Quote:
|
Originally Posted by F6_Turbo
Getting waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of yourself. And not nearly enough respect being shown to the Bulls and Rose.
|
Here's my thoughts on Bulls lineup vs Knicks--
At center, I'd take Tyson over Noah (Skill wise they're almost even, but Tyson has more heart and championship experience)
At Power Forward, Amare is clearly better than Boozer
At Small forward, Carmelo is better than Deng
At Shooting guard, J.R Smith/Shumpert/Novak vs Hamilton/Brewer is a wash mainly because Hamilton has become very injury prone at this phase of his career...
At Point Guard, Rose is better than Lin...no argument there
So purely from a talent/skill perspective, there's only one position where the Bulls trump the Knicks. With the Knicks current roster, it's never been a question of talent, the issue has been lack of cohesion and chemistry in the team, and not having a true playmaker to distribute the ball well enough to help Carmelo get his 25, Amare his 20, J.R. Smith his 15, Shumpert/Novak/Fields their 10 on a nightly basis. Tyson will get his 10 without demanding the ball anyway.
So the most important impact of Linsanity's emergence--It puts players back in their natural positions. Carmelo can go back to playing small forward instead of point forward, Amare can play power forward instead of God knows what position he was playing, and the shooting guards can play their natural roles.
Here's another curious aspect of the shift in dynamics we've witnessed--Before Linsanity, Knicks had lost 11 out of 13 matches with Carmelo running point. With Linsanity, they've won 7 in a row minus their two marquee players. If Knicks start losing again when Melo returns and goes back to his ball hogging ways, New Yorkers will despise him forever. I doubt he'll take that risk. He's too talented and got burnt way too many times, not to realize, by allowing Lin to run the show, he can still be the primary scorer and still take the last shot most of the time when the game is on the line.