Drafted third overall by the Denver Nuggets in 2003, Carmelo Anthony was one of the brightest stars in his draft class. In his time with the Nuggets, he led the team to the Conference Finals once but never made it out of the first round. Eventually, Anthony requested a trade, which sent him to the New York Knicks in February 2011 along with Chauncey Billups.
Anthony stayed with the Knicks through the 2016-17 season but with little success. In his first two seasons, the Knicks lost in the first round of the playoffs before making it to the second round but then went on a losing streak and missed the postseason entirely for the remainder of the Carmelo Anthony era.
No team is perfect, and neither were any of the squads the Knicks assembled around Anthony during his time in New York. So, let’s look at some of the worst starters of the Carmelo Anthony era in New York.
Ranking the 6 Worst Knicks starters of the Carmelo Anthony era
6. Sasha Vujacic
Sasha Vujacic played 61 games for the Knicks in the 2015-16 season and started 25 of those games. Even though he was a starter for almost half of the games he played, Vujacic only averaged 14.9 minutes per game. In those minutes, he put up 4.9 points on 38.3% shooting from the field and 36.4% from three with 2.4 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game.
While these were regular stats for Vujacic over his NBA career, and he had been a two-time All-Star in the Turkish Basketball League, the output and scoring efficiency did not justify his being a starter. Accordingly, he had never started more than 17 games in his career, and the Knicks also realized that maybe he wasn’t meant to be a starter in the NBA.
In the following season, he only started four games, and his playing time dropped significantly as the Knicks made some moves to try and escape their three-year playoff drought.
5. Pablo Prigioni
In 2012, Pablo Prigioni became the oldest NBA rookie in league history at the age of 35. The Argentine-Italian guard had been successful in Europe before making his way to the NBA and signing with the Knicks. Playing in Spain, Prigioni won a Spanish League Championship, three Spanish Cups, and four Spanish Supercups. On the way there, he was also named a Spanish Cup MVP and a Spanish Supercup MVP.
Over his four seasons in the NBA, he was not quite as successful, averaging career stats of 3.5 points, 1.9 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game. Three of those four seasons were spent with the Knicks, and in his first two seasons, he saw significant time as a starter.
In the 2012-13 season, he played 78 games and started 18 of those, averaging 16.2 minutes, 3.5 points on good shooting, 1.8 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game. The following season, Prigioni started 27 of the 66 games he played, averaging 19.4 minutes, 3.8 points, 2 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.0 steals per game.
Particularly in his second season, Prigioni shot very efficiently and contributed as a playmaker as well as on the defensive end, but his output simply was not enough.
The Knicks needed more, not just from him but from all their starters, as they finished the season with a 37-45 losing record and missed the playoffs for the first time since acquiring Carmelo Anthony. Prigioni, however, put up the lowest production of all players who started at least 20 games that season. He probably would have been better suited to run the second unit.
4. Jason Kidd
Jason Kidd was already 39 when he signed a three-year deal with the Knicks in 2012. His place on this list was not as much earned by his own doing as by the Knicks’ coaching and managing of his game.
After a long and successful career, Kidd would have been perfect as a mentor and backup point guard. Instead, he started 48 games and averaged 26.9 minutes per game in his first and last season in New York, including a one-month stretch in December when he had to play almost 33 minutes per game.
His scoring, efficiency, and assists had been going down for a couple of seasons already but sank to 6.0 points on 37.2% shooting from the field and 35.1% shooting from three with 4.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.6 steals per game. These stats are not necessarily bad — for any regular role player they would be solid — but it is a big step down from what Kidd produced when he was still in his prime.
Obviously, it is not fair to expect a 39-year-old player to still be at his best, but if Kidd hadn’t been so overtaxed in the regular season, his numbers might have been better, and he probably would not have flamed out in the playoffs.
It seems he was not supposed to be a starter anymore, which is no critique of Kidd. Not all players even play as long as he did, and after 19 seasons, it was not fair to expect Kidd to carry such a heavy load for the team.
