Shane Larkin holding his own as he steps in for the injured Jose Calderon

Not only has Shane Larkin been thrust into starting duty for the Knicks, but he has been holding his own amid quite the four-game trial by fire against some of the best point guards in the NBA.

Larkin, filling in for injured starter Jose Calderon, has fared well in the Knicks’ split of his first two career starts against Derrick Rose and the Bulls and Kyrie Irving of the Cavaliers. His next two matchups will be with Charlotte’s Kemba Walker on Sunday and Washington’s John Wall on Tuesday, both at the Garden.

“Yeah, those are all All-Star caliber guys so as a second year guy coming off an up and down rookie season with an injury being able to be thrown into that type of fire and just go out there and play, it’s a great experience for me,” Larkin said after practice Saturday in Greenburgh. “Going against some of the top players in the league, it’s just going to make me better.”

Larkin, 22, added that his dad — baseball Hall of Famer Barry Larkin — was unable to attend either of the Knicks’ first two games due to his TV commitments during the World Series. But he’s doing just fine on his own.

Obtained from Dallas over the summer following an injury-plagued rookie season, Larkin said that he didn’t feel slighted that the Knicks declined to pick up his $1.68 million third-year option by Friday’s deadline, making him an unrestricted free agent next summer.

“I mean, that’s a business deal,” said Larkin, who is averaging 7.5 points, 4 assists, 3 steals and 1.5 turnovers through two games. “Obviously they want to build a championship team here and they need as much money as they can next summer to be able to bring in the big free agents that they’re looking at.

“It’s not like they told me, like, ‘we don’t see you as part of our future, we don’t want you, da-da-da-da…If that was the case I’d be sitting on the bench. So obviously, they want to see what I have.”

With Calderon expected to miss at least 2-to-3 weeks with a calf injury he aggravated during warmups before the season opener Wednesday against the Bulls, Larkin’s opportunity to help run the Knicks’ triangle offense will continue.

“Shane has been really good for us,” first-year coach Derek Fisher said of the former Miami Hurricanes star. “To think about a young guy that didn’t have a preseason or a training camp last year (due to a leg injury), misses a lot of games, gets traded over the summer, new team, new coach, new way of playing basketball, 10 minutes before opening night, almost in some ways, finds out that he’s the starting point guard for the New York Knicks, that’s a lot.

“And he has handled himself extremely well. He has been good for our team, not just controlling the basketball and making solid decisions but defensively being scrappy and aggressive out there.”


(nydailynews.com)