Nalod wrote:Amare signed up for max money and gets to put the team on his back. Where does Amare get any responsability for this?
Hindsight is great but thats the deal. duncan did not grab the money, he staid put took a pay cut and had a deal to limit his minutes. He is 37. Amare was how old when he signed his deal? Under 30.

MVP max money guys don't sign and limit Minutes. BTW, some guys like duncan go with strong fundamentals and it prolongs the career than straight up athletic freakyness!

Melo is a big strong kid with great footwork and I expect him to be durable and keep a high level for 4 more years.

But............Wouldn't hurt for him to scale it back.

Bad knees don't know age...Scared for Melo too, although his game is not about being athletic..

dk7th wrote:

fishmike wrote:

mreinman wrote:

dk7th wrote:

fishmike wrote:DK... its not the average minutes. Its the number of games MDA played Amare 40 minutes. Thats what hurts. Its wasnt the average #, its the spikes. Dude has bad knees and MDA was running him out for 40 minutes a night in an uptemp offense time after time. Sure... throw in some 30 minute games and his average looks OK. Look at his game logs.

okay i did and it looks like he had 13 games of 40 minutes or more over 55 games, and during the streak where he wore himself out he had a 4 game stretch of 40+ minute games. that's one game in 4 that he goes over 40 minutes, and if you take out the four game stretch during his foolish streak it comes out to more like one game in five.

to be clear i did not like the streak for the very reason that he was going to burn himself out and to what end? i don't put that on d'antoni-- i'll bet you dollars to doughnuts amare insisted on playing as much as he did and decided to go one on three the majority of the time. is that so laudable really? especially when he managed to basically go it alone instead of developing chemistry slowly and deliberately?

i don't think d'antoni was interested in "riding him like secretariat," so to d'antoni's discredit he didn't limit amare's minutes more. popovich or rivers would have because amare was not playing the right way. playing hard yes but playing smart absolutely not.

Good post.

If his usage to assist rate was better than 4:1 that would have helped.

Maybe the worst and most unwilling passer in knicks history.

You have that usage stat wrong. Usage measures how much the ball is in a player's hands no?

Season	Age	Tm	Lg	Pos	G	MP	PER	TS%	eFG%	FTr	3PAr	ORB%	DRB%	TRB%	AST%	STL%	BLK%	TOV%	USG%	ORtg	DRtg	OWS	DWS	WS	WS/48
2010-11 28	NYK	NBA	C	78	2870	22.7	.565	.505	.403	.016	7.8	17.6	12.7	13.2	1.2	3.8	12.5	30.9	109	108	5.4	2.6	8.0	.134

i bolded three things: his TS% is pretty good for a guy who does not take threes. the ratio of usage-- 30.9-- to assist rate which is 13.2 is 2.34:1 which is too high unless all you are is a finisher. during that first half of the season stoudemire was not merely a finisher-- he got the ball a majority of the time on the elbows and tried to make something happen from there, freezing out teammates in the process. he got his, the knicks got some wins, but again i ask "to what end?"

also, if we were to look specifically at his "beasting" and "putting the team on his back" part of the season i will guarantee you that the usage was far higher and the assist rate far lower. i don't have to look up the stats since i know what i saw but if you need the stats to illuminate what i am asserting i suppose i could.

You are just talking about that one year (which was much better than his career avg)

mreinman wrote:

dk7th wrote:

fishmike wrote:

mreinman wrote:

dk7th wrote:

fishmike wrote:DK... its not the average minutes. Its the number of games MDA played Amare 40 minutes. Thats what hurts. Its wasnt the average #, its the spikes. Dude has bad knees and MDA was running him out for 40 minutes a night in an uptemp offense time after time. Sure... throw in some 30 minute games and his average looks OK. Look at his game logs.

okay i did and it looks like he had 13 games of 40 minutes or more over 55 games, and during the streak where he wore himself out he had a 4 game stretch of 40+ minute games. that's one game in 4 that he goes over 40 minutes, and if you take out the four game stretch during his foolish streak it comes out to more like one game in five.

to be clear i did not like the streak for the very reason that he was going to burn himself out and to what end? i don't put that on d'antoni-- i'll bet you dollars to doughnuts amare insisted on playing as much as he did and decided to go one on three the majority of the time. is that so laudable really? especially when he managed to basically go it alone instead of developing chemistry slowly and deliberately?

i don't think d'antoni was interested in "riding him like secretariat," so to d'antoni's discredit he didn't limit amare's minutes more. popovich or rivers would have because amare was not playing the right way. playing hard yes but playing smart absolutely not.

