FanPost

some love for amar'e

a friend showed me this picture of shump and amar'e last week and it made me really happy:

not because of the giants. it's just that amar'e looking out for our young pups helps me trust that the knicks can work it out, that shump can grow into full shumpitude, and that stat will outlandishly dominate once more.

listen, i know amar'e has kind of been sucking but where's the love? he came here last year to bring the knicks back. other people did not take the money. amar'e was blatantly unafraid of the pressure or the media spotlight or that little preceding decade of disaster and loss. and he did it, he actually helped bring us back. do you remember how exciting those days were? the 30-pt streak during a 13-1 run? this was last season!! he was absurdly heroic and just destroyed people like no knick had done in years. and he was first at practice and set the example for the rest of the team of how a basketball player needs to push him- or her-self. and yes, we know he came with suspect defense, but he had classic 4th quarter blocks and stops and led the ragtag group of youngsters to be an incredibly exciting and heartwarming team-- amar'e and the kids was so nice.

obviously he's not the perfect star. he needs someone to get him the ball in motion. he needs a friend to wreak havoc with. what's so wrong with that? isn't that oddly more endearing? and it's still pretty awesome, since when he has that, he wreaks some serious freaking havoc. if things go well with the back of baron, he should have a friend like that again pretty soon. in the meantime, i say he has earned some solidarity through this patch that has us literally playing without a point guard.

melo is amazing, but he's not at the giants game being big brother to shump shump. and he didn't get here first and make the knicks great again. there's a lot of stat-bashing going on in the comments these days and i just wanted to give the guy some appreciation. didn't he lead the league in fourth quarter scoring for most of last season? hasn't he historically taken his game up a notch in the playoffs and during clutch situations? these are good qualities.

this team of knicks with stat and a point guard and melo and tchandler and landry and shump and td and jorts can be real nice. it can happen.

hoping the picture helps you all too.