Doctor MJ wrote:His efficient the prior year in Phoenix 61.5% T.
His efficiency for the season in NY was 56.5% TS.
His efficiency pre-all-star break in NY was 57.0% TS.
As you can see, the efficiency of Amare for the season was still basically in line with what it was pre-Melo. Both were much below his Sun norms, and hence my statement on profit stands.
People actually overrate how big of an immediate impact Melo's presence had on Amare. Primarily they do so because it just makes sense that the two would have problems together, and they clearly did even before Amare got hurt, I think it's also because of how bizarre the perception was early on in the season. Halfway through the year New York was basically a .500 ballclub yet he was considered the league MVP to that point by the press. I wrote a blog post at the time because of how insane it was.
Your contention is that efficiency alone answers this question, of course. Melo played his first game for the Knicks on February 23rd of 2011.
Amare
Up to and including Feb 22:
53 GP, 26.1 ppg, 19.4 FGA/g, 50.7% FG, 57.0% TS, 108 ORTG, 7.9% ORB, 1329% TOV, 13.9% AST
After Feb 23:
25 GP, 23.5 ppg, 18.2 FGA/g, 49.1% FG, 55.3% TS, 110 ORTG, 11.1% TOV, 7.5% ORB, 11.9% AST
So there was a reduction in his shooting volume and a reduction in his scoring output (and a 2.8% drop in his USG)... and a 1.7% drop in his scoring efficiency. .411 to .385 FTR also contributed. I'd say that counts as a notable impact, even if the sample is half the size. Using the ASB as a cut-off was somewhat arbitary, since obviously the post-break stats include some pre-Melo games in there.
There was a lot to went into that, including New York staring and its collective Gothamite navel, but the big thing was that Amare had a hot stretch early on which helped generate a narrative of "Woot! Amare's doing it! We finally have a superstar in NY!", and that narrative took a while to dissipate. This can lead to people not remembering that there was months between Amare's hot stretch and Melo's arrival during which the Knicks were sliding down the gutter which was what truly led the franchise to think "holy crap, we're nowhere close to a contender, we have to get Melo now" despite the fact Amare was still healthy.
The reactions of New York's fans are not salient; Amare was playing very well. Then after the trade, he continued to play well, just not AS well. And of course, being Amare, he still blew on the glass and was a horrible defender, so some of the value of having him as an offensive focus was robbed by those truths. The Knicks were 22nd on defense that season, but 7th on offense. Amare's offensive impact was there (obviously that number includes Melo's addition). It behooves me to note that Amare's post-break and with-Melo ORTG is 110 compared to 108 before hand, largely from him cutting down his turnover rate.
The Knicks did have a rough January, taking a 6-game slide. Jazz, Kings, Suns, Rockets, Spurs, Thunder. Believable. The REAL problem occurred once they had Melo, though. Melo was 2-1 with New York in February and promptly went 7-11. Clearly, the trade didn't do them any favors right away. The .429 record they posted over his first 21 games was worse than the .467 they posted in January (and the .454 they posted in January and in their Feb games without Melo) before they turned it around in April.
I should point out, however, that they also had a 6-game slide in November, well before Melo was on the team, and well before January and that. They came out of the gate by winning one, losing two, winning two and dropping 6. There were things happening on that squad prior to January.
If you REALLY want to get picky about it....
By month, the Knicks were:
W-L, PPG, Pace, ORTG, Avg Opp SRS
Oct: 1-2, 98, 96.2, 101.8, 0.13
Nov: 9-7, 108.7 ppg, 95.9 pace, 112.0 ORTG, -1.90
Dec: 8-5, 108.1 ppg, 96.4 pace, 111.6 ORTG, 0.38
OK, so here we get a feel what the pre-Melo, winning Knicks looked like before their slide in January. We also see that these winning months are marked by some limp competition. The Knicks finished the season as a +0.48 SRS squad, despite January and March. You can see them flying along (~ 96 pace is in line with the 95.6 they set on the season, ranking them 3rd).
Now, the collapse.
Jan: 7-8, 105.1, 95.0, 110.8, 0.79
OK, so we see a scoring tail-off and their team offense is sliding a little, the strength of opponents increasing a bit. Nothing to use for a firm statement of effect, but at least a trend worth noting. They faced four teams with an SRS of 5+ that month and went .500 against them. Keep in mind that the New York defense was 110.1 on the year. That means we're seeing them going from +1.9 and +1.5 to +0.7, so that ORTG/DRTG differential is shrinking a lot, even from marginal decreases in ORTG. Food for thought, even if again not definitive, especially since I'm using the seasonal DRTG and not game-by-game tracking, etc, etc. The point is that they were crap on defense, so any kind of fluctuation in their offensive production affected their ability to win, and offense is variable due to luck, health, all sorts of things. It WILL bounce, so it isn't SUPER surprising that we saw them go up and down. I wouldn't attribute this to a hot streak on Amare's behalf, though, because he continued to play pretty well all season, just not like Phoenix Amare. Which should surprise no one, given the poor coaching and weaker backcourt support. The Knicks asked him to operate differently than he did in Phoenix, taking away a lot of his off-ball action for elbow an d baseline catch-and-shoot jumpers around screens, reducing his PnR action and getting him to iso on the block more. That was a big part of his immediate jump in turnovers in 2011. He also still played at 110 and 111 ORTG in November and January, so his offensive performance was still carrying through during the slump in the new year (though as you'll see below, his scoring efficiency plummeted to earth that month). Likewise, it behooves one to note that he was fielding a USG% of 33.5, 32.7 and 30.3 from Nov-Jan.
