The Knicks are good. Top of the Eastern Conference, best offense in the land, getting fantastic play from Carmelo Anthony, steady point guard play from Raymond Felton and Jason Kidd, solid defense thanks to Tyson Chandler.
And now they have to work in Amare Stoudemire. And everyone is a little usure what happens next.
Stoudemire is working out and could be back as soon as next week, maybe the Christmas Day nationally televised game against the Lakers (which is also likely when Steve Nash makes his return to the Lakers).
Nobody knows how this is going to go, but if you believe the Knicks think this could work you should read these couple paragraphs from Howard Beck at the New York Times.This past summer, the Knicks offered Stoudemire to nearly every team in the league — “available for free,” as one rival executive put it. But they found no takers because of his diminished production, his health and his contract, which has three years and $65 million remaining (counting this season) and which is uninsured against a career-ending knee injury.
In February, the Knicks wanted to send Stoudemire to Toronto in a deal for Andrea Bargnani, a person briefed on the discussion said. But the proposal was vetoed by James L. Dolan, the Garden chairman, before it ever reached the Raptors (who would not have made the deal anyway, team officials there said). Before that, the Knicks tried to package Stoudemire and Chandler in a bid to land Dwight Howard.
From the day Mike Woodson took over as Knicks coach it was clear what direction he was taking the team — this is Carmelo’s team. He is the sun, everyone else is a planet in his orbit. To Anthony’s credit, he has stepped up his game to fill that role — he is more efficient on offense, he is getting his buckets in the flow of the offense (most of the time), he is defending, he is being a real leader, he is looking like an MVP player.
Stoudemire is the guy whose orbit could be hard to fit into the solar system — his skills are redundant with Anthony at the four, and if Anthony defers to him and plays more as a three way away from the basket he goes away from what has worked in New York this season. The Knicks front office knew it, they tried to solve the problem by trading Stoudemire, but with that failing Woodson will bring Stoudemire off the bench and try to make it work somehow. We could end up with a situation where Stoudemire and Anthony are rarely on the court together.
But if they can find a way to make it work — if Stoudemire, Anthony and Tyson Chandler can all be on the floor together and the Knicks keep their offensive spacing and make good on the threat of all that talent — then the Heat should be worried. At the quarter mark of the NBA season Miami and New York are the clear best teams in the East, but if Woodson can get this to work this could be the Knicks year.
But based on their actions this summer, doesn’t sound like the Knicks are at all confident that can happen. And as they can’t trade him.
It’s going to get interesting in New York.
