Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks improved to 19-6 after defeating New York rivals the Brooklyn Nets 100-86 at Madison Square Garden.

‘Melo’ was extremely efficient, playing in his first game back since missing the last two games because of a sprained ankle. He scored 17 points in the first half, helping the Knicks take a 52-48 halftime lead.

Point guard Deron Williams helped spark a Nets’ comeback as he scored nine of Brooklyn’s first 10 points, to start the second half, giving the Nets a 61-57 lead.

New York was able to regain their composure and played solid lockdown defense to regain momentum. They then finished the third quarter with an eight-point lead, thanks to an 18-6 run late in the quarter.

Anthony finished the game scoring 31 points on 12 of 22 shooting from the field, and 4 of 8 from downtown. He also contributed with three rebounds, one assist, two steals and a block. In his three games against the Nets, Anthony is averaging 37 points per game.

Prolific sixth man and guard, J.R. Smith, scored 19 points, dished out three assists and secured five rebounds. Big man Tyson Chandler also contributed as he recorded his tenth double-double of the year, scoring 16 points and grabbing 12 boards.

The Nets were led by shooting guard Joe Johnson, who scored a team high 17 points.  Deron Williams and center Brook Lopez both finished the game with double-doubles, as Williams scored 16 points and dished out 10 assists, whilst Lopez also scored 16 points with 10 rebounds.

Brooklyn continues to be inconsistent as of late, and are currently on a three game losing streak, which contributes to a record of 2-8 in their last 10 games. The Nets will be hoping for a chance in fortunes when they welcome the Philadelphia 76ers to the Barclays Center December 23, for the first time this season.

Although being blown out at home against Houston earlier in the week, the Knicks have managed to win five of their last six games, and remain atop the Eastern Conference with a game and a half lead over the Miami Heat. The Knicks will entertain the Chicago Bulls at Madison Square Garden on December 21.

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“My Life as an NBA Rookie,” a special that gives audiences an inside look at some of today’s biggest NBA stars in their first year in the league, premieres Monday, October 29 (7:00-7:30 p.m., ET/PT) on Disney XD as part of “Nothing But Net Marathon,” a sports-themed marathon featuring episodes of “Kickin’ It,” “Lab Rats” and “Crash & Bernstein” beginning at 5:00 p.m., ET/PT.

Hosted by Billy Unger, star of Disney XD’s “Lab Rats,” the special features exclusive footage of New Orleans Hornets’ power forward Anthony Davis practicing with the 2012 USA Basketball Men’s National Team; takes fans behind the scenes at the NBA Draft Combine and NBA Draft; looks at how players mentally and physically prepare for training camp and opening night; and reveals entertaining rookie duties.

“My Life as an NBA Rookie” includes Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James of the Miami Heat, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers, Carmelo Anthony and Tyson Chandler of the New York Knicks, Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Deron Williams of the Brooklyn Nets, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder, among others.

About Disney XD

Disney XD is a basic cable channel and multi-platform brand showcasing a compelling mix of live-action and animated programming for Kids 6-14, hyper-targeting boys and their quest for discovery, accomplishment, sports, adventure and humor. Disney XD branded content spans television, online, mobile and VOD platforms and includes series, movies and short-form, as well as sports-themed programming developed with ESPN. In the US, Disney XD is seen on a 24-hour, advertiser supported network that reaches over 78 million households via basic cable and satellite affiliates.

Image Courtesy of  Keith Allison

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Look at that! The playoffs are suddenly upon us. Seems like just yesterday, we were basically praying for an NBA season just to be played. Before we start worrying about all that postseason drama, how about taking a few moments to recognize the accomplishments of an exceptional few and explain why they will/should be honored with this season’s individual awards?

Let’s start with an obvious one, and go from there. Kyrie Irving, a.k.a. the number one overall pick of the Cavs, is clearly going to win Rookie of the Year, and deservedly so. Sure, there were some nice rookies out there like Iman Shumpert of the Knicks, the Pistons’ Greg Monroe, and Golden State’s Klay Thompson, but Irving displayed star power year round.

