MSG3 wrote:LeBron hasn't won ****. Carmelo carried a Syracuse team to a title. Not saying Melo is better but he's had more success in his career than LeBron. Melo belongs in the discussion with all the players mentioned above, save for Kobe who is a cut above the rest. Carmelo is a top 10 player in this league. Put him with Amare and Felton you have a contender. Add a big man and you might have a favorite.
I basically agree here..I just don't buy this 'we already score enough points' stuff, sorry.. Far be it for me to say that we couldn't use one of the best offensive players in the sport if he were to ever become available to us..It astonishes me how some people on this board are going out of there way and going to such great lengths to put this guy down..MSG3 just said it--Carmelo Anthony is a top 10 player in this game who's right smack in his prime (just to keep his age in perspective, Melo's almost 2 years younger than Stoudemire). Forget the drop in shooting percentage this year (and even then, he's only down 2.5% -- his rebounding however is way up at 8.1 rpg, how 'bout that?) -- the dude is still bringing it every night despite playing out a real tough situation. For his career this man's sitting at 24.6 ppg on 46% overall from the field. Offensively speaking, that's right there with Kobe Bryant, a guy I still consider to be the best player in the league. There's only a handful of players in this league that can score the ball like that..The man is a franchise talent that would without question make our team better -- I don't see how you could even argue it..The whole thing is not giving up too much in a trade to bring him here. If we can succeed in accomplishing that, adding him is as big a no-brainer as I've ever come across. And I agree about Felton, a move like this should make him an even better player.
We scored 121 pts yesterday but against a subpar team..And not for anything but against another bad team the previous game, the Kings, we only scored 83 pts..So where's the offensive consistency?? Bottom line: Scoring points against PHX, a team that plays zero defense, is one thing but we're not scoring 120 ppg against quality teams from here on in, regular season and in the playoffs. ESPECIALLY in the