Some Knicks news following last night’s 96-89 loss to the Nets.
Ronnie Brewer will play Wednesday, with his broken finger taped. Problem is, hot shooting was a big part of Brewer’s start with the Knicks. That was bound to regress to the mean eventually, but a broken finger can only expedite that process.
Either way, shouldn’t keep him from his solid defending. This is good news.
Jason Kidd will not travel with the team to Milwaukee. His back is still a problem. I’d love to see J.R. Smith start in his place, I guess, but keep this in mind: Kurt Thomas played 7:31. Smith played 41:28. As long as that’s the ratio, with Carmelo Anthony at the power forward spot most of the time accordingly, I don’t really care who starts. Do you?
One other thought on Raymond Felton: for some reason, much of Twitter appears dedicated to the idea that Felton is either a superstar, or precisely the 3-for-19 train wreck he played like last night. It’s ironic that so much of public opinion is massed at these two extremes for a guy whose career Player Efficiency Rating is the essence of league average.
Anyhow, since I found myself both defending Felton and defending myself for being too hard on Felton within 24 hours on Twitter, just thought I’d briefly point out what I see so far.
In his first 12 games, Felton was absolutely excellent, with a 19.1 PER, and a key part of the Knicks. Last night, he cost them the game, not just by missing shots, but by failing to find Anthony or Tyson Chandler (in the midst of a 13-for-14 night, OMG) late in the game.
I’m guessing he’ll spend the rest of the year… somewhere in between. Say, about league average. Which will be better than the Knicks got out of point guards who weren’t Jeremy Lin last year, and worse than they got from Lin.
Meanwhile, Lin has struggled so far. His PER is 11.7, and his shooting has been Landry Fields-like. I believe he will be better than he’s been. So far, Felton has thoroughly outplayed him. I believe it is too soon to draw broad conclusions about this, however.
So that’s how I see Lin/Felton.