Feeling the heavy minutes, Kidd retired in June 2013 after just one season of his three-year deal with the Knicks.
3. Andrea Bargnani
In 2013, the Knicks sent Marcus Camby, Steve Novak, Quentin Richardson, a 2016 first-round pick, a 2014 second-round pick, and a 2017 second-round pick to acquire the former number one draft pick from the Toronto Raptors. Andrea Bargnani didn’t play horribly for the Knicks.
He averaged double digits in both seasons (13.3 points in 2013-14 and 14.8 points in 2014-15) but missed too much time due to injuries and didn’t do what he was supposed to, which led to much discontent among fans.
The Knicks got Bargnani because he seemed to be a good fit next to Carmelo Anthony as a floor stretcher. However, as soon as he got to New York, he struggled to shoot from behind the arc. In the 2013-14 season, Bargnani only shot 27.8% from three on a much lower volume than what he showed in Toronto.
There was also a memorable instance in a December game against the Milwaukee Bucks, in which the Knicks were leading by two points with only twenty seconds left on the clock in overtime. Bargnani got an offensive rebound, and instead of running out the clock, he took a three and missed, which led to the Bucks sending the game into double-overtime. The Knicks still won, but this game is still a sore spot with many Knicks fans regarding the Bargnani trade.
Bargnani generally did not do enough to justify all the assets it cost to get him, and was also a part of the Knicks’ worst season during the Carmelo Anthony era. The Knicks obviously had many other problems during their 2014-15 season, where they posted a 17-65 record, but Bargnani only played 29 games, contributing to the general disappointment. By 2016, Bargnani was out of the NBA and playing in Spain.
2. Ronnie Brewer
In the summer of 2012, Ronnie Brewer signed with the Knicks, marking his last NBA season in which he played at least 46 games. The small forward started 34 of those, averaging 15.5 minutes, 3.6 points on inefficient shooting (36.6 FG%, 31.0 3P%, 41.0 FT%), and 2.2 rebounds per game.
This marked a significant drop off from his previous season with the Chicago Bulls, in which he had averaged 6.9 points on 42.7% shooting from the field, 3.5 rebounds, and 2.1 assists in 24.8 minutes per game. That was not even his best season, however. During the 2008-09 season with the Utah Jazz, he started 80 games and averaged 13.7 points over 32.2 minutes per game.
His drop-off was thus quite the disappointment for the Knicks, who might have hoped that the former first-round pick could return to the scoring talent he showed in Utah. Brewer did not play a main role on the Knicks’ roster, but you want more than what he produced from a player who started the majority of his games.
He never had to be the top scorer or anything like that, but he should have at least had a bigger impact.
In February 2013, Brewer was eventually traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for a future second-round pick, and the Knicks went on to make their last playoff appearance for a long while without him.
1. Joakim Noah
In July 2016, the Knicks signed Joakim Noah to a four-year, $72 million contract, now often referred to as one of the worst signings in franchise history. Noah only played one season with Anthony and played only 53 games over two seasons with the Knicks. He missed a lot of time partly because of injuries and was suspended for 20 games in March 2017 for violating the NBA’s anti-drug policy.
A total of 46 of his 53 games in a Knicks uniform came in Anthony’s final season in New York. Noah started all of those games, averaging 22.1 minutes, 5.0 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game. These are not terrible stats, but it was quite a disappointment for a player who was signed in a win-now move to help the Knicks end their three-year playoff drought.
Just three seasons before Noah signed with the Knicks, he had averaged a double-double with the Bulls for the second consecutive season, putting up 12.6 points and 11.3 rebounds per game. Hopes were that he would be healthy and find his way back into his previous All-Star shape, but that never happened.
The following season, when Anthony had already been traded to the Thunder, Noah only played seven games and barely produced before he was released via a stretch-provision waiver. So, not only was Noah severely overpaid, but he was also not very good as a starter outside of his rebounding and did not help the Knicks get back on track in any way.
https://dailyknicks.com/2023/03/20/9-players-new-york-knicks-gave-up-on-way-too-soon/