Stoudamire a good signing, but only first step

There’s been a lot of talk about David Lee being a cheaper alternative to Amare Stoudamire for the Knicks and he will prove to be cheaper. But Lee, even though his numbers were comparable this year to Stoudamire’s, is not Stoudamire.

I say this as a big David Lee fan who is disappointed the team could not bring him back.

But consider a couple of things:

• Lee played on a bad team and it has long been a truism in the NBA that you should not trust good players from bad teams. Basically, someone has to score and someone has to rebound. In the absence of other players, that often falls to someone whose reputation grows disproportionate to their actual talent. Lee is a solid player, a good player with a nice mid-range jumper and solid passing skills. He’s willing to do the dirty work. He’s a modern Charles Oakley, in that respect. Stoudamire, however, is a rock star who was the prime scorer on a team that fell a couple of games short of the finals.
• Stoudamire gets to the foul line about twice as often as Lee. That is something not to be undervalued. The Knicks, as a whole, were woeful in that regard, demonstrating a lack of aggressiveness that no one can accuse Stoudamire of displaying.
• Stoudamire has a history of injuries, though he played all 82 regular season games and all 16 post-season games, getting to the line an average of about nine times a game.
• My issue with Stoudamire is on the defensive end and the glass, where he puts up far weaker numbers tahn I’d like, while Lee is a rugger rebounder and pretty good defender.
• There also is just five months separating them — Stoudamire will turn 28 early in teh 2010-2011 season, while Lee will hit 28 in April.

I like the Stoudamire signing, but I’m not sure it gets the Knicks that much farther down the road.

Reeling in LeBron James, on the other hand….

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet