Carmelo Anthony: New York Knicks Post-Trade Player Review

Ten games should be a big enough sample to accurately gauge Carmelo Anthony’s progress with the New York Knicks.

I like to think of it as a 10-day contract for Melo, and use it to judge whether he’s been worth the investment thus far.

Who am I kidding? Of course he has.

Anthony’s 2010-11 statistical data, courtesy of basketball-reference.com:

Nuggets (50 games): 25.2 PPG; 7.6 RPG; 3.7 AST; 0.6 BLK; 8.7 FGM; 19.9 FGA; .452 FG%; .333 3P%; .823 FT%

Knicks (10 games): 25.6 PPG; 6.5 RPG; 2.8 AST; 0.3 BLK; 9.0 FGM; 20.0 FGA; .450 FG%; .424 3P%; .838 FT%

The only (somewhat) glaring negative is 1.1 less rebounds per game in New York, but that has more to do with Anthony playing alongside a healthy corps of Knicks big men rather than a front line as depleted as Denver's was at the start of the season.

Anthony’s shooting percentage and shots per game are almost identical to his Denver numbers.

With the Knicks, Anthony is actually putting up almost one more three-pointer per game, but there's a also slight dip in the frequency with which he's getting to the free-throw line. Anthony's tendency to shoot more jumpers could explain his more scarce charity-stripe appearances.

It would seem that Anthony’s scoring should have increased for a player of his type, but it also seems that, unlike with Denver, in New York Anthony will be splitting shot opportunities with his teammates.

Especially Amar’e Stoudemire.

This simply means that Anthony will be more or less the same player he was in Denver, unless Stoudemire goes down with an injury and he's forced to take on a larger role.

Overall, I expected Carmelo Anthony to be much more of a scorer in D’Antoni’s up-tempo offense.

Next up: an evaluation of Amar’e Stoudemire.

For continuing coverage of the New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets, follow Artem Altman via Twitter.com/ArtemAltman.

Written for SportsHaze.com. For the original article, click here.