With an average of 18.5 points and 5.4 assists per game, there is only a 2.4 difference when comparing both of these numbers to the rookie stats of one of the league’s top-point guards, Chris Paul. Do not forget about his eight three-pointers, thirty-four points, nine assists, and MVP Award during the Rising Stars Challenge, either.

Next on the list is Most Improved Player of the Year. As much as you think that Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin is going to be the unanimous winner, you are unfortunately and sadly mistaken. Lin’s story may have been inspirational beyond belief, beautiful, and Hollywood-like, but he did not participate in enough games to contend for this award. His absence from the rotation before being given an opportunity, combined with a serious knee injury, caused him to miss 31 of the team’s 66 games.

Instead, the honor will go to Magic forward Ryan Anderson. Anderson, who completed his fourth season in the league, was able to up his scoring average from 10.6 points per game last year to a career high 16.1 in 2011-2012. In one year, he also increased his minutes per game by 10, jumped up to 7.7 rebounds a night after previously averaging 5.5, and made 32 more three-pointers while still shooting a respectable 39 percent from deep.

Sixth Man of the Year will undoubtedly be won by Oklahoma City forward James Harden. At 16.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game, he is exactly the kind of beast you would want to have, so he can take care of things while the starters are getting a blow. In fact, he actually averaged starter-like minutes, at 31.4 per game, and scored a career high 40 points in an April 18 game at Phoenix. Having a guy like that to come off the bench sort of seems like cheating.

No one is more deserving of Defensive Player of the Year than New York’s Tyson Chandler. He did exactly what the Knicks hoped he would when they brought him in this season–make playing defense cool. New York went from the third worst defensive team in 2010-2011, giving up 105.7 points per game, to the eleventh best in 2011-2012, allowing just 94.7. It was a group effort, but Chandler, his average of 1.4 blocks, and seven-foot-one-inch frame definitely got the ball rolling.

Usually, Coach of the Year goes to the man who takes a bad team and turns them around. That should not be the case this time. Tom Thibodeau should be the recipient for leading his Bulls to the league’s best record at 50-16, despite not having last year’s MVP, Derrick Rose, for 27 games. He coached a suffocating, lock-down defense that surrendered a league best: 88.2 points a game.

Neil Olshey equals Executive of the Year. Who is Neil Olshey, you ask? He is the L.A. Clippers’ General Manager, the one that brought in superstar Chris Paul, solid Caron Butler, clutch Chauncey Billups, scrappy Kenyon Martin, smooth Nick Young, and high-energy Reggie Evans all in the same year, even with the lockout.

He is also the man that took last year’s 32-50 Clippers squad and turned it into a team worthy of a 40-26 record, giving them the fifth best record in the West as they clinched only their third playoff berth since 1997.

Finally, the moment for which you have all been waiting: the Most Valuable Player award. If it truly did go to the “most valuable” player, it would go to Chris Paul for what he means to the Clippers, but instead, it will go to LeBron James for the third time since it was actually claimed by the league’s most outstanding performer.

The Heat forward put up averages of 27.1 points, 6.2 assists, and 7.9 rebounds per game this season. Only Kevin Durant of the Thunder had relatively similar numbers, but his inability to play skin-tight defense like James will cost him the MVP in the end.

Now let’s wait and see!

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The “Linsanity” that has taken the Knicks, New York, and the NBA by storm sounds like something out of a movie. The underdog who no one gave a shot finally gets it and doesn’t disappoint. It is of course normal for people to be skeptical – how many times have we seen someone take everyone by surprise only to plummet back to Earth, never able to recapture the run they had. However, Jeremy Lin is not one of these stories; he is the real deal.

Lin has single handedly saved Mike D’Antoni’s job and the Knicks’ season in a five game span. Add to that, he’s doing it with a roster missing All-Stars Amare Stoudemire (family death) and Carmelo Anthony (injured groin), making things even more amazing.

He’s been doing this all week with a starting lineup that consisted of Landry Fields, Bill Walker, Jared Jeffries, and Tyson Chandler. He’s turned Steve Novak, who has been buried on the Knicks bench all season, into a legitimate bench scoring threat, finding him open for threes multiple times a game.

