Jared Jeffries Named Knicks’ Starting Center

He’s of course not the ideal candidate to play the position, but Mike D’Antoni doesn’t have too many options on his roster, so Jared Jeffries will have to make due. From ESPN: “Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony are going to get all the ink. Jared Jeffries will go down as a footnote: The only member of the New York Knicks who failed to score a single point in their highest scoring game of the season, a 131-109 drubbing of the Utah Jazz. But Jeffries is more than a footnote. He will likely remain the starting center for New York for the remainder of the season, a mini-bombshell that coach Mike D’Antoni dropped before watching his superstar duo click together better than they had in any of the eight games since the epic MeloDrama ended with the blockbuster trade that bought Anthony to New York. ‘He’s a very good defensive player, he moves the ball, he understands what we want done, he gives us that multiple possessions on the offensive rebounding, tapping balls out. He’s just an energy guy that kind of glues everything together,’ D’Antoni said. ‘He’s a valuable piece for us although he doesn’t score, but he doesn’t have to. This team is a little bit different than a normal team. You don’t have to space the floor as much because you have such good individual players, so I just think it’s a perfect fit for us.'”