J.R. Smith predicts New York Knicks will win the championship next season - optimistic at best ....
First there were players moving to new teams openly declaring that the point guard in their team was the best in the league. Jason Terry did it, calling Rajon Rondo the best point guard when he was acquired by the Boston Celtics
in free agency. C.J. Watson did it when he moved to the Brooklyn Nets, calling Deron Williams the best point guard in the league even though he had just come off playing two seasons with Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls.
And now, we see a new trend developing in the NBA - the trend of making predictions for next year’s championship winners.
Jason Terry was once again the person to start the trend, when he said that the Boston Celtics were going to win the NBA championship next season. And now, New York Knicks back up guard J.R. Smith has said that he guarantees that
the Knicks will win the NBA championship next season.
"If we settle for anything less, we already start off losing,” he said to the New York Post recently.
While the claim by Smith shows his confidence in the Knicks team, it is a huge risk to make a bold statement like that in public because it might just come back and haunt you, leading to a rather embarrassing situation.
As far as winning the championship is concerned, the Knicks will have to prove a lot of people wrong if they want to do it next season.
They do have a talented roster indeed, with Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler handling the front court. The Knicks parted ways with break out point guard Jeremy Lin in free agency this year, but signed Raymond
Felton to take his place. Also, the Knicks added veteran point guard Jason Kidd to the roster as well in the summer.
Hence, the Knicks have a talented roster at their disposal, one that is very much capable of winning an NBA championship. However, as the past few seasons have shown, the Knicks stars have been unable to deliver to their potential
and have not played well together. Many question the chemistry of the Knicks roster, while others feel that they have an unbalanced team with players who do not complement each other.
Whatever it is, Smith might have to face an embarrassing situation at the end of the next season because as of now, the Knicks are not in championship conversation.
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