Why Jeremy Lin and Carmelo Anthony Can't Coexist

There is much fear among New York Knicks fans about the eventual return of superstars Amar'e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony when it relates to possibly screwing up the success the Knicks have had under new point guard sensation Jeremy Lin.

I can ease your fear about Stoudemire's return to the Knicks lineup tonight.

You should see him begin to flourish in a similar fashion to that of when he was in Mike D'Antoni's offense in Phoenix. Stoudemire is excellent and just needs a really good pick-and-roll guard. Lin is that, and I expect the two to excel together within time. In fact, I'm more concerned about Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler not running into each other on the court than I am about Lin and Stoudemire coexisting on the floor.

I can't say the same thing for Anthony, though.

I would like to think that Anthony will be fine with the floor spaced and Lin getting him the ball, but I just don't know until I see it. The main fear is Anthony's isolation game, but that still needs to be a part of the Knicks offense—especially late in games, where no one has had more success than Anthony closing games. He's that assassin that can take over the fourth quarter, and the Knicks need that.

They just need him to do it in the concept of the offense, though.

Anthony can still be the go-to guy and be an isolation player without holding the ball for 20 seconds. If that ends up happening, then Lin and Anthony won't coexist.

That's the biggest fear among Knicks fans about Anthony's eventual return.

Anthony needs to remain as big of a part of the Knicks offense as he was before, but the ball still has to move and other people need to remain involved and get their shots. If he's intent on taking 30 shots per game, that defeats the purpose of moving the ball and spreading the floor.

Lin's shot attempts will likely go down, so Anthony will get his no problem, but Anthony must make a point to not slow down the ball movement. The Knicks can't sacrifice the pick-and-roll just to make Melo happy, and it probably won't come to that.

You would figure that with Anthony sitting out and watching the success of Lin and the team, he would see that he needs to just slide back into the lineup and get along within the system. Maybe sitting and watching was an eye-opener. But old habits die hard, and until we see Anthony able to get along with Lin in the Knicks offense, we can assume just as much that he won't.

The need to be the No. 1 option. The habit of holding the ball and forcing bad shots. All of that could lead to the Knicks offense imploding when Anthony returns.

But if Anthony shows he's willing to get along and play within the flow of the offense, then he could flourish with Lin.

Teams are going to have to pick their poison with the Knicks attack, and someone is going to have a big night every game. It might not be Anthony every night, but there's now enough talent out there to beat you. That's a big if, though, and it all really lies on Anthony's shoulders to see how it's going to go. We just don't know until we see how Anthony acts on the floor.

If Anthony slows this Knicks attack down and gets greedy, then the Knicks could still be in a world of trouble.

It's all up to Melo to coexist. We will just have to wait and see if he does.