Linsanity Not So "Melo" Dramatic

A few weeks ago "Linsanity" hit the NBA. Media outlets and people everywhere could not get enough of the former Harvard and NBDL alum. Jeremy Lin has recharged the NBA after the lockout. To his credit, Lin has had several 20 point and 10 assist games en route to a huge winning streak to get the Knicks back to .500. The amazing thing is that he did much of this without stars Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony. All of this craze left everyone asking, will this team be worse with Carmelo Anthony back in the lineup?

Last night the Knicks took the court against the New Jersey Nets with former Syracuse alumni Carmelo Anthony back in the lineup. The Knicks were defeated 100-92. Jeremy Lin had 21 points, 7 rebounds, and 9 assists. His opponent Deron Williams had 38 points. Carmelo Anthony had 11 points on 4 of 11 shooting along with 3 rebounds and 6 assists. Not too bad for somebody who has missed much of the last 2 weeks with a groin injury. So naturally the talk is going to begin about the Knicks being a worse team with Carmelo back. Not so fast and here are my reasons why.

First of all, Deron Williams absolutely torched Jeremy Lin. In the postgame news conference Williams said, "this all started on me", referring to the game which Linsanity began to break out. Like a true superstar Williams took it upon himself not to be embarrassed again by a young, up and coming star. After the game Lin said that the Knicks lacked "defensive energy". You can tell Lin wants to improve his game each night, always honest after the game. Second of all, Amare Stoudemire has not been the same since returning from the death of his brother and Carmelo Anthony was clearly rusty after returning from a groin injury. Anthony said after the game that "it was one of those games I had to get the rust off". My next point is that you have to believe that Carmelo Anthony is going to change the way he plays. Case in point he had 6 assists in his first game back, 2 more than his 4 a game average. Anthony said, "Passing the ball, find the open man, making the right play. I felt good with that.". He has said he wants to play his game within the system that the Knicks have been playing in the past few weeks. After all how can a team be worse when a superstar comes back, especially one that came from the Jim Boeheim school of basketball.