Amare is the centerpiece, but who will play center?

August, 31, 2010
8/31/10
4:17
PM ET
The Knicks' center situation could be the most interesting one heading into training camp. Call it the "Unpredictable Big 3." You have one center who hasn't even shown up at the Knicks practice facility (Eddy Curry), another who's a foreigner and has yet to play in the NBA (Timofey Mozgov) and a third who's averaged a paltry 3.9 rebounds for his career (Ronny Turiaf). So will start at center? Knicks beat writer, Alan Hahn, had this prediction on his Twitter feed: "Probably Turiaf, but I won't rule out Eddy Curry." With that said, now that David Lee has departed, who else will have to rebound the basketball (Newsday)?

Knicks notes:
  • The Carmelo Anthony saga continues on, this time with SNY.tv's Tommy Dee tweeting, "Source close to the situation: "#melo still has every intention of battling Miami as a Knick."
  • Knicks second-round pick Andy Rautins may be calling it early at the FIBA World Championship. He's dealing with knee issues (Newsday).
  • Here's video of Russia's Mozgov playing against Puerto Rico in Ankara, Turkey, at the World Championship (YouTube).
  • At least one of Donnie Walsh's wishes has come true. It's not LeBron-like, but in 2008, the Knicks' President of Basketball Operations was torn between drafting Danilo Gallinari and Anthony Randolph -- and now he's got both (New York Post).
  • Has Amare Stoudemire started a Jewish conversion trend in the NBA? Not quite yet. Brandon Jennings was asked if he'd practice Judaism, and his response was, "I'm staying Christian." Which led to him foreshadowing a future "Big 3." Jennings said, "Everybody's doing different stuff now. Everybody's teaming up now to try to beat Kobe, like Miami. You've got the Big 3 there, you've got the Big 3 in Boston. So I guess me, Tyreke Evans and Stephon Curry should all call each other in the next two years and try to hook up, and play on the same team" (TMZ.com).
Jared Zwerling is a senior researcher for ESPN The Magazine and a regular contributor to ESPN RISE. You can follow him on Twitter: @jaredzwerling

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TEAM LEADERS

POINTS
Carmelo Anthony
PTS AST STL MIN
22.6 3.6 1.1 34.1
OTHER LEADERS
ReboundsT. Chandler 9.9
AssistsJ. Lin 6.2
StealsI. Shumpert 1.7
BlocksT. Chandler 1.4

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