Lin was exactly what the Knicks needed and hoped Baron Davis could be when he returned. A true point guard. During this five game win streak, Lin has been breaking down defenses with his dribble and quickness, shown a very good ability to run the pick and roll, as well as proven that he can knock down jumpers if left open.

Take a look at his numbers over the Knicks’ longest win streak this season. Lin is averaging 26.8 points on 53% shooting, eight assists, 4.2 rebounds, two steals. Impressive numbers for anyone over a five game stretch, but what’s more impressive is who he has done it against.

Lin has squared off against Deron Williams, Devin Harris, John Wall, Derek Fisher, and Ricky Rubio. We are talking about a bonafide superstar, the prospect traded for that superstar, a number one pick, a good defensive veteran, and this years leading candidate for rookie of the year. While in the case of Wall and Williams, they don’t exactly have the interior that would scare anybody, the other three have extremely formidable front-courts which still couldn’t prevent Lin’s penetration.

Lin has scored more points in his first four starts than anyone else since the merger back in the 70s. That means more than Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and yes, even LeBron James.

While the Knicks won’t need Lin to keep carrying the scoring load once Stoudemire and Anthony return, what they will need is for him to control the offense and continue to find the open man in their spots. What his scoring ability will do is open the offensive end up even more as defenses will have to respect that ability.

It has only been five games and four starts into the “Lincredible” streak, but if you watch the way Lin plays you know that the kid is the real deal. Even against Rubio who gave Lin a hard time defensively all night, he was still able to run the pick and roll and find the open man.

At the end of the game, when it mattered most, Lin was able to find a wide open Novak for the game tying three, and then use his quickness to draw a foul and hit the go-ahead foul shot to seal the game.

A sign of a good player, especially the point guard, is the ability to elevate the play of not only himself, but his teammates as well and Lin has exceeded this on every level imaginable. Lin was said to have been watching video in the locker room at halftime during a game because he was upset with his inability to get as many alley-oops to Chandler. No one could have expected this and no one saw it coming but the Knicks have potentially stumbled onto something great.

They will continue to ride this out for as long as it lasts, which looks like could be quite a long time. One thing definitely is for sure though, things in New York have gotten “Linsane” and this team and fan base have gotten a much need injection of excitement.

It has been quite some time Knicks fans, but it now looks like you have a team that can make some noise in the playoffs, and an underdog rising star whom you can rally around. It’s official New York, you have a true point guard and a basketball team worth watching so enjoy it.

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Since the Carmelo trade during last years 2010-2011 NBA season there has been speculation on both ends whether the trade was better for Denver or New York. Initially it seemed the Knicks were getting the sweet end of the deal but looking at the numbers now, some people may think a little differently. Looking at the regular season records for both teams since the Carmelo Anthony trade, the Knicks are 20-22, not even .500, while the Denver Nuggets are 28-12, sixteen games over .500.

When analyzing the trade that took place between the NY Knicks the Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves, neither team kept all players in the trade. Most of these players were traded after the lockout for other reasons. The Knicks lost Raymond Felton who was their starting point guard, although they received a veteran point guard in Chauncey Billups through the trade, after the lockout they got rid of Billups to free up cap space to sign big free agent Tyson Chandler from the Mavericks.

Everyone knows that D’Antoni preaches offense and is known for not being the best defensive coach. Then this stat would confuse some people in that, the Knicks are 22nd in offensive efficiency, which is a stat that measures points per every 100 possessions. While the Knicks are 22nd in this category the, “Meloless” Nuggets rank 5th.

So this leads to the question what is missing in the NY Knicks offense and the answer is: a solid point guard. With the loss of Billups and Felton, the Knicks fell back to signing two other veteran point guards, Mike Bibby from the Miami Heat, and Baron Davis from the Cleveland Cavaliers who is still trying to return from injuries.

With that in mind, much of the weight of the Knicks offense was not on any of their “Big 3″ so to speak, but on their rookie point guard Iman Shumpert out of Georgia Tech. Shumpert has come to the starting position and said in an interview about Carmelo and Stoudemire, “We’re making them take a lot of tough shots and we’re depending on them to score points,” Shumpert said. “We’ve got to make the offense a lot smoother.”

