INGLEWOOD – One day after meeting with Jeff Van Gundy concerning his role, Latrell Sprewell made it clear yesterday that his style will remain the same.
He reiterated that he would prefer to start and made it clear he is not happy losing his starting job after suffering an injury that knocked him out of the lineup. Sprewell will go alongwith the current program, but he’s not thrilled with it and made it clear he wants to start.
“I think [Van Gundy] knows that,” Sprewell said before the Knicks took on the Lakers at the Forum last night.
Van Gundy wants Sprewell to slow down his game, but Sprewell has played the same way his entire career getting up the floor as quickly as possible. That’s the way it is done in the West and that is how Sprewell plays.
“He wants me to change a little bit but he’s not asking me to do too much [differently],” Sprewell said. “I just told him I always run, get up and down and I don’t think that part of my game will ever change. I’ve always played that way. It’s the only way I know how to play, so …
“I’m kind of a high-intensity player who likes the fast pace. I just don’t see that part of my game changing because I’ve always done it that way.”
With Patrick Ewing in the middle, the Knicks prefer the half-court game. Ewing has two more years left on his contract and Sprewell is a free agent after this season. Unless the two sides come together, something has to give. Either the Knicks become more of a running team, or Sprewell is traded before he leaves on his own.
Obviously, Sprewell doesn’t want to spend the rest of his career as a sixth man. Of course, there could be a change in team philosophy or a change in coaching.
“I think I will always run,” Sprewell said. “I don’t see myself being a guy that’s walking up and down the court, you know, on every possession. I like to get out and go and I have fun doing that”
Even though the East is a half-court conference, Sprewell said it depends on the team’s philosophy.
“I don’t know, it depends on the coaching, really,” he said. “Like George Karl, he’s kind of incorporating that with Milwaukee now. It just depends on the coach and his style and what he likes.”
Sprewell said the biggest change Van Gundy wants him to make is not to unleash the quick shot. He’s not alone; Van Gundy also doesn’t want Allan Houston flinging quick shots.
“For me, I just think the coach doesn’t want me to take the early quick shot,” Sprewell said. “That’s the biggest thing. Everything else I’m going to do the same. I just don’t see myself changing too much as far as the way I’m playing, other than that.”
Asked what he thinks about coming off the bench, Sprewell stated the obvious. “It’s not like I’m feeling happy about coming off the bench,” he said. “At this point, it doesn’t look like I will [start].”
Sprewell was in the starting lineup the first two games of the season and then suffered a stress fracture of the right heel. Losing his starting role that way, he said, upset him.
“Yeah, it is [disappointing],” he said of having an injury take him out of the starting lineup. “Up until that point, I was starting and it kind of gave them a reason to bring me off the bench. Now he’s continuing that. But that’s coach’s decision.”
When Sprewell first sat down with Knick brass before the trade was made, there were no conversations about being a sixth man. “We didn’t get into too much about starting or off the bench, roles, things like that,” he said.
Perhaps the Knicks should have talked about such an important item as they had their soul-searching meeting that Garden brass bragged so much about. Considering this role now, should Sprewell have raised a question?
“I wasn’t really thinking about that,” he said.
