Carmelo out again Wednesday; 'I'm not shutting it down for the season yet'

Rebuilding or not, the New York Knicks have made it pretty clear that they're no longer playing for this season. 

At 5-32, they've got the worst record in the NBA and the worst record the franchise has ever had this late in the season. They've lost 12 straight games and 22 of their last 23. The triangle offense looks like a bust (at least with the personnel the Knicks presently have in tow), rookie coach Derek Fisher hasn't been able to steady the ship and the Knicks just traded two rotation players for a return that amounted to little more than payroll flexibility. They seem to be calling a mulligan on Year 1 of the Phil Jackson era. 

With their $125-million man nursing a worrisome left knee, which will sideline him for a fourth consecutive game Wednesday, the Knicks have been not-so-subtly hinting that it may be time to shut Carmelo Anthony down for the season. 

Carmelo himself may take some convincing. 

"I'm all right," he said in a video posted on Bleacher Report on Tuesday. "I'm not shutting it down for the season yet. I'm just trying to take some time to get it right."

Anthony has also said he plans to suit up for the Knicks game against the Milwaukee Bucks at the O2 Arena in London on Jan. 15, according to the New York Post's Marc Berman. 

Despite the Knicks' historically bad start, Anthony's personal production hasn't suffered much and his numbers line up almost identically to his career averages. 

But he's also 30 years old, playing in the first year of the lavish five-year extension he signed this past offseason and incapable of doing anything for the Knicks this season but dampen their lottery odds. 

Anthony has said he'd prefer to delay any potential surgery until season's end, and that the knee condition won't get any worse by playing on it. But even if there's truth to that assertion, there doesn't seem to be anything to gain (save perhaps for Carmelo's pride) by taking the risk. 

"I know there's a lot of fans out there that's kind of upset or kind of down on the team, kind of down on the players right now, kind of down on the situation," he said. "But I will say that it (gets) greater later, just be patient with the team, with the organization, with the journey, with the plan, with what we're trying to create, what we're trying to accomplish.

"Greatness don't happen overnight, and that's something that we're trying to build here."

Needless to say, if the Knicks plan to achieve said greatness any time soon, they'll need Anthony to be healthy.