For better or worse, the Knicks are now Carmelo Anthony’s team.
With Amar’e Stoudemire sidelined for up to two months after Wednesday’s knee surgery, the team’s fortunes will rise and fall with Anthony during the early part of the 2012-13 NBA season.
“I don’t really know the details of the injury, but the most important thing is that he take care of his body,” Anthony said after practice Tuesday.
This was supposed to be the year that Stoudemire and Anthony finally got a full training camp together, finally got a whole preseason to jell, finally got on the same page in the offense.
But that plan was blown to smithereens by Stoudemire’s latest knee injury on Thursday, which the Knicks originally said would sideline him for just 2-3 weeks. It was his third knee surgery since 2005. Stoudemire hasn’t played a full season in the NBA since 2009-10.
“This knee thing came out of nowhere,” Anthony said. “He came out of training camp and things were fine.”
So now the Knicks will not only open the season Friday against LeBron and the Miami Heat — Hurricane Sandy permitting — with just one bona fide offensive stud, but they could potentially play their first 30 games or so with Anthony as the team’s leading offensive force.
Early in training camp, Anthony said he was willing to sacrifice his offensive output for the good of the team. He suggested that his experience winning gold alongside James, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant with Team USA had altered his perspective on team dynamics.
Now that resolution will be strongly tested.
Without Stoudemire, will Anthony be tempted, even encouraged, to shoot more, hold the ball in isolation more and dominate the offense more?
Without Amar’e for two months, will every Melo-hater’s worst fears be realized? Will he feel that he has to be the man down the stretch of every game?
Will the Knicks, in fact, need him to score 30 a night to remain competitive with the Miamis, the Bostons, the Philadelphias and the Brooklyns of the East?
“For me, I’m done trying to score 30 or 35 or 40 points for us to win a basketball game,” Anthony said early this month at the beginning of training camp.
“I don’t want that role anymore. I can do it. It is what it is, that’s what I do best. But in order for this team to be successful with the guys that we have on this team right now, we need a more well-rounded team. So if I have to sacrifice doing some things out there on the offensive end I’m willing to do it.”
Ironically, it was Stoudemire who said that day he didn’t want Anthony to back down as a scorer.
“I think there’s going to be some nights where we need Carmelo to score 30 points so we don’t want to take that way from him,” Stoudemire said.
Those nights may come fast and furious now without Amar’e.
Sure, the Knicks still have Tyson Chandler, Kurt Thomas, promising rookie Chris Copeland and, ahem, Rasheed Wallace, up front, but none of them is an offensive force.
Chandler is capable of putting up a double-double on any night, but he is battling his own knee injury and hopes to play Thursday against the Nets.
The Knicks have role players capable of scoring in bunches in J.R. Smith and Steve Novak, but the real difference this year is at the point guard spot where Jeremy Lin has been replaced by a trio of experienced floor generals in Raymond Felton, Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni.
Because of their collective experience, they would seem less inclined to let Melo dominate the ball if that’s not what best suits the team on any given night.
“I think the point guard position in this league has always been the glue,” Kidd said this week. “You try to keep everybody together. When things are good, everybody seems to be fine, but the point guard’s always tested when things are going bad. How did he respond? You don’t have a lot of time on the court, you gotta make adjustments quickly. And I think Pablo and Ray are as good as anybody to be able to do that.”
Speaking generally, Kidd said that short-handed teams sometimes benefit because players work harder.
“I think sometimes injuries can help when you’re short-handed guys tend to play a little bit better,” Kidd said before it was announced that Stoudemire would miss 6-8 weeks. “But for us being veteran guys, there’s no one trying to win MVP or anyone trying to make the All-Star team. It’s just about winning and that eliminates a lot of distractions.”
The season hasn’t even started and the Knicks already have a giant distraction in the ongoing questions about Stoudemire’s creaky knee.
Now they need to figure out exactly how much they need to rely on Anthony in Stoudemire’s absence. If they rely on him too much and the team under-performs, he will once again be criticized as a ball-stopper and team-killer.
If they don’t go to him enough in certain situations, they may not score as much as the opponent on any given night.
Only time will tell.
But for now, there’s no question that the Knicks are Anthony’s team.
Photo: Daily News
