ruruland: Amare and Melo are both good passers for their respective positions when they are out on the wings and can see the defense. Neither of them are good passers on the drive, both guys force shots into the paint, which is good and bad.

Neither guy is long or tall enough to pass over the top of the defense.

That said, this will be the year they become a dominant offensive combination because there is always going to be playmaking, passing and shooting around them.

They will each get sections of the game to themselves with optimal spacing.

Melo at the 4 with Amare as the dive man is basically the most unstoppable play in the league. Melos efficiency either catching and shooting or driving from the slot is off the charts. And Amare might be the best in the league at finishing as a dive man even against the extra help defender. While Chandler might technically be the best dive man in the game, there’s a lot he can’t do that Amare can.

Remember, we’ve seen very little of Amare and Melo with a true penetrating pg making the puzzle fit.

IAmare gives the Knicks a chance at the best half-court offense in the league, and there’s not only evidence that Amare is capable of playing solid defense as he did under Woodson, but that he’s actually been much better than his reputation…

ruru. no offense, but this is just crazy talk to me. its like saying, “If we can convince all of our oponents to agree to a dunk contest to determine who wins the game, James White will be MVP of the league.” Yes, running pick and rolls with amare as the screener at the 5 and melo as the ball handler at the 4 sounds like a great plan….in a vacuum. however, as is always the conundrum with amare, if we had a 5 in with him, he could not dive to the hoop, as the lane will be occupied. if he is the 5 (as you proffer), then our defense is going to…

jon abbey:
those 6 defensive rebounds a game look better once you see that Chandler has only been getting 4.8 so far this year.

Ha! To be fair Chandler hasn’t been consistently good this year, but he looked great the past 2 games, overtime loss and all. And I Don’t mean that he got a high percentage of putbacks in, his defense was a lot better than it has been. The rebounding is becoming a serious issue though

daJudge: I still think he would be more effective off the bench, limiting his time with Melo

I think that there is waaayy too much emphasis on whether Amare starts or comes off the bench. Let’s say that, once he is in game shape, he plays 30 minutes a night (either starting or off the bench) and Melo plays 35 minutes a night. Woodson will always have one of them on the floor (just like D’Antoni did), so that means that Amare will get 13 minutes without Melo, and Melo will get 18 minutes without Amare. They will be on the court together for 17 minutes. I think that they will be able to work together for 17 minutes, especially if Chandler is sitting for part of the time and Amare is playing the 5. You don’t think that a lineup of Amare, Melo, Novak, Kidd and Felton will space the floor enough for both of them to be effective? Don’t forget — for the 25 or so games that they played together after the trade, Melo averaged 26 points and Amare averaged 24 on 50% shooting. The problem then was defense, not offense.

If Woodson can correct, he better be coach of year.

Melo and JR just needed to buy into a team concept and consistently play at the level they had showed they were capable of. Harder to hope for Amar’e to magically transform into something he’s never been. Even if he plays the best offense of his career it only really helps the bench scoring, when Chandler and Amar’e are both on the floor it simply makes more sense to run pick and rolls with Chandler since Amar’e is actually capable of spacing the floor and keeping a man out of the paint, Chandler isn’t. If you’re mostly going to be using Amar’e for spacing and cutting in any lineups with Chandler, what the hell is the point of playing him instead of JR at the end of games? Amar’e is NOT a better rebounder at the 4 than Melo, he gets 6 defensive rebounds a game to Melo’s 5, and since he doesn’t box out his rebounds actually overstate his impact. Just like shot creation exists, rebound creation exists too