Ben R:
Yeah but those are all answers to his offensive troubles. What about his defensive ones? That’s what really worries me long term.

Amar’e's defense is his offense. If he’s scoring at a high volume with with high efficiency, his defense isn’t really an issue. As it is, he’s not, and that is why his shortcomings are magnified.

Frank:
btw, the reason we are losing is mostly this:

Our “top 4? guards by total minutes played, shots/36, and TS% this year:
Toney Douglas, 203 minutes, 16.3 shots/36, TS% 43.1
Landry Fields, 183 minutes, 10.2 shots/36, TS% 49.8
Bill Walker, 130 minutes, 8.3 shots/36, TS 61.4
Mike Bibby,74 minutes, 7.8 shots/36, TS 21.9

The MOST productive guard (Walker, 30 total shots in 6 games) has taken less then a third of the shots Douglas has taken (92).

You cannot win basketball games when your defense is mediocre and your backcourt is playing this horribly. You cannot win games when your STARTING point guard, who has played the 2nd most minutes on the team and taken the 2nd most shots, has an offensive rating of 92.

We’ve spent all our time complaining about Melo on this board when he is having, by pretty much every statistical measure, the best season of his career, and one of the best seasons in the NBA. Per 36, Melo is averaging 28 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1.2 steals, all with a TS of 59.3, a turnover rate of 11, a PER of 27.8, and a WS/48 of 0.228.I literally cannot believe that we are blaming this start on him when we would definitely be 0-6 without

Look, I agree the guard play has been terrible. But this all was known before hand. There is nothing new in this, with all due respect.
What is annoying is the Knicks’ seeming inability to adapt to the circumstances. If you knew the guard play would be weak, and this board knew it would be bad, then why didn’t the Knicks place a greater emphasis on PnR between Melo and Amare and Chandler?
Why are Melo and Amare going one on one so much, given the understanding that the guards would be weaker?
Amare’s play and, in particular, Amare’s play with Melo has been so poor. I think this is where the frustration is. You play the team you have. Melo and Amare need to adapt in a big…

Ben R:
Yeah but those are all answers to his offensive troubles. What about his defensive ones? That’s what really worries me long term.

Oh right. I have no answer for that. =)

xduckshoex:
r Williams, troubled superstar for troubled superstar.

He played like an MVP alongside Shaq.It’s not a lack of competent point guard play or playing with a center that’s killing him right now.

Yeah he played pretty well next to Robin Lopez the year before coming to NYK. We just need a ball dominant point on the floor.

When Chandler is ON the floor and when the coaching staff wants to make TC the roll man, then Amare should/could be the outlet jump shooter from 18 feet. For a PF, he’s a very good shooter – his FG% from 16-23 feet was 44% last year – not great but in the top 10 of PFs who actually play according to hoopdata. Everyone else on the list ahead of him is used extensively as a pick-and-pop guy — guys like Rashard (52% FG on 16-23 feet!!) Lewis, Dirk, Gasol, Scola, Bass, Garnett.

The reason I want Amare gone is that he is an abysmal defender. He’s always been bad and lately his quickness seems gone. Now that our offense doesn’t really need him to function he is too much of a defensive liability. The gains on offense do not offset the losses on defense anymore. They didn’t last season after the trade and I don’t see it changing. In fact as our team gels and gets better the less we need him.

Melo is good enough on his own that with Shump healthy and Baron back we probably don’t need Amare to be a great offense.

I think Amare needs to take a look in the mirror and realize that this team does not need him to be a 26 ppg scorer anymore. There just can’t be excuses that he’s expending too much energy on the offensive end. We need him to be 18-20ppg/10-11rpg and to care just a little bit on defense. He needs to spend 70% of his in-game brain on concentrating on defense, and let the offense come to him.

That said – IMHO the guard play is still the main problem on O and D.

Re: Faried – no one ever said he wasn’t athletic enough to play in this league. We just thought that he was too limited a player and that the chances that he’s the next Dennis Rodman are miniscule. We could be wrong, but it’s not an alley-oop that will convince anyone otherwise. There are Ivy-Leaguers who can make that play, and plenty of slam-dunk champions who couldn’t be impact players in this league.