Good post.

If his usage to assist rate was better than 4:1 that would have helped.

Maybe the worst and most unwilling passer in knicks history.

You have that usage stat wrong. Usage measures how much the ball is in a player's hands no?

Season	Age	Tm	Lg	Pos	G	MP	PER	TS%	eFG%	FTr	3PAr	ORB%	DRB%	TRB%	AST%	STL%	BLK%	TOV%	USG%	ORtg	DRtg	OWS	DWS	WS	WS/48
2010-11 28	NYK	NBA	C	78	2870	22.7	.565	.505	.403	.016	7.8	17.6	12.7	13.2	1.2	3.8	12.5	30.9	109	108	5.4	2.6	8.0	.134

i bolded three things: his TS% is pretty good for a guy who does not take threes. the ratio of usage-- 30.9-- to assist rate which is 13.2 is 2.34:1 which is too high unless all you are is a finisher. during that first half of the season stoudemire was not merely a finisher-- he got the ball a majority of the time on the elbows and tried to make something happen from there, freezing out teammates in the process. he got his, the knicks got some wins, but again i ask "to what end?"

also, if we were to look specifically at his "beasting" and "putting the team on his back" part of the season i will guarantee you that the usage was far higher and the assist rate far lower. i don't have to look up the stats since i know what i saw but if you need the stats to illuminate what i am asserting i suppose i could.

You are just talking about that one year (which was much better than his career avg)

reinman, the ratio is high because he has been a finisher at the rim for most of his career. there are fewer opportunities to pass for an assist at the rim as opposed to catch and shoot perimeter players who have better opportunities to make the extra pass. when stoudemire came to the knicks he no longer was merely a finisher-- he had by that time developed an elbow range jumpshot and he had the ball in his hands early in possessions from there. his ratio should have been much better and i lamented the fact that as a knick he needed to improve as a passer and playmaker.

TeamBall wrote:Durant's MVP speech...wow

What happened?

TeamBall wrote:Durant's MVP speech...wow

well deserved for durant..

Blake griffin finished 3rd, does that make him a top 3 player? just sayin...

noah finished 4th... I say good for him and a job well done this year, especially with the losing one of the best players in the league in rose..

LegendaryKnicks wrote:

tkf wrote:

TeamBall wrote:Durant's MVP speech...wow

well deserved for durant..

Blake griffin finished 3rd, does that make him a top 3 player? just sayin...

noah finished 4th... I say good for him and a job well done this year, especially with the losing one of the best players in the league in rose..

Finishing third in MVP voting for one year doesn't make him the third best player in the league. I still think LeBron is the best player in the league, even though Durant won the MVP this season. I'm not a Blake Griffin fan, I don't like his antics, he's soft, he certainty isn't top three, let alone top ten. He doesn't dominate the boards like Howard or Noah, and can really only score in the paint. Shoots 38% outside the paint, and 23% from three. If it wasn't for all the flashy dunks and three feet out jumpers his percentage would be way down.

mreinman wrote:

TeamBall wrote:Durant's MVP speech...wow

Can't believe that he had 119 first place votes and Lebron got 19. Thats nuts.

for some sadly obvious reasons durant is more likable than lebron.

somehow i think people see durant as a college player still or something, which makes him more "innocent."

whatever. i know a lot here hate lebron, but he never directly dissed ny, nor had to come here. i've seen that as some entitled idea from our fan base if you ask me. while some key nets players have been well known to hate on us....but hmm...now play for the nets.

the guy is one of the greatest to watch ever.