Help for Carmelo

Amare Stoudemire's 17 bench points today has arrived at a key time for the Knicks as they entered their London encounter with Detroit amid a concerning statistical trend regarding their scoring.

Before today's match there existed a 12.5 points per game differential between New York's unquestionable best scorer, Carmelo Anthony (29.3ppg) and their next best option, J.R Smith (16.8).

Despite playing 7 less games than Smith due to a variety of niggling injuries and silly, avoidable suspensions, Anthony has still scored 258 more points than Smith.

For me, this trend is slightly reminiscent of the Cleveland Cavaliers with LeBron James who despite his continual emergence as one of the games superstars had to get by with a combination of poor front office decisions and a collection of teammates who failed to provide him with appropriate scoring support. 

This inevitably became more of a problem as the season wore on and as the Cavs confronted more sophisticated defences in the playoffs- Much easier to cater for one dominant scorer than a collection of threats.

For instance, the year following Cleveland's solitary Finals appearance, James averaged an enormous 16 ppg per night more than his team’s next best scorer, Zydrunas Ilgauskas. 

In Miami's championship winning team last season James remained his team’s most potent scorer however he was depositing only 5 points per night more than Dwyane Wade and only 9 more than their third best scorer, Chris Bosh.

Anthony has arguably more talent and experience surrounding him than what James had in Cleveland however this needs to be reflected in New York’s scoring.

Stoudemire averages a career 21.4 points and though it's unlikely he'll be performing to that level this season, a number approaching that could figure could prove crucial in how far the Knicks go this season.