Carmelo Anthony: Gold Medal Means Great Things For Knicks

Leadership

The New York Knicks need a player to emerge as the unquestioned leader in the locker room. There are a number of selfless players on the roster, which means one needs to step up and take on this responsibility.

Fortunately for the Knicks, Carmelo Anthony emerged as the leader of Team USA at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Anthony led USA Basketball to the Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That isn’t a narrative being created by outsiders; it’s what both coaches and players on Team USA said themselves.

According to David Aldridge of NBA.com, All-NBA small forward Paul George singled Anthony out as the leader of Team USA.

"“Melo’s for sure the leader of us,” George said. “He’s the voice of this team. It seems more and more, the further we got into this thing, really the more vocal and the more he picked it up for us.”"

Per Taylor Bern of USAB.com, head coach Mike Krzyzewski said the same.

"“He’s been on three of the teams that I’ve coached and we have a close-knit relationship,” said Krzyzewski, who called Anthony the vocal leader of this year’s team."

As the video below displays, George and Krzyzewski aren’t the only members of Team USA who feel that way.

In other words, Anthony just led a team to a championship.

10 of the 12 members of Team USA’s roster had never played in an Olympic game before 2016. Lest we forget, that inexperienced crew needed Anthony to score 31 points in order to avoid disaster against Australia.

If Anthony’s leadership is as strong as his peers are making it out to be, this won’t be 2008-09 or 2012-13.

must read: Five ways Carmelo Anthony made Olympic history in 2016

If healthy, this will be the greatest season by a Knicks team under Anthony’s leadership.