Carmelo Anthony's detractors say he's a shot taker, not a shot maker. But since his arrival in New York, the attention he commands from defenses seems to be making it easier for his teammates to find the net.

While Anthony is hitting a subpar 45% of his field goals since joining the Knicks, the non-Anthony Knicks are shooting 48.2%. That would be second best behind Boston in the full-season rankings. Prior to Anthony's arrival, the Knicks shot just under 46%, about average.

Looking more deeply at the Knicks regulars who now benefit from playing with Anthony, we see improvement nearly across the board. Amar'e Stoudemire, Toney Douglas, Landry Fields and Shawne Williams collectively shot 51.3% from the field post-trade versus 48% prior to Anthony's arrival. Douglas has benefited most, improving from well below average as a shooter to well above.

Most startling is his dramatic improvement in converting two-point attempts. Only Williams has declined, but he plays the most minutes of this quartet while Anthony is on the bench—a little more than 40% of his post-trade allotment.

Anthony's Knicks continue to be plagued by poor defense and rebounding. They remain severely undersized due to lacking a center who can contribute on either end of the court. But even after Thursday night's loss in Dallas, they appear to be a far more dangerous team than they were prior to Anthony's arrival. Against winning teams, they are 5-2 overall and 3-2 on the road. Compare this to their 11-18 overall and 4-10 road record against winning teams prior to the trade. Best of all, New York has 19 remaining regular-season games to become even more acquainted with the holes Anthony creates in opposing defenses.

Opening Up Space

The Knicks' shooting this season before and after the trade for Carmelo Anthony

PLAYER	PRE-ANTHONY POST-ANTHONY PRE-ANTHONY POST-ANTHONY
----            FG%	 FG%     3P%     3P%
Amar'e Stoudem	50.7%	53.9%	N/A	N/A
Toney Douglas	40.0%	51.5%	34.5%	38.8%
Landry Fields	51.9%	51.9%	39.9%	44.1%
Shawne Willia	44.0%	42.2%	47.5%	36.1%
TEAM TOTAL*	46.0%	48.2%	36.5%	38.1%

Source: Basketball-Reference.com *not including Anthony

Bonn1997 wrote:It's hard to know how to interpret this statistic. Someone posted a thread here on an article indicating that the same thing happened in Denver (everyone shot higher than their career averages once Melo joined the team), BUT closer inspection showed that those players actually shot higher when Melo was on the bench than in the game. (It's obviously a small sample too.)

the Knicks now have two players with mid range games. Everyone else pretty much shoots from distance. Makes sense from the Denver side too. The game plan pretty much was give the ball to Melo and watch.

Bonn1997 wrote:

SupremeCommander wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:It's hard to know how to interpret this statistic. Someone posted a thread here on an article indicating that the same thing happened in Denver (everyone shot higher than their career averages once Melo joined the team), BUT closer inspection showed that those players actually shot higher when Melo was on the bench than in the game. (It's obviously a small sample too.)

the Knicks now have two players with mid range games. Everyone else pretty much shoots from distance. Makes sense from the Denver side too. The game plan pretty much was give the ball to Melo and watch.

I'm talking about the actual data when he was with Denver, though, not just what would make sense in theory. If someone could find the teammates' FG% in these last 10 games with Melo in vs. on the bench, that would be awesome.

oh, well, excuse me

franco12 wrote:Odd that Landry is the same- proof, I think that he is a smart, fundamentally sound player.

I also think you need to toss Douglas's numbers out as he got moved into the starting line up and hit a hot streak, much like we've seen from him before.

We have 2 stars and Indy didnt have theirs and we got smoked.

I thought we were supposed to win these kinds of games? Lame effort

fishmike wrote:

franco12 wrote:Odd that Landry is the same- proof, I think that he is a smart, fundamentally sound player.

I also think you need to toss Douglas's numbers out as he got moved into the starting line up and hit a hot streak, much like we've seen from him before.

does the 1-12 he shot last night count?

We have 2 stars and Indy didnt have theirs and we got smoked.

I thought we were supposed to win these kinds of games? Lame effort

Obviously the problem with small sample sizes. I think once you expand out to include more games, Douglas will probably be in line with the pre trade percentage he's been putting up this year.

As far as the effort last night- I think when you have 2 superstars, and there is all this talk & hype about stars & star power (see Miami also), then I think the other guys- the ones we need to win- basically step back mentally and feel like - wow, I can wait for Melo & Amare to carry us/bail us out/win the game with their star power.

Obviously, it doesn't work like that...

fishmike wrote:

franco12 wrote:

fishmike wrote:

franco12 wrote:Odd that Landry is the same- proof, I think that he is a smart, fundamentally sound player.

I also think you need to toss Douglas's numbers out as he got moved into the starting line up and hit a hot streak, much like we've seen from him before.

does the 1-12 he shot last night count?

We have 2 stars and Indy didnt have theirs and we got smoked.

I thought we were supposed to win these kinds of games? Lame effort

Obviously the problem with small sample sizes. I think once you expand out to include more games, Douglas will probably be in line with the pre trade percentage he's been putting up this year.

As far as the effort last night- I think when you have 2 superstars, and there is all this talk & hype about stars & star power (see Miami also), then I think the other guys- the ones we need to win- basically step back mentally and feel like - wow, I can wait for Melo & Amare to carry us/bail us out/win the game with their star power.

Obviously, it doesn't work like that...

so people here will blame the coach. Its old.

Wait - coach is also I think one of the ones waiting on Amare and Melo to bail him out.

We've talked about this before- but at the time, we hardly appreciated what Don Chaney was able to do with so little as far as talent, but he got them to over achieve every night because that was the only way they could ever win.

I'm not sure MDA is that coach. Yes, great system and fun to watch when its working. But I am thinking it only works when our guys are hot from outside, and that's not a system, that's luck.