Amar’e Stoudemire is shedding light on why the New York Knicks fell short during his time with the team. Speaking on FanDuel TV, the former All-Star said the arrival of Carmelo Anthony changed the team’s chemistry and disrupted the flow that made them successful early on.
“Once we brought in another superstar like Carmelo, he requires a lot of attention. Melo comes to our team, and the ball isn’t moving as much because Melo requires a lot of attention. He’s one of the offensive greats,” said Stoudemire on Run It Back.
Before Anthony’s arrival, Stoudemire was thriving as the Knicks’ focal point and leading them back into relevance. But after the trade, things shifted, and Stoudemire admitted that cohesion started to fade as he battled injuries and the team struggled to find its rhythm.
“When he gets the basketball, he’s looking to score. A lot of the cohesiveness somewhat faded away. And then I started suffering some injuries, in years two and three. Battling back and forth. And that’s kind of how things panned out. We tried our best. We gave it all we got. We just couldn’t get over the hump.”
Carmelo Anthony did not achieve much success with the Knicks, but most of his best moments came with Stoudemire. They were teammates for nearly four years, playing 178 games together before they ultimately split.
Despite their combined talent, those Knicks teams never got far, and Amar’e says it was doomed to fail from the start. As good as Anthony was on the court (career averages of 22.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game on 44.7 percent shooting), he played a very particular type of game that didn’t quite mix well.
According to Stoudemire, Anthony’s arrival changed things in ways that made the Knicks worse. When he arrived in 2011, midway through the season, it messed up the team chemistry that had been building for years. Plus, as an isolation player, Melo always demanded the ball, which limited what his teammates could do on the court.
The Knicks went 42-40 that season, and while they did win 54 games two years later, it still did not result in the success the Knicks had hoped for. Today, their brief time as teammates has a mixed legacy in the NBA.
While some fans remember their offensive potential, most only call it a failure. Whatever side you’re on, the story serves as a reminder that playing hero ball comes at a cost. Melo and the Knicks learned that lesson the hard way, and it’s something Stoudemire is only now sharing 14 years later. While Anthony might have a different perspective on what happened all those years ago, there’s no going back to change things now. The Knicks operate by a different code, and isolation basketball has all but disappeared from today’s game.
For Stoudemire, the story is not about regret but reflection. Time has given him perspective, and he can now speak honestly about what went wrong. The Knicks had the talent and the star power, but without chemistry, it was never going to work. That lesson still holds in today’s NBA, where teamwork and cohesion matter more than names on a roster. Looking back, Amar’e seems at peace with how it ended, content knowing he gave everything he had to the game and to New York.