Shumpert makes a good point because coming into Wednesday game against the Suns, the Knicks were fifth worst in field goal percentage, and in the game against the Suns, the Knicks shot only 37.5 percent. Shumpert has a lot to learn being a rookie. When you look at teams like the San Antonio Spurs with Tony Parker, you see a team with a solid point guard with a smooth running offense.

That means breaking down the defense, running the offense, calling the right plays and finding the open man in order to put points on the board. Maybe Knicks is not giving Shumpert time to develop and go after veteran point guard Steve Nash who will be a free agent after this season. Looking back he ran a flawless offense with Stoudmire that could potentially work in D’Antoni’s offense.

The Knicks look to turn their four game losing streak around this Friday at the Garden when the 4-9 Milwaukee Bucks come into town. More importantly the Nuggets come to NY for the first time since the Melo trade and they come into the Garden with a better record the NY Knicks, and all eyes are on Melo to deliver an all-star performance.

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Tyson Chandler, of the Dallas Mavericks, and LeBron James, of the Miami Heat, both of whom are competing against each other in the NBA finals this year, played AAU basketball growing up. As George Dohrmann says in his book, Play Their Hearts Out, “Nearly every great-American-born basketball player of the last ten year—from Kevin Garnett to Kobe Bryant to Tracy McGrady to LeBron James—has been a product of the AAU system, yet it remains a largely unexplored world.” But know, thanks to Dohrmann’s book, many surprising connections between AAU coaches, players and large sneaker companies have been brought to light.

Dohrmann’s book uncovers details about how the AAU basketball system works. For general reference, AAU is a basketball organization for pre-college aged players. Some of the coaches for AAU have been known to have affiliations with large sneaker companies such as Nike and Adidas, who wish to align promising young talent with their products. Therefore, these coaches will be paid significant sums of money by these companies and be given their products. Then, the coaches have been known to extravagantly shower their AAU players with these products, as well as other gifts. Tyson Chandler is one such player. Dohrmann discusses one of Chandlers AAU coaches, stating,”He had allegedly bought Chandler a Cadillac Escalade, moved Chandler’s family from San Bernardino…and taken him on shopping sprees for clothes and shoes that often exceeded $5,000.”Dohrmann also explains, how on one occasion, George Raveling, the head of grassroots basketball for Nike, contacted Chandler’s coach at the time, for both Chandlers “shoe size and his address”. Following the call “approximately 20 pairs of shoes” arrived at Chandlers house.

To understand when and how the recruitment system by sneaker companies dipped into to AAU basketball market, one needs to know the story of Sonny Vaccaro and Nike Founder Phil Knight. Vaccaro approached Phil Knight in 1978 with a business proposition. The proposition was that Vaccaro himself could help Knight and Nike compete with Converse, a sneaker company that had the monopoly on the basketball-shoe market at the time.  Vaccaro’s proposed plan was centered around the fact that he had connections to college coaches and believed that with these connections, he would be able to get the best collegiate players to wear Nike. Vaccaro believed that the best collegiate players wearing Nike shoes would create a domino effect to the fanbase.  Vaccaro believed if the best collegiate players were wearing Nike, fans would be enticed to buy the same sneakers their favorite players were wearing.

Vaccaro cemented his claims in 1984 when he signed Michael Jordan to Nike. Michael was then only a sophomore at North Carolina and had yet to grow into arguably the best basketball player of all time. A year later, in 1985, all four final-four teams would be wearing Nikes, which symbolized their control of the market. In 1992, six years after the 1985 tournament, and after being fired a year earlier by Nike, Vaccaro joined Adidas.  Vaccaro decided to bring Adidas to the AAU level in order to gain control of the youth market because thanks to his earlier work Nike already had the college basketball monopoly. Shortly after, Nike aligned itself with the AAU market as well.

All in all, George Dohrmann’s book Play Their Hearts Out is a fascinating account of the world of grassroots basketball.  For any basketball fan, Play Their Hearts Out is a must read and it will change the way that you look at the game.

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