Ichiro hitting second against LHP is kind of silly too, putting all your over the hill Hall of Famers at the top of a lineup is not an efficient strategy. thankfully Andruw Jones isn’t on the roster, or he might be hitting ahead of Cano too. :)

We know if Torre was still manager Arod would probably be batting 8th right now lol

As far as Melo and Amar’e, I fail to see how playing Melo caused Amar’e to miss a bunch of mid range jumpers. Or how Amar’e was supposed to be running a pick and roll when Chandler was setting all the screens and Amar’e was needed for spacing. Melo and Amar’e don’t complement each other perfectly, but it’s Chandler who screwed up Amare’s efficiency by forcing him to play as a stretch 4 the year he hit a career low on jumpers lol.

BigBlueAL:
After tonight’s Yankee game I really cant wait for the Knicks to start, at least I dont expect them to win all the time and am used to seeing them lose stupid games.

I don’t have time to watch a lot of the Yankees nowadays, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nunez look good at the plate. And that’s the guy they wouldn’t put in the trade to get Cliff Lee?

@39 yoda – great post. Totally agree re: Amare. I think even his box score #s underestimate how awful he was at the beginning-middle of last season, and his defensive +/- numbers have been truly awful here the last few years. Would be interesting to see what his #s looked like post-ASB last year, and especially post-Woodson when it really looked like he was (a little more) committed on the defensive end.

What are the chances Hakeem worked with him on defense? Probably zero or else I’m sure we would have heard about it.

Meanwhile, sounds like there’s a lot of good buzz about John Shurna. I know youtube clips are not a substitute for actual game tape, but the dude sure looks like a player. We need all the 44% 3 point shooters we can get. Especially if Brewer is healthy to start the year, I think our need for shooting is much greater than our need for another perimeter wing defender, even with Shump hurt. Between JR, Brewer, and Kidd (against the slower 2s) we should be ok until Shump gets back.

Anyone catch Jamie O’Grady (used to be lohudblogs guy) twitter a few days ago saying that Shump is WAY ahead of schedule? Here it is:

“Heard that @I_Am_Iman’s recovery from ACL surgery is welllllll ahead of the schedule that’s been reported. And reports were favorable.”

would be great if we could get him back in December but only if healthy. I’m looking forward to the Felton/Shump/Brewer/TC/Camby Big Defensive Stop lineup.

BigBlueAL:
After tonight’s Yankee game I really cant wait for the Knicks to start, at least I dont expect them to win all the time and am used to seeing them lose stupid games.

The Yankees lost because Melo can’t hit in the clutch

jon abbey:
there is value in drawing a second defender, whether it’s before an offensive move is made or as a shot is attempted. this value is not measured by any individual stats except as part of the oft-mocked (and admittedly noisy) +/-. this is one reason Carmelo Anthony has more value than the Berri-boys think, again just as one example.

This isn’t a good argument in any of its practical applications (other than the vague argument that interaction effects sometimes occur in basketball). Recall how lots of people used this argument when we acquired Anthony, saying “Hey, Amare’s going to be even more awesome now, because Melo will draw double teams!” and how, instead, Amare got significantly worse?

The reason for that is because “drawing double teams” is just a subset of spacing (considered broadly), and drawing an extra defender 15 feet from the basket creates less spacing than posing a legitimate shooting threat from 25 feet away. Melo’s refusal to play that far out and Shumpert’s poor distance shooting, especially as wing players (part of why Melo was much better at the 4), limit their ability to disrupt the overall defense. If you want to talk about evidence of holistic overall effects on the offense, it’s probably not coincidence that the two players whose +/- effects on the offense were most positive (as per basketballvalue) were Novak (who was the best shooter in the league last year) rather than Melo and Smith (who was treated as a great shooter, even though his performance last year didn’t justify it) rather than Shumpert. (Incidentally, +/-, for whatever it may be worth, says the most underrated Knick last year was Fields, and the worst, by far, was Stoudemire.)