed a nice 3-year $17 million contract, doesn’t mean he could be all lackadaisical. I haven’t seen one Instagram post of his rehabilitating his knee and getting ready for the upcoming season. All I’ve seen is him dying his, hair, rapping in his car, and partying. And does he remember how atrocious he played in the playoffs two years in a row as he shot on average 32% FG and 24% 3P? Does he realize how important he is to this Knicks team? Without him there is virtually no offense from a guard on the bench and that poses a major threat when the Knicks are looking for someone other than Melo to put the ball in the hoop.
One other point to make is that the Knicks signed Metta World Peace this offseason. He has a history of being as crazy and sporadic as JR. The season hasn’t even started yet and already one of the two players have already caused problems. This is not a good sign at all. JR needs to get his head straight, be more careful off the court, so that he could have the right mentality and that’s the only way the Knicks have a shot at a run the playoffs this year.
JR has to realize that he can still bring the fun to NY off the court, but when it comes to causing a detriment to his team, he has to stop himself. Maybe finding out that he will lose $252,000 from this 5-game suspension will wake up a bit, but this is JR and who knows what he will do.