The New York Knicks are Asking Everybody to Over Achieve

The New York Knicks definitely has the potential to be good in the East and make the Playoffs, but this franchise is asking for their players to over achieve. There is nothing wrong with asking for more from a player or a team as a unit; in fact that is usually a good thing because it tends to get the best out of players. As competitors and basketball players they should want and demand the challenge. But perhaps. too much is being asked of them now.

The Knicks (as you probably know) is not composed with an all-star roster. Not to say that they don't have good and quality pieces, but (on paper at least) it does not even come close to an all-star or even an elite-like roster. With this in mind the Knicks are the underdogs to teams that have elite or all-star like rosters, like the Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder, Indiana Pacers, and L.A. Clippers. With the majority of their roster being over the ages of 28, their game is not likely to increase dramatically and asking them for too much would be asking them to over achieve.

As mentioned before the Knicks has potential to become better than their record. Through individual performance not many players will increase significantly in game play or statistics. The Knicks is a team that lives or dies from the three-point line. The Knicks has been in a huge shooting slum (with many players shooting in the low 40s), but last year they showed that they are a dominant force when their shots (especially the three ball) are falling in. Since starting this season bitterly, the Knicks has had a few games this season displaying the same type of shooting performance that was witnessed just the year before and in each of those games a win was added in the end.

Now there is no way of me knowing exactly what is being asked of them since I am in no way affiliated on a personal level with the Knicks staff and players, but I think it is safe to assume that as soon as they step on the court more is expected of them. The reason why is because this is a team that lacks defense. As a team that lacks defense and defense being a major contributor  to winning games, there is no doubt that the coach and fans are demanding to see a more defensive effort on the court. I see this as asking them to over achieve because they are who they are and sadly it does not seem that they are likely to improve on defense by any stretch of the imagination.

Stepping on the court is already expected of them. Putting aside the expectations, playing great offense would be asking them to over achieve, BECAUSE they lack consistent defensive rotation. Defense is definitely not a character trait of this current Knicks team. By this I mean, that although everybody wants to see better defense from this team, they are simply not that strong in that department. Being lackluster on defense more than likely puts an emphasis on the offensive end since they actually have players on their roster who can score in bunches. Many times what a player has in weaknesses he covers with his strength, which is what this team is expected to do on the offensive end in order to cover up the idleness on the defensive end. 

In the end this is like friendship, in the sense that you can only accept them for who they are which I know is difficult because they are losing games in such terrible manner. For now as a Knicks fan all you can do is hope for the offense to click and remember that patience is a virtue.

You can vent your thoughts and frustrations in the comments below.