Can the Knicks coexist?

The newest sensation to take ESPN by storm and temporarily displace Tebow as the polarizing figure in sports is Jeremy Lin.  The out-of-nowhere Harvard grad has rejuvenated the down-trodden New York Knicks from lottery bound into possible playoff contender.  While he does deserve all the hype, and I do believe he is at least a solid player (think Devin Harris) and at most a more athletic Steve Nash clone (a little bit of a reach, but a possibility), however there is something that has yet to be discussed: that is the fact that Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony have yet to play with Lin

I’ve never believed that Melo or Amare were players that could lead a team to a title.  Once they signed together in New York I thought that the right point guard might be able to utilize their talents to make them less black hole-like with the basketball.  That right point guard is not named Jeremy Linn. 

Usage Rate is a statistic that calculates the average number of possessions that a player uses per 40 minutes of game time.  The highest usage rate this season is Kobe Bryant with just over 34.  Melo and Amare each use a high number of possessions and it hasn’t been an issue with the stripped-down Knicks as there haven’t been many other options to use the basketball.  Anthony has a usage rate of 30.0 and Stoudemire has a 24.1.  Now this is similar to the combination of Dwayne Wade and LeBron James who each teeter around 30, but no one can make the argument that Melo/Stoudemire can compete with Wade/LeBron. 

Now with the two Knicks out of the lineup, Jeremy Lin has brought his usage rate up to a 30.4.  You also have to consider that he played a few games before his breakout where his usage was miniscule.  So to put this into perspective, the combination of Melo/Amare/Jeremy combines for a usage rate of 84.5 possessions per 40 minutes.  When you toss in Tyson Chandler’s usage rate of 11.4 it equals out to 95.9 possessions used up per 40 minutes.  The NBA average for possessions in a GAME is 93.8 this season.  So these four players use up more possessions in 40 minutes than the average NBA team has in a game.  That can’t be good, right?

Now let’s look at shot attempts.  Carmelo averages 18.8 shots and Amare has been shooting it 15.6 times a game.  Jeremy Lin’s average for the season is only 8.9, but without Amare and Melo in the lineup he has been firing it 19.5 times a game.  Of course Lin will have the weapons of Stoudemire and Anthony to distribute the ball to, but what most people haven’t mentioned is Jeremy Lin is not a distributor.  He has been a scoring point guard through high school and college, as well as into the D-League and now the NBA.  He needs to take shots to really be effective.  So between the three of these players, they take about 54 shots a game.  The NBA average is a little less than 80, leaving about 25 field goal attempts for the rest of the team.

What also needs to be looked at is the true shooting percentage of each player.  True Shooting Percentage takes into account free throws and 3 pointers and is a more accurate representation of how a player shoots the ball just as on base percentage in baseball more precisely represents a player’s effectiveness at the plate than his batting average.  Carmelo has a true shooting percentage of 0.506 and Amare has a 0.507.  Jeremy Lin has a true shooting percentage of 0.577, which is near the top of the league for guards.  So when Jeremy Lin is shooting the ball, he scores over 7% more frequently than either Stoudemire or Anthony.  Tyson Chandler on the other hand, has a true shooting percentage of 0.738, near the top of the league.  So this brings up the question of who should actually be shooting the rock for the Knicks?

What has made the Knicks so effective the past seven games has been Lin’s ability to create off of the pick and roll.  Just as Tyson Chandler showed last season in helping the Mavericks win the NBA Championship, he is a phenomenal pick and roll player.  Lin has been able to get an open jumper, take it all the way to the rack, or set up Chandler for an oop or layup.  Neither Carmelo nor Stoudemire play much pick and roll.  Carmelo has never set a pick in his life (maybe an exaggeration, but honestly, can you picture one time that he has?).  Amare used to roll off picks when he was younger, but now prefers the pick and pop, something less effective with a point guard of Lin’s abilities.  So neither Melo nor Amare are involved in their most efficient play.

The last area of concern for the Knicks is the high amount of turnovers they have.  Turnover Rate is the percentage of a player’s possessions that end in a turnover.  A good percentage is 7.9 (Chris Paul) and the average is around 10.  Stoudemire has a turnover rate of 12.5, Carmelo has a 10.3 rate and Tyson Chandler has a 14.0.  Jeremy Lin has one of the highest in the league for someone with as high of a usage rate, as he is sitting at 14.9.  When using the usage rates of the players to figure out the average turnovers each player ends up with, you come to a total of just over 15 turnovers, per 40 minutes, for these four players (above the league average of 14 per game).  Yes Lin is basically a rookie and this could change once he’s not the focus, but this is also using the pre-starting numbers, so it is portraying an accurate picture of how much Lin turns the ball over.

Now I know that the sample sizes are not that big for this season, and that each player could change the way he plays when the others are on the floor, but do you really think they will?  Will Carmelo defer to the young Lin in crunch time when their most effective possessions are pick and rolls not involving him?  Will Jeremy be able to handle the sudden influx of ego that will be on the floor with him after the team gel as if it were a college team making a run through the tournament?  I think this will end badly.  I’m not proclaiming that the Mavericks trounce the Knicks Saturday at MSG or that they miss the playoffs, but there’s just no way this team can really contend with the pieces in place.  There are just not enough shots and possessions to give Stoudemire and Anthony what they want, while still using the most effective possessions they have involving Lin and Chandler. And I didn’t mention the lack of defense out of every guy that didn’t win a title last year.