It likewise behooves one to break out Amare's TS% by month.
Oct: 53.2
Nov: 59.3
Dec: 58.4
Jan: 53.0 (9.0% TOV bolstering his ORTG alongside 9.1% ORB)
Feb: 59.0
Mar: 56.0
Apr: 51.5
So we do see a more marked drop-off once Melo arrived (and Mar/Apr represents 22 of the 25 games Melo played with New York, remember). More food for thought. Also, Amare's TS% in his first three games with Melo was 55.7%, so quite similar to his month of March which followed (3-game sample brought down by the middle game, but still).
Back to New York by month.
Feb: 5-5, 103.7, 95.3, 109.9, -.08
So, I guess the SRS trend isn't so important next to their declining offensive production. This is their worst month so far for offense, and if we assume that the team's DRTG was indeed at 110.1 as it was on the season, then we're looking at a mild negative differential now. Amare's efficiency was way down... the month before, but was back to 59% this month, but he was turning the ball over the place at 14.7% and he missed one of the 10 games, too. So the record isn't entirely shocking, per se. Before Melo's arrival on the 3rd, Amare played 6 of his games, posting 60.6% TS and a 108 ORTG against his 15.4% TOV.
Mar: 7-11, 106.3, 114.5, 92.0, 0.00
As much as anything else, this month showcased New York's inability to consistently play well at a low pace. Teams kept them under 90 possessions in 6 straight games, averaging 88.9. They won the first one with a wicked offensive outburst and promptly dropped the next 5, averaging 106.0 ORTG in the losses. The slow pace was not their friend, but outside of that stretch, they actually did very well and were otherwise 6-5 in the month.
Apr: 5-2, 109.9, 96.0, 114.4, -1.49
Welp, big offense. This is a good point to note that the team offense wasn't suffering at all in March or April, and that's got to do with Amare doing well, and the somewhat unheralded performance of Chauncey Billups (despite his poor shooting from the floor, the big foul draw and 90% from the line really helped, as well as his passing). He's spoken of very little in the Melo/New York/Amare talks, but he was definitely there.
And yeah, it seems New York was humming along just fine offensively. If I put that all together consecutively:
Oct: 1-2, 98, 96.2, 101.8, 0.13
Nov: 9-7, 108.7 ppg, 95.9 pace, 112.0 ORTG, -1.90
Dec: 8-5, 108.1 ppg, 96.4 pace, 111.6 ORTG, 0.38
Jan: 7-8, 105.1, 95.0, 110.8, 0.79
Feb: 5-5, 103.7, 95.3, 109.9, -.08
Mar: 7-11, 106.3, 114.5, 92.0, 0.00
Apr: 5-2, 109.9, 96.0, 114.4, -1.49
I was too lazy to write down opponent ORTG for these games, so I can't really track New York's defense that way, but I can give raw point differential and opponent FG%, etc by month, so here...
Opp PPG, PPG Diff, (Lg Opp PPG - NYK Opp PPG)
Oct: 99.3, -1.3, +0.3
Nov: 108.2, +0.5, -8.6
Dec: 106.6, +1.5, -7.0
Jan: 104.5, +0.6, -4.9
Feb: 103.9, -0.2, -4.3
Mar: 106.3, +0.0, -6.7
Apr: 104.9, +5.0, -5.3
Obviously, that third differential isn't really adjusted in a meaningful way, but New York's point differential wasn't doing them any favors compared to league average defenses. Obviously, their pace played a role, but the average point differential for teams with a DRTG better than league average was +3.3 and only three teams had offenses bad enough that they were that good on defense and still had a negative point differential.
New York happened to have the second-highest PPG in the league, so they had a +0.8 overall differential, despite their D.
I don't even know why I'm talking about this, I guess I just got excited while doing the numbers, lol.
And we can even do it this way:
Before Trade: 106.2 ppg, 95.6 pace, 110.7 ORTG, 28 W, 26 L (pace for ~ 43 W)
After Trade: 107.0 ppg, 93.7 pace, 113.8 ORTG, 14 W, 11 L (pace for ~ 46 W)
So just based on simple record projection, the team was winning more after the trade and the offense was humming along at 3.1 points per 100 possessions better than before hand. That speaks to your point about people misconstruing the trade as a bad thing for the team, when in fact adding Melo and Billups seemed to do very good things for the Knicks' offense.
But we do see that Amare's usage went down, we see a decline in his efficiency; clearly, the trade affected him. The fact that the Knicks got better had more to do with the fact that they gave up Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and Raymond Felton to get back Melo and Billups (in summarized form), both of whom were vastly superior to any of the players they gave up.
Felton -> Billups was a MASSIVE upgrade. Gallinari was a contentious trade piece who was scoring very efficiently but was injured with the Knicks and missed 20 games over the whole season, played only 43 games the year after and blew out his ACL in April of the 2013 season. He hasn't played since.
So there's a little give and take all over that trade. Chandler has played 8, 42 and 62 games since then, and has generally been injured his whole career anyway, just like Gallo was known to be fairly frail.
Anyway, the point of this whole rant was to explore the season in a more particular with/without Melo perspective. We can see that the trade did ultimately depress Amare's usage, and there is a concurrent drop in his efficiency over his time actually playing with Melo. Anyone with eyes could tell that the Knicks were going to have trouble prior to the trade because they couldn't really defend, Felton was kind of poop and they were relying otherwise on Wilson Chandler and Gallo, neither of whom are legitimate second-option type players.