Amar'e Stoudemire Key to New York Knicks Success
A funny thing happened with the New York Knicks this past 365 days. Lost amongst all the "Linsanity", and all the uproar and vitriol that surrounds Carmelo Anthony, is Amar'e Stoudemire.
The longest tenured Knickerbocker has become an afterthought. Both his success and shortcomings with the Knicks seem to have been forgotten. This is funny because his level of play this season will have an enormous impact on the fate of the team.
We pretty much know what to expect from the rest of the Knicks. Raymond Felton is not going to show up out of shape, and will, in all likelihood, bounce back from his putrid season in Portland and return to being a very solid NBA point guard.
Tyson Chandler will be a defensive anchor, rebounding machine and also somewhat of a liability on offense.
J.R. Smith will be an erratic spark plug off the bench.
Jason Kidd will be a nice steadying presence who makes sound decisions running the offense, but will rarely leave his fingerprints on a game.
Carmelo Anthony is of course the most talented, important and, with Lin is gone, visible Knick. He will never be a LeBron or a Durant, but after all the criticism he has received in his time in New York, one has to believe Melo will be determined to prove he can be more than just an elite scorer. With a nice little Olympic tuneup, I think Carmelo is due for a career year.
And then there is Amar'e. The guy who not even two years ago was being showered with MVP chants and is now rarely mentioned. The guy who played easily the worst basketball of his career last year, yet shouldered barely any of the blame from the fans for the Knicks' struggles.
He is the X factor. If he can return (or get close) to his 2010 form, the sky is the limit for the Knicks. If not, things could get very ugly.
When Amar'e was playing his best basketball as a Knick, he was of course a pick and roll threat, as well as a deadly mid-range shooter who could take his defender off the dribble in isolation.
He lost almost all of this last year.
He never fully recovered from his back injury, and did not have the quickness that made him effective in isolation and pick and rolls. The muscle he put on rehabbing his back completely threw off his shot. It was an ugly sight.
Recently, ESPN's Jared Zwerling detailed the intense workouts Amar'e is putting himself through this summer to try and get back to his old self. He has lost about 15 pounds, is continuing to strengthen his back and is trying to gain lateral quickness.
Also, it has been widely reported that Stoudemire will be working with Hakeem Olajuwon in the near future to add some post moves to his game. Despite playing power forward, Amar'e has never been known as a back to the basket player.
If he can't regain his explosiveness, adding a post game would be wise. It would also be very beneficial to what is sure to be a methodical Mike Woodson offense. The Knicks could really have something with Melo on the wing, Chandler in pick and roll and Stoudemire on the post.
If everything goes right and Amar'e becomes an all-star caliber player again, the Knicks will be a very dangerous team. They've added some nice depth with Ronnie Brewer, Marcus Camby and eventually Iman Shumpert. Steve Novak is still around, and the Argentinean point guard Pablo Prigioni looked very solid against team USA.
Derrick Rose is out, and the Celtics are known to coast through the regular season, so the number 2 seed in the East is not out of the question for the Knicks.
But if Amar'e continues to decline... then things could turn ugly in Gotham very quickly.
