New York Knicks Will Excel If Amar'e Stoudemire Becomes Sixth Man

He may have come to New York as a star, but the Knicks will play their best basketball if Amar'e Stoudemire plays as a sixth man with star power.

STAT has seldom played off the bench in the pros. Going way back to his rookie season in 2002-03, the 19-year-old Stoudemire came in as a sub 11 times, starting the remaining 72 games for the Phoenix Suns. Since then, he has been on the court at tip-off for all but four of his 559 appearances.

A couple of things were true for Amar'e as he made his name in the league. First, even in the days when Steve Nash led the Phoenix offense, he was the primary scoring option. Second, as the Suns and later the Knicks trotted out smallish lineups, he encountered little traffic in the post in getting to the rim.

Neither of those realities exist anymore.

Since the arrival of Carmelo Anthony, Stoudemire has not gotten the touches he is accustomed to on offense. You could argue STAT is option 1A to Melo's 1, but that's just a sanitized way of calling him New York's second banana.

Then factor in the introduction of Tyson Chandler last season, pairing Stoudemire with a true center for the first time in his career. With fewer field goal opportunities and less room to operate in the lane, Stoudemire posted his worst scoring numbers in a full season since his rookie year.

The Knicks might have been trying to build a Big Three a la the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat, but it is just not as effective or efficient to play Stoudemire alongside Anthony and Chandler. You can put aside his health issues and the schematic shift following Mike D'Antoni's resignation; even a healthy Amar'e wouldn't have fit with the guys around him. 

Now, that's a conjectural argument. According to 82games, the two units Stoudemire consistently played with also featured Anthony and Chandler, and the Knicks generally outscored their opponents when each of those lineups was on the floor.

So the numbers don't support that the Knicks should separate STAT from his All-Star teammates, but that has less to do with the Big Three and more to do with the rest of the team. When you take playing time away from Anthony and Chandler and give it to Bill Walker and Josh Harrelson, of course the team isn't going to play as well.

In that regard, the 2011-12 Knicks were right to play Stoudemire with Anthony and Chandler as much as possible; the alternative may have been attractive, but implementing it with the Knicks' dearth of depth would not have produced a winner.

This offseason, the Knicks have shored up the reserves, giving them much more flexibility with their lineup.

With Marcus Camby and Kurt Thomas, they have two post upgrades over the departed Harrelson, and Steve Novak can shift from playing power forward to his natural position as a wing. When they were paired together last season, Stoudemire was always the center with Novak playing power forward.

Now that the Knicks can still put Novak on the floor to spread the defense while keeping the interior defense staunch with Camby or Thomas, they will be able to feature Stoudemire offensively without a major dip in production at either end of the court.

If Mike Woodson did deploy Stoudemire off the bench to feature him as a scorer, it would mark the Knicks' rejection of Miami's Big Three philosophy in favor of Oklahoma City's, with STAT a 6'10" version of James Harden.

Of course, it's not as though Harden only plays the few minutes when Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are off the floor. Stoudemire would still get his usual playing time, but Woodson would be able to limit his minutes with both Anthony and Chandler.

So long as only one of the other two stars is on the court, Stoudemire can still be effective. It's a more natural pairing with Chandler; Amar'e can step into Melo's role in the midrange game, and the offense doesn't miss a beat.

With Anthony, Stoudemire could move into the now-open paint and exhibit the post skills he recently learned from Hakeem Olajuwon. One plays outside, the other plays inside, and the opposing defense picks its poison.

A note on STAT's recent tutorial: It's reasonable to expect him to be better-equipped to post up, but unreasonable to expect him to be well-equipped to post up.

If he were an adept post scorer, he could certainly find a niche with Anthony and Chandler. As Stoudemire learns this very technical aspect of the game, the process will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. Two weeks with the master are a good start, but it will take years before he is ready to call the post his comfort zone.

This new dimension of Stoudemire's game will certainly make the Knicks' stars more effective when they're all on the court.

If Stoudemire starts on the bench, however, then Anthony can have free reign on offense while Chandler and, say, Camby disrupt the opposition in the paint. Amar'e could then spell either of his fellow All-Stars as the situation entails; making him a sixth man won't be about limiting his minutes, but of maximizing their impact.

Oklahoma City rode this type of system all the way to the NBA Finals last year. If New York wants to make a run of its own, it will have to get the most out of its best players, even if it means a perennial starter watching the opening tip from the sidelines.