Another New Knicks Attraction: Depth Just one month ago, the Knicks found themselves mired in a six-game skid - a streak punctuated by their double overtime loss to Denver on Jan. 21. In that home loss to the Nuggets, Josh Harrellson - the surprisingly productive second-round rookie forward - would sustain a wrist injury, further depleting what was already considered one of the thinnest rosters in the N.B.A. Entering the lockout-compressed season, the criticism leveled by many in the wake of last March's Carmelo Anthony trade continued to ring true: That the bounty of youth and talent the Knicks had sacrificed was too much to pay for what was in essence a one-dimensional "superstar." When the current season began, New York's roster featured three proven entities (Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, and Tyson Chanlder); a second-year player whose productivity had fallen off a cliff down the stretch of the previous season (Landry Fields); a third-year, streaky sparkplug miscast as the team's stopgap solution at the point (Toney Douglas); and a bench full of rookies and castoffs. The risks were obvious even then. With such a dearth of depth behind them, the Knicks" frontcourt was being charged with the near-impossible: Carry the scoring load for 40-plus minutes a game, night in and night out; through back-to-backs and back-to-back-to-backs; four games in five nights; five games in six; for 66 games in 123 days. Of course it was unsustainable. Of course it was asking too much. All of which is precisely what makes the Knicks" new-found depth so remarkable. If ever there was such a thing as a "fortunate injury," never had it found a more unlikely vehicle than in Josh Harrellson's shooting hand. If he hadn't taken that spill during the third quarter of the Nuggets game, there's a good chance Jeremy Lin would still be running point for the Erie BayHawks. Without Lin, you could make the case that the Knicks - winners of seven of nine games in this new, most unlikely of eras - wouldn't have had near the appeal to free agent gunner J.R. Smith, himself fresh off a multi-month rampage in China and eager to join a team in contention. In this Bizzaro World, Smith would have likely signed with the Clippers, in the market as they were for shooting guard prowess. Now, with Lin at the helm, a still-recovering Baron Davis finally fit for play, the arrival of Smith, the blossoming confidence of Steve Novak and Jared Jeffries, and the imminent return of Harrellson, the Knicks suddenly have depth at nearly every position. How flush are they? For the season, the Knicks are 21st in overall bench production. During the ten games of the Linsanity era, however, the Knicks rank sixth, with a 10.8 average point differential. Staring as they are down the barrel of one of the league's most brutal second-half schedules, such depth couldn't have come at a better time. Jim Cavan is a contributing writer at KnickerBlogger.net, a member of the ESPN TrueHoop network. You can find him on Twitter (@JPCavan).