Snubbed Carmelo Face Star-Studded Mavericks

As the news became official Thursday that no one from the Denver Nuggets were selected for the Feb. 19 NBA All-Star Game in Houston, Carmelo Anthony reacted by doing what he has done every off day for the past week. He went to the gym for extra shooting practice.

On a Western Conference team packed with established forwards such as Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Tracy McGrady and Shawn Marion, some pretty good players were bound to be left off. One was Anthony, whose scoring surge the past two months was not enough to move him past Memphis' Pau Gasol and the Los Angeles Clippers' Elton Brand, whose teams are having better seasons.

Anthony, a third-year forward, is seventh in the NBA in scoring (25.8 points). He reasoned there was not much more he could have done.

"Of course it was a disappointment at first, having that as one of my goals at the beginning of the season, but at the end of the day you and everybody else knows how the West was," he said. "I ain't mad or nothing. I feel marvelous, actually."

Despite the news, Anthony could have a significant silver lining in the near future.

A source close to USA Basketball said Thursday there is "considerable support" for Anthony's placement on the 2006 World Championship team. When told of the news, Anthony said, "I want to go. I feel like not just me, but people who were there last (time) have something to prove."

The Pistons' Chauncey Billups, who was selected to his first all-star team, said Anthony should have made the team.

"He's one of the young guys that has carried the league this year. He's very deserving," Billups said. "He's an all-star, and when you play him you give him all-star respect. ... I sympathize for him because I know how he feels and what he is going through. He has to continue to work and use this as motivation."

And expect Carmelo Anthony to do just that come game time when the Denver Nuggets face the best basketball team in the NBA as of this writing, the Dallas Mavericks. If Carmelo can lead the Nuggets to victory, he will certainly prove that he belongs to the upper echelons of the NBA.

Knicks Travel to the Hornets' New Hive

If the New York Knicks have mastered anything in this abysmal season, it has been their two separate and distinct ways of losing.

In the first version, illustrated in two recent home games, against the Los Angeles Clippers and the Houston Rockets, the Knicks have shown signs of life and even a smattering of potential before falling short at the end of the game.

In the second version (see Wednesday night's scorching by the Nets and more of the same last week in Toronto), the team's effort has been barely visible.

By the end of those two games, few of the Knicks looked like they deserved to be gainfully employed in professional basketball. Or that they even wanted to be.

It is a vexing situation for Coach Larry Brown, although it is not exactly leaving him speechless.

He said on Thursday that in his long coaching career, which spans three decades in the professional and college ranks, he had never encountered anything comparable to the lack of effort his current team was prone to display. Moreover, Brown said he was not sure what the solution is, or if there is one.

''We're all getting paid a lot of money,'' he said. ''We've got the greatest job in the world.''

Thus, he added, ''you would assume'' that the Knicks would play hard every night, which they do not. ''I thought that was something I thought I'd never have to deal with,'' he said.

Brown said he and Isiah Thomas, the team president, talked frequently about what the team needed.

''My wish list is Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Rasheed Wallace, Tim Duncan,'' he said, smiling. ''But realistically, it's not going to happen. My job is to make these guys better.''

Come game time, the New York Knicks will certainly NEED to play better. The New Orleans Hornets is certainly a team they're suppose to beat but if the Knicks are not careful, Chris Paul can certainly snatch this one away from Larry Brown.

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