Uptown wrote:dk7th wrote:mrKnickShot wrote:Uptown wrote:mrKnickShot wrote:dk7th wrote:CrushAlot wrote:dk7th wrote:TeamBall wrote:dk7th wrote:TeamBall wrote:dk7th wrote: i just don't like players who are not aware that they are not as good as the hype. i don't like bryant either for the same reason. there's confidence and then there's conceitedness. he believes in his own hype and he plays like it.
What hype exactly? Before this season, barely anyone outside of NY thought Melo was any good due to the team's struggles at the time. If you add the fact that fans like TKF and yourself never thought he was that good to begin with, then there really wasnt much hype for him to believe in was it? If you're talking about this year's hype then I still dont see the problem since you just said that he is playing very well (though you attribute it solely to his 3 point shooting).
the stern-era nba is nothing if not a hype-machine. part of that machine is being grossly compensated and being surrounded by handlers, yes men, posses, etc. carmelo has been immersed in this nba hype-machine culture his entire life. think about that for a second-- his entire life he has been spoon fed the nba, inundated by the nba, and eventually immersed in the nba.
fans are not immune to the hype-machine. far from it. carmelo anthony has been similarly lauded for an all-star career and making the playoffs every year of his career by a majority of new york fans. that he has been a hugely divisive figure is proof of the extreme feelings... not the exactly what you are conveying here.
You can take out Carmelo and substitute it with several other players in the NBA and that paragraph would still hold true. But you're saying what makes him a "vain douche" is that he believes hes good at basketball?As for your other point, it doesnt really apply to me. As you can see from my username, I dont like to attribute a teams success to one individual (unless that actually is the case like Lebron's Cavs). Basketball is still a team sport. But that "hype-machine" you're referring to is still a little confusing to me. Until recently, Stern has long since abandoned trying to hype up Melo so is the hype just Knicks fans?
he is a good basketball player-- let's start there. but what i have been saying is that he believes he is better than he actually is, and plays as though he is better than he actually is. this has been a problem his entire career so far as i a concerned-- again my opinion. you can't have a "usage rate"/"ast rate" ratio like carmelo's and not come across as a selfish player. this season alone it's a whopping 3:1. this season his assist average is at a career low. during his most successful season do you know what that ratio was? 1.66:1 in 2008-2009.
you have a wonderful username. as you probably know i treasure teamwork and defense. let me ask you this: do you believe that melo thinks he makes others around him better on either end of the court? or a different question: do you believe that melo makes others around him better on either end of the court?
He is an undisputable top 5 player so far this season. Since the Howard foul he has dropped to two and then four in Sheridan's mvp rankings but obviously he has been hurt and the Knicks have missed him. How high do you think he was ranking himself? Best +1 for the last month of 2012 and the first month of '13. Or best for all of '13 so far. He has been rated 1 or 2 for the mvp race for every week he has been healthy this year.
i guess i don't think a guy with a winning mentality in a team sport thinks about his chances of winning the mvp. maybe bryant had been thinking about it since he is monomaniacal in his pursuit of jordan's 6 titles, however futile that is. but what ought to drive a player is not pursuit of the mvp but the pursuit of a title.
yes it is a regular-season award and yes it is apparently given to the best player on the team with one of the best records-- but ultimately winning in basketball is about how well you help others on your team play their best. historically it is tough for 3s and 4s to win. they are not positions from which facilitating and contributing to cohesiveness is as possible as from the traditional center or point guard position, with a few notable exceptions like bird, barkley, and garnett. even nowitzki's mvp season he had a better basic overall statline than melo does. on advanced stats he is also better than melo. garnett, barkley, and malone had higher assists and higher rebounds than melo does. even iverson's mvp season, whose game i never liked, had a 1.56 usg rate/ast rate ratio while melo's is a garish 3.3:1.
essentially what i am saying is that melo's chances of winning the mvp are directly linked to his facilitating abilities and the impression that, among voters, he is contributing to the team playing as a team and being instrumental in that ability to play as a team. because that seems to be the common thread in all mvp award winning. it's about helping others get their's as well as he getting his-- and he just doesn't do that well enough.
