Stoudemire will benefit from Jeremy Lin's emergence—but what about Melo?

There are any number of ways you can determine just how difficult this season has been, on the court, for Knicks power forward Amare Stoudemire. He is shooting 44.7 percent and averaging 18.2 points, his worst numbers in a healthy season since his rookie year. He is getting to the foul line, a staple of his game, an average of just 5.0 times, another career-low (with the exception of the 2005-06 season in which he played just three games). He hasn’t been completely healthy, of course, and Stoudemire has taken his share of criticism for the drop-off, but take a closer look and it is obvious that it’s not all Stoudemire’s fault.

It’s his point guards. Playing with Iman Shumpert and Toney Douglas, two guys better-suited to the off-guard spot, Stoudemire hasn’t developed a feel for the play that has been the bread-and-butter of his career, the pick-and-roll. Back in Phoenix, of course, Stoudemire and Steve Nash were masters of the play, and coach Mike D’Antoni used to call for it so much that players would complain about needing to diversify. That didn’t change when Alvin Gentry took over—he has actually called the play more.

In Stoudemire’s last year in Phoenix, according to data from Synergy Sports, 310 Suns possessions involving Stoudemire were pick-and-rolls, accounting for 17.7 percent of his plays. He scored 365 points on those plays—almost one-fifth of his total scoring. Last season, his first in New York, those numbers dropped, but Stoudemire still scored 223 points (11.3 percent of his scoring) on pick-and rolls. Even with the change from Ray Felton to Chauncey Billups and the addition of Carmelo Anthony, Stoudemire’s pick-and-rolls were a significant play in the Knicks offense.

That’s all changed. This year, Stoudemire has 29 pick-and-roll points on 28 possessions. That’s 6.2 percent of his possessions and 7.2 percent of his scoring. No question, the problem has been Shumpert and Douglas. The Knicks scored just 43 points on 92 possessions in which Shumpert ran pick-and-rolls, and scored just 21.7 percent of the time on the play. For Douglas, it was 54 points and 86 possessions, scoring 27.9 percent of the time.

It’s a small sample size, of course, but already, the Knicks have scored 78 points on 84 possessions with new point guard Jeremy Lin running pick-and-rolls, and New York has scored on 45.2 percent of those plays—and that’s mostly without Stoudemire.

That’s why, when asked about the emergence of Lin and whether he can sustain his high level of play, one Eastern Conference scout immediately brings up Stoudemire. “Amare is going to love playing with him,” the scout said. “They just have not had the kind of guy who can run the pick-and-roll all year, and it has been like the Knicks have this great weapon that has been in storage. Lin can get into the lane and he is a very able passer once he is in there. Once they develop some chemistry, they have the potential to be a really tough, tough pair in the pick-and-roll.”

That’s the happy side of the Knicks getting their stars back now that Lin has morphed into an instant icon. Figuring out how to incorporate small forward Carmelo Anthony into the mix will be more difficult, because Anthony is a scorer who works best with the ball in his hands—the offense becomes a matter of giving the ball to Anthony and clearing out of the way.


“That’s a problem,” another East scout told Sporting News. “They can play a little more up-tempo with Jeremy at the point and if they can’t get anything quick, they go pick-and-roll. They can push it and you think back to the Suns, they can line up 3-point shooters, get you before the defense sets, do all of those kinds of things. But not if you want to get Melo his 20 shots. You have to slow it down for him, get him in his spots with a mismatch and iso(late). It’s like running two different offenses.”

Ideally, Anthony would adapt his game to what Lin can bring to the offense. But that would involve Anthony being more of a spot-up shooter, and that is not his strength. Anthony is the Knicks’ highest paid player, and one of the best scorers in the league—it doesn’t make much sense to turn him into something he’s not.

Anthony told reporters he'll have no problem meshing with Lin. "When I get back Jeremy will have the ball in his hands and I'm playing off of that," Anthony said Monday.

Still, D’Antoni has a bit of work to do. He would probably like to unleash Stoudemire in the pick-and-roll with Lin, but he has to do it in such a way that he is still taking advantage of Anthony’s skills. That’s not easy. But considering what D’Antoni was dealing with when he had Shumpert and Douglas as his point guards—and considering his team is on a five-game winning streak—it’s not a bad problem to have.