I've been sitting on this one for a couple days because I wasn't quite sure what conclusion to draw from the information presented. I'm still not sure, so I'll just pass it along for digestion and discussion. Over at Basketball-Reference, Neil Paine compares different advanced metrics of "assist rate"- what they measure, what they miss, and who looks best in each realm. I immediately scoured the leader boards of each stat, and lo and behold, there's some Knicks-relevant stuff there. First of all, no matter which way you cut it, Ronny Turiaf is as generous as he is gregarious. Here are Ronny's 2009-2010 rankings among "power forwards" (a positional allocation we won't worry about, since he'd place highly among centers as well) in each of the relevant metrics:
Assist-to-Turnover Ratio: 1.84 (3rd among PFs)
Hollinger Assist Ratio: 28.2 (2nd)
Passes per Touch (not exactly what it sounds like): 67.0 (2nd)
Pomeroy Assist Rate: 13.8 (9th)
Assists per Team Possession (very similar to Pomeroy, but with a penalty for teammate errors): 4.9 (6th)
Basically, for a big man, Ronny Turiaf passes quite a bit and manages to rack up assists and avoid turnovers in the process. Note that he's comparable to David Lee in each of these measures, then spill some Juicy Juice out for David Lee.
On the flip side, Amar'e Stoudemire ranks in the dungeon in a bunch of these categories. He was in the bottom 10 (among centers, mind you) in ATO, Hollinger's Ratio, and Passes Per Touch. This isn't so much a knock on Stoudemire as it is a "NO DUH" testament to the fact that he does very different things with the ball than Turiaf does. Now, I'm nowhere near intelligent enough (let alone properly dressed right now) to apply this information to potential lineups and frontcourt tandems, but maybe you are. Keep in mind that both players are passing to different teammates this year, and also remember the Great White Unknown for whom we have no data of this kind.
So...thoughts on Amar'e's potential frontcourt running mates at this point? Feel free to disregard everything I just shared with you.