Metta World Peace is ready to come home, and in him the New York Knicks may have the missing piece in getting to the NBA Finals.
This year the Knicks were seen as the best chance in the Eastern Conference to knock off the Miami Heat, a squad built around Carmelo Anthony and his prolific scoring. But the Knicks faltered in the playoffs, getting knocked off by a rugged and better-than-advertised Indiana Pacers squad.
The Knicks didn’t have a lot of cap space to work with this offseason, but in Metta World Peace the team has found a great bang for the buck. The Los Angeles Lakers are picking up most of his contract after cutting World Peace loose last week, so the Knicks get one of the toughest players in the league at a big discount.
Metta will fill a big void on the Knicks, a shutdown defender who can spark the team in an increasingly competitive division. The Brooklyn Nets just picked up Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Jason Terry, giving them a slew of offensive weapons.
The Knicks had already picked up Andrea Bargnani, and the team now has good depth with J.R. Smith, Amar’e Stoudemire, and World Peace playing alongside Anthony.
World Peace has already praised the strong team the Knicks have assembled .
“The team is amazing.I’m excited to play and hustle. I’m excited to hustle for (Raymond) Felton, for Iman (Shumpert), for Tyson (Chandler), Melo (Anthony), (Amar’e) Stoudemire, coach (Mike Woodson). That’s all it’s about right now. It has nothing to do with New York the city,” he said.
The only concern could be Metta World Peace’s spotty history. The player formerly known as Ron Artest has had disciplinary problems at nearly every step, but said those days are now behind him.
“As a young kid, growing up in the Queensbridge projects, whether you’re from Brooklyn or Fort Rock, and you get into a world where you go from having nothing to making a million dollars a year and so many people telling you ‘You’re the best, you’re this, you’re that,’ and you believe that, and you get in trouble,” he said. “And that’s what happens to a young kid when you’re raised in a dysfunctional environment, a dysfunctional neighborhood. And then it takes 10 years for you to realize that you grew up in dysfunction and you’re going to continue to make mistakes if you don’t change. Not change, improve. You never want to change, you just want to improve.”
Metta World Peace now has the chance to help the Knicks improve, and challenge for the Eastern Conference crown.