Today is Christmas, and that means a few interesting games are one today if you need something to distract you from family. With no games last night, though, there’s nothing to talk about in the recap today, so, as a gift to myself, I’m going to chat briefly about the Knickerbockers of New York. The Knicks current depth chart has Carmelo Anthony at Power Forward and Ronnie Brewer starting at Small Forward. When Amar’e Stoudemire comes back, coach Mike Woodson would be a certifiable loon to not move Melo to Small Forward, bump Brewer to the bench and let STAT play PF where he belongs. There have been rumblings over the past year about whether Melo and Stoudemire can be on the same line, with some talk that Amar’e should sit to start the game. That is crap, and I doubt the Knicks will do that. That’s not to say as the game goes on that Stoudemire won’t end up on the bench when Anthony is on the floor, but Stoudemire will get starter’s minutes.
This means you are looking at the Knicks starting with Tyson Chandler, Anthony, Stoudemire, Raymond Felton, and Jason Kidd, with J.R. Smith as the best player available off the bench and likely to continue to see plenty of time so Kidd rests. That dynamic shouldn’t change too much once rap legend Iman Shumpert returns, playing at either guard position most likely. Shump may see reduced minutes both as we works his way back and also because Woodson likes what Pablo Prigioni brings to the team, so Pablo should continue to get about 15 minutes per game, but that’s a concern for February.
As far as Stoudemire, here were my projections for the big guy: .522 fg/.784 ft/0.0 3pt/22.5 pts/8.3 rbd/1.8 ast/0.8 stl/1.2 blk/2.9 tov
