Is Melo really A-rod?, Coach Cal and Santorum’s Etch A Sketch ...

Maybe from now until the end of the season, we are going to find out something pretty important about Carmelo Anthony:

Whether he is a franchise player or not. Be kind of nice to know. We know that he’s finally found his “energy” now that the Knicks have gotten rid of Mike D’antoni.

We know that he is even trying on defense, “trying to do everything at once,” one former coach of his said the other day.

We know that the Knicks pay him like a franchise player and traded away as many players as any team has ever traded for anybody to get him.

And everybody knows what kind of scorer he is, even though there hasn’t been a whole lot of that scoring lately, even under Mike Woodson. But is he a franchise player? Or is he really the A-rod of professional basketball, a guy with a world of talent who needs somebody else to be The Man. The Jets are not allowed to be surprised about anything that happens from here, good or bad, with Tebow anymore than Kris Humphries was surprised about anything that happened after he married a Kardashian on television and became a reality series.

It’s going to be kind of interesting, by the way, listening to Tebow walk himself back Monday from his original comments that he was just waiting to see which team he was going to end up with the way everybody else was earlier this week.

Especially now that John Elway says that Tebow was involved in the process all the live-long day.

Jets fans are allowed to come at this any way they want to, and even believe that this is simply about an upgrade at the backup position. Sure it is. Tell me what other backup in the whole wide world is already guaranteed snaps and playing time before he even gets a uniform.

Tell me what other starting quarterback in the NFL wants to go stand next to his coach for eight or nine or however many plays Tebow is going to get from week to week.

Whatever Tebow says, he came here because he thinks of himself as a starter in the NFL, and saw a chance to not just be a starter, but be one in New York. I know John Calipari a long time, all the way back to Umass, and like him, and those are only a couple of reasons why I want Kentucky to win it all this time.

The Wildcats nearly did last year, with a team not even close to the best teams Calipari has had in college basketball.

Brandon Knight had a threepointer in the air at the end of Kentucky’s semi against Uconn, and if it goes in, Kentucky would have beaten Butler as badly as Uconn did.

Now Cal is back, with more star freshmen, notably Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-gilchrist and Marquis Teague, getting them to play together and getting them to play defense every game.

He is a lot more than a recruiter, he happens to be as good a coach as there is in college basketball whether you like him or not, and I hope this is the year he stops being the guy who still hasn’t won a title.

At a time when coaches in college and the pros can’t get their guys to listen, Calipari does.

What Met fan out there wouldn’t have signed up — twice — for a spring like this from Johan Santana. I still keep hoping that Sergio Garcia, who is a genius with every club in his bag except a putter, can have the kind of bust-out weekend you need to have to close out a major.

Did anybody except me notice or care that a great American kid, a power forward named John Isner, got a match off Novak Djokovic the other week?

I can’t help it, every time I see Rick Santorum hold up that Etch A Sketch of his, I keep thinking how challenging the thing must be for him to actually use.

“The Mike Lupica Show” can be heard Monday through Friday at 2 p.m. on ESPN 1050.