Knicks, Carmelo Anthony sound naive to realities of Derrick Rose's trial
The Knicks thought it would be over by now, while Melo thinks Rose can just make it be over
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2 min read
As the New York Knicks prepare for the regular season to start, guard Derrick Rose is in Los Angeles because of his civil sexual assault trial. Rose will not return to the team until it is over.
At practice on Thursday, coach Jeff Hornacek told reporters that the Knicks had hoped Rose would return earlier in the week and they might send an assistant coach to Los Angeles to work with him. Star forward Carmelo Anthony added that, if he was Hornacek, he'd be telling Rose to hurry up and come back, via Newsday's Al Iannazzone:
"Our hope was that he would be done on Monday or Tuesday and maybe be back," Hornacek said after practice Thursday. "It is what it is. He's got to deal with that. We've got to continue to work with our other players, get them to be better."
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"We don't know right now," Hornacek said. "That's why we're kind of trying to hold off. We might get the word he'll be back Friday night. If we get a word that it's definitely going to be next week, then we'll look to send someone out there."
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"I think it makes it harder," Carmelo Anthony said. "But at the same time for him, it should excite him to see kind of what we're doing without those two guys so far. So I'm pretty sure if I was [Hornacek], I'd be calling Derrick and telling him, 'Hurry up. Figure it out and hurry up back.' Just because the way the team is starting to jell together and come together, the camaraderie we're starting to create with one another, we don't want him missing out on that."
Two things about this are mind-boggling:
- Why would New York have assumed Rose would be back by Monday or Tuesday? The trial was expected to last about two weeks, so when the two sides failed to reach a settlement, the team should have been prepared for this.
- Anthony's quote is totally tone-deaf. Rose isn't away because of some kind of trivial matter -- he has been accused of gang raping a woman with two friends. Rose cannot just "figure it out and hurry up." To talk about him missing out on bonding with his teammates as if he was sidelined with the flu is to diminish the seriousness of the allegations made against him.
Obviously, it's not great for the Knicks that Rose is on the other side of the country. The Knicks, however, are not the priority here.
