Depth, not chemistry to be the issue with the Knicks

A lot of people have been asking whether or not Jeremy Lin can sustain his stellar performance or if it will be dampened by the return of the Knicks' two stars, Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, to the lineup, because, let's face it, they use up possessions, quite a few of them, and each possession used up is one less possession for Lin to excel. While this may not be great for Jeremy Lin fantasy owners, the fact of the matter is, that Lin's emergence is a boon not necessarily in spite of Melo and STAT but rather, because of them.

First off, I've already said at my other blog, Fundamentally Sound that to me, Jeremy Lin's game most reminds me of Tony Parker. Now in this situation, you may be better suited with a pass first type guard such as Rajon Rondo or Ricky Rubio, however, I believe that Lin, like Tony Parker, will surprise us all in his ability to man the point. While Lin may not be the pass-first, high percentage shooter that Steve Nash was, D'Antoni has to be excited that Lin can see the floor and recognize the options given him. Sure, he's turnover prone, he's trying to make the fancy passes, but I think, as he learns the angles given him, he'll settle down, and hopefully get his turnovers down to a reasonable rate.

Lin's ability to run the pick-and-roll, as well as just involve his teammates make him the ideal floor general for the team. Amar'e Stoudemire got a lot of attention from his physicality and overall game, but his success came mostly from the pick-and-roll game he had with Steve Nash. This season, it was a struggle to get Amar'e involved in the offense because of how it stagnated without someone to facilitate the ball movement around the floor on the offensive end. With Lin getting the likes of even an offensive dud like Jared Jeffries involved, we can see that an Lin-Amar'e pick-and-roll combination will only bring good things to the Knicks in the future. Simply put, Amar'e will start looking like the Amar'e we expected, because he can expect those passes and those looks that he wasn't getting before.

On the flip side, we have to wonder about Melo, sure the ball gets stuck in his hands a lot, but quite frankly sometimes you need a player like that. Regardless of what people say about Melo and whether he deserves his contract or not, the fact of the matter is that he can put the ball in the bucket. Melo is probably one of the best, if not the best, pure scorers in the league. I would argue that with Lin manning the point guard position, Melo can focus on doing what he does best, scoring, rather than trying to do something he's not comfortable doing, facilitating. While Melo may be the most popular and well-paid (though it's arguable now with all the Linsanity stuff), and he may ultimately be the face of the franchise (again, caveat with the Linsanity), he's not really the natural leader of the group. I believe that, at least on the floor, deference to Lin will be a good thing for him, because Lin will try to energize the rest of the guys (i.e. Imam Shumpert and Landry Fields) to get into it. Melo is one of those high efficiency scorers when he's on, remember, he averaged about 26 points per game playing NEXT to Allen Iverson, who averaged I think 23 (I'm too lazy to look it up), helping a relatively successful Nuggets make the playoffs. With Lin getting all the other role players involved, I think this situation is much better than that.

The main "chemistry" issue I sense is the possibility of discontentment from Baron Davis when (if) he gets back. However, I don't find that to be a major issue, because, provided he's healthy, figuring out how to split time between Jeremy Lin and a healthy and motivated Baron Davis is a luxurious problem I'm sure Mike D'Antoni wouldn't mind having. What does concern me though is the frontcourt rotation. While Stoudemire and Chandler look to eat up most of the time on the floor, I don't know that Novak and Jeffries necessarily are going to take them the distance. I like how they are getting involved, and Novak really to me has taken the sort of Matt Bonner of the Eastern Conference kind of role. That being said, I still think the Knicks need to figure out a way to add some size. I don't know who would be a good center for the Knicks, maybe it involves cutting Mike Bibby, maybe it involves trading Toney Douglas, I don't know, but I think that, way more so than any chemistry issues on the court with Melo, STAT, and Lin should be the primary concern of the Knicks.