Linball

Although I think 'Melo is extremely overrated and hardly a true superstar (because he doesn't make his teammates better), apparently he's the one who prodded D'Antoni to play Lin telling him that Lin can play, so I give him credit for that.

 

I don't think he wants to wait for the 2012-13 season, though.

 

I was thinking he'd have to wait until game four against the Thunder ;D

 

Tebow was insanely popular before he was even drafted.

 

If he did that, you ought to give him a HELL of a lot of credit for that.

 

Melo won an NCAA title and started on Olympic basketball teams. I am going to give his basketball IQ some points and think the Knicks will be better when he returns.

I don't think he would have any problem with Lin setting him up.

 

Yeah I noted the legendary halftime conversation of Feb. 4 on previous page. I'm opening up to the idea too.

However, as I read somewhere yesterday (can't remember where), this is basically the scenario the Knicks had last year -- they were playing pretty-well in D'Antoni's up-tempo ball-movement offense, then Melo joined them, then they sucked as basketball became a spectator sport for the other four people on the floor.

 

That's not what I saw. The Knicks were a team in transition basically the entire season and didn't have an effective point guard until they got Billups for the final 20 games or so.

 

I didn't watch so I will take your word for it, but it looks like they had a stretch in December where they won 13 of 14 in 2010-11. Overall they were 28-26 before Melo arrived and 14-14 afterward, so not much difference, but they started scoring a lot less when he got there.

 

Part of that was they included their starting point guard, Raymond Felton in the deal.

Felton was averaging 9 assists per game before he got shipped off. Billups came over in the trade and averaged 5 assists per game.

Billups looked old and slow (and I think he had a hamstring issue that hampered him, IIRC) and that, as much as Anthony's propensity to hold the ball too long, contributed to the stagnation of the offense.

With Lin being a legitimate offensive threat that teams will have to plan for, it's going to open up a lot of opportunities for Anthony and Stoudemire to get easy baskets.

So far, Anthony is saying all the right things as far as admitting on WFAN yesterday that he'll have to adjust his game. He said he was looking forward to playing his natural position and not having to be a point guard.

We'll see how it shakes out on the floor, but I think he knows if he comes back and hogs the ball and they start losing, HE'S the one who will take the blame, not the kid from Harvard.

 

Great stuff here, folks:

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/02/post_341.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

Does anyone think this run could be Kevin Maas-like?

Lin is a great story and I hope it continues... I really hope he becomes a superstar and not some flash in the pan...