I agree with your post.
I don't care if is MVP or not. That is fodder for the haters to rag on him or for his defenders to defend.
I have said all along that I think that Melo is as could or could be as good as Paul Pierce and he has never one an MVP. What he did win is a finals MVP and that award is the one the I covet.
Melo is averaging a career low assists this year, the year people are stating that he is being more of a team player. Last season he was at his career high(ish) (3.6) and everyone thought that it was his most selfish year. Go Figure.
Just goes to show you that winning cures all and hides deficiencies. With that said, he handled the ball alot more last year, especially early on when we didn't have a pg. Melo is still moving the ball plenty this year, as is the whole team so his pass usually leads to the assist.
Yeah - I would love to see a hockey assist stat.
I don't think he is passing as much because his is in a shooting zone while last year he had less confidence in his shot
the ratio of usage rate to assist rate pretty much gives you an idea of how much he accrues the hockey assist stat. he has the ball in his hands on 34% of the team plays while he participates in an assist for a teammate 10.3%. it's hard to imagine he is getting a whole lot of those when the ratio is 3.3:1 and trending higher. kidd is at 0.63:1 which is closer to point guard territory and felton is at 0.85:1.
even bryant is at 1.37:1 which is close to his career average.
melo at 3.3:1 reinforces the iso melo image i'm afraid.
First, I imagine Kobe's assist numbers are up mainly because he's been playing without a pg all year, similar to Melo last year when his assist numbers were up. On top of that, Kobe has never played with a pure pg his whole career. Would love to see Kobe's assist numbers once Nash settles in.
Second, you do watch the games dont you? If your watching, you know that it has not been strictly iso Melo this year. Of course he will get his share of iso plays, but so does every elite player in the league. As far as his assists being down, how much do you contribute to the majority of his teammates having career lows in FG%?
Felton 39%
Novak 41%
Smith 41%
Brewer 37%
we were speaking of the hockey assist statistic, not an actual playmaking assist. with bryant this year, yes his assists had to go up with nash out. i expect them to go down somewhat with nash running things even if nash has to allow gasol to do what he wants to do-- which was the point of gasol sitting down with d'antoni to hash things out.
but for bryant's career-- bearing in mind the triangle offense helps the wing player to facilitate a bit-- bryant is still close to his career average of a usg rate/ast rate ratio of around 1.36:1. he still takes way too many bad shots which is why his TS% is too low, but his game nonetheless contributes to more offensive cohesion... as his usg/ast ratio would indicate.
i believe i have missed 3 games-- minn, la, cavs-- but yes i watch the games. it isn't strictly iso melo you're right-- and i think most if not all knick fans have given up on the idea that either melo or stat will average anywhere near to 4 assists per game-- but again, we are talking about the hockey assist, and the numbers indicate, as do my eyes, that melo is not contributing to offensive cohesion.
you then go on to list teammates, i assume with the playmaking assist in mind and not the hockey assist, and i am not sure you make a strong case as to their "missing shots" lowering his assists.
felton: he doesn't belong on your list because it is a given that he isn't being set up by melo.
novak: here you may have a point but lets see how often melo sets novak up, either directly or hockey wise. the way the offense works, if melo is drawing a double we mostly see novak on the weak side. right? if he isn't drawing a double how often does melo go iso?
smith: he is an awful decision-maker out there, basically a schoolyard chucker. i see no sympatico between him or melo in terms of playmaking for each other.
brewer: see novak
knicks win 38-43 games in 16-17. rose MUST shoot no more than 14 shots per game, defer to kp6 + melo, and have a usage rate of less than 25%
1/1/2013 2:09 PM
Just a little over the % when he first got to NY and shot more threes.