jon abbey: Shumpert will be the starting SG when he comes back if his knee is OK,

Maybe eventually, but not right away. He’s going to jump from not playing in 8 or 9 months to playing 30 minutes a night? Not likely. He had major reconstructive surgery. More likely he will begin by playing spot minutes and gradually working his way back into the lineup. Maybe he’s playing 30 minutes by the 70th game of the season, but not before then.

jon abbey:

oh, I missed Thomas B’s number-filled post of gibberish. >

There are few details that escape the keen eye of stalkers.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerrankings

Chandler/Camby
Amar’e/Wallace
Melo/Novak or Brewer
Shumpert/Smith
Felton/Kidd

Thomas B.: All that is left is Brewer, and for Shump to best Brewer without a big improvement on offense, Brewer needs to fall off offensively, or suffer an injury.

ruruland: . I think people will be surprised at how good of an all-around player he’ll likely be by March or April.

I also love Shumpert and think that he has tremendous upside. I expect him to improve dramatically offensively in future years — but not this year. Has anyone thought about the fact that he hasn’t taken a jump shot in about 7 months? How exactly is his shooting supposed to improve if he’s not working on it? Shooting set shots and foul shots while re-habbing a bad knee will not make him a better jump shooter; spending a full off-season next year working on his jump shot will make him a better jump-shooter. He’ll help on defense this year, but I don’t expect him to take a big leap in offensive efficiency.

ruruland:

I love Shump. I think people will be surprised at how good of an all-around player he’ll likely be by March or April. I think he’ll end up being an upgrade over Brewer.

I like Shumpert. I think he is a fantastic defender, but he isn’t as efficient as the players he’ll take minutes from.

Look at the current TS% and eFG% of the Knicks back court players and the career numbers

Smith: .550 TS% and .497 EfG% (.544 and .513)
Kidd: .761 and .714 (.507 and .463)
Brewer: .558 and .564 (.549 and .513)
Felton: .523 and .515 (.498 and .496)

Shumpert: .484 and .446

Now none of the guys currently manning the Knicks backcourt is a terrible defender (I acknowledge that Brewer is playing more SF than guard), and each of them is showing far more efficiency than Shumpert has shown. So what exactly is to gain by replacing those minutes with a better defender who is a far less efficient player on offense?

I’m not trolling or hating on Shump, as I said I like Shump. But if he shoots like he did last year, he simply can’t stay on the floor. Now maybe Shump will also show marked improvement in his efficiency as the rest of the backcourt has, but if he does not, should he play, and whose minutes should he take? As long as JR keeps playing as he has, there really is no argument for Shump to get his minutes, ditto Kidd. We know Shump shouldn’t run the point so Felton’s time looks safe. All that is left is Brewer, and for Shump to best Brewer without a big improvement on offense, Brewer needs to fall off offensively, or suffer an injury. And even if that happens, Shump has to play the 3 or Smith moves there and makes Shump the first 2 off the bench.

That’s a lot of tinkering with a machine that is running pretty smoothly already wouldn’t you say? I’d love to see him pressuring the ball like last year, I just don’t know how to…

max fisher-cohen:
Ruru, definitely agree with your observation about the defense. Nice point. Shumpert will help a lot here because it will give NY another rotation player who can defend 4 positions pretty well. Kidd and Felton are both better suited to guarding slower guards, and Prigioni is even worse. It will be interesting to see how much Shumpert affects the offense though as we likely won’t have 2 PGs on the floor when he’s in.

I can’t really agree with you on anthony’s TS% being sustainable though as it’s completely built off his 42% 3pt percentage. If he was instead shooting only 36% from three (which would still be his second best year ever), his TS% would around 53%. I don’t mean to knock Anthony as, recent turnover spat notwithstanding, he’s passing the ball like we’ve never seen before. I just don’t think he’s the kind of player who can sustain such a high efficiency on a team that’s so dependent on him for shot creation. Inevitably, he’s going to be forced to take a few very low efficiency shots a game just because no one else on the Knicks can create his own shots.

This could be countered by Melo simply getting to the line more like he deserves to, he also happens to miss or turn the ball over a lot when he gets smacked receives no call, lowering his shooting percentage in the paint. I also think Melo legitimately improved his 3 point shot, especially on spot ups, which he used to rush a lot. While 42% is probably a bit high, I really think he ends up at 38+% and ends up north of .560 TS%. He’s going to be hurt in advanced stats all year by the fact that he doesn’t get assists on a team that moves the ball this well and has other primary actions of attack (Felton-Chandler pick and roll has been extremely effective this season)