After last night's thrilling come-from-behind victory in Brooklyn I'll admit that I'm a little Knicks-crazy this week, so forgive me if this post comes off as a bit more biased than what you're used to. Since the 2012-13 NBA season started, the Knicks have been grabbing sports media headlines with their consistently solid play, pair of 20-point victories over defending champion Miami and the emergence of Carmelo Anthony as a legitimate MVP candidate. With Amar'e Stoudemire set to return before the end of the calendar year and join an already-deep rotation that features Anthony, reigning Defensive MVP Tyson Chandler, All Star-worthy PG Raymond Felton and a cast of other veteran role players (not to mention second year guard Iman Shumpert, also set to return from injury later this season), the Knicks seem poised to improve on last year's first round playoff exit at the hands of the Heat. There's a positive energy around New York basketball that the Nets' move to Brooklyn has done nothing to slow down, and it seems like the Knicks are once again the talk of the town.
Last year's playoff run was, of course, largely thanks to the admittedly superb play of Jeremy Lin, once an obscure point guard out of Harvard who transformed into a household name (and a brand) virtually overnight. Since New York refused to match Houston's offer to Lin over the summer, the Knicks and Lin have headed in completely opposite directions. While the Knicks, at 16-5, sit atop the Eastern Conference with Lin's backup, Felton, leading the offense, Linsanity has struggled in his first year with the Rockets. His stats are way down from the ones he was putting up with the Knicks last January, and as a result the new look Rockets have struggled and currently sit at 9-11, 10th place in the West and currently outside the playoff bubble. When Lin went off for a Linsanity-esque 38 points and 7 assists against San Antonio on Monday, the sports world barely took notice. More importantly, Houston still lost to the Spurs at home.
When the Knicks let Lin walk in July, everyone was talking about how New York was making a huge mistake. After all, Lin had become the new face of the Knicks franchise, and Lin supporters argued that the point guard's value to the team far exceeded what the Knicks would have to pay to retain him (even after including the Luxury Tax implications). What are those supporters saying now? Clearly hindsight is 20/20, and there was so way to know for sure that Lin would regress dramatically in 2012-13 and that a guy like Felton would drastically outperform him - in the article I linked to above, ESPN's Ian O'Connor wrote in July that "there's no good reason to believe that Lin, a better player than Felton last year, won't be a better player than Felton next year and beyond." But even if O'Connor was right - maybe the Knicks did luck into the Felton over Lin decision when the former became too expensive - the fact remains that the Knicks can always make another Jeremy Lin, but Jeremy Lin doesn't make the Knicks.
Fast forward to today and take note of the fact that Knicks fans are falling for the 2012-13 roster, including Lin's replacements (Felton, Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni). While the excitement around those three doesn't match last season's Linsanity craze, you won't find a Knicks fan who wants to talk about how much he misses Jeremy Lin or about how badly the Knicks need to bring Lin back. If the Knicks are winning, New York basketball fans will rally around the players helping to grab the victories. Last year, it was Lin (and admittedly it all happened in an unprecedented way). This year it's Carmelo, Felton, Chandler and guys like Kidd, Steve Novak and Rasheed Wallace. At the same time Lin is struggling in Houston, both on the court and with fans who have fallen in love with the newly-acquired James Harden and view the Lin signing as more of an afterthought. I still wish Lin the best and hope things turn out well for him over his next three years in Houston, but as of now we can say that no player - not even Lin - is more important to the Knicks than the Knicks are to that player.
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