He's basically saying the team has tried to play many different ways, many styles of offense and defense, none have worked or led to consistent wins.
This happens. The Knicks top 3 players are Melo, KP and Rose. All 3 are relatively high usage players, with a tendency to focus on offense. When you have situations like that, where one is a rising star looking to prove himself and develop his game (KP) and the other is a declining star who is looking to keep getting his numbers up in the scoring books (Melo) and the third is a former MVP heading into free agency who is looking to get paid (Rose) the sacrifices needed to be made just weren't.
No matter what offense we ran, early on when it was less Triangle, or now when it's majority Triangle, we were able to score. We are the highest scoring team outside of the playoffs. We put up points with ease, despite being fiddled with problems like Melo and Rose going one on one way too much. Despite the flaws in Melo/Rose games and the toughness of getting the Triangle, on offense we had/have more than enough to be a good team.
The problem is/was defense. Again with our big 3 of KP, Melo, Rose, you would like to have some guys who know defense and can play defense. KP's a great rim protector and tries, but he's outmatched against small 4's and he can not recognize many things still on defense. Melo and Rose have always been suspect defenders at best. So where do you get the defense if your best players don't commit to defense? They are afterall the guys that you play the most minutes.
The only way for this team to win was to outscore teams with a powerhouse offense. Being able to drop 112 a night. For that you need a primary star/scorer who is more consistent and a better shooter than Melo. A better point guard than Rose. And KP needed to have a post game to max out our O potential.
I blame the coaching staff and the Knicks big 3 of Rose/Melo/KP for poor defense. KP is the least to blame in my book because he's in his 2nd year and he's still learning defense (as well as showing some value with his great rim protection). Hornachek, Melo and Rose are just an awful mix, You can even see it on TV. The interactions. Hornachek and Melo/Rose have a huge gap. You don't see that gap with Hornachek and the young players like KP, Willy, Randle, Baker, Kuz etc.
It is what it is, but the positive we should take from this is we saved ourselves from investing $100 million deal on Rose and trying to make the Rose/Melo/KP core into a contender, which was just never happening. We're going to draft somewhere really good. Better to really be a bust like we were and draft in a better spot, and know you can't invest in these players longterm, than having a solid season where you make the playoffs and then have a false sense you can grow that team into a contender. That is the false sense the Knicks had after the 2012/2013 season.
All this season has done in my eyes is expediated the process that was inevitable. Moving on from Melo. Building around Porzingis. By that I don't mean you build a team thinking KP will drop 25-30 points a game. You simply rebuild the team, with KP more of the featured player. You get younger. More athletic. YOu find players that fit and blend in well with the young talent (like KP, the 2017 lottery pick) you already have. It's far better to be in this situation knowing for sure you can not get this done with these veterans and type of team than to have a false sense that it will work out if you keep changing the chairs/furniture around. We've changed the furniture around enough. Time to get new furniture. Melo and Rose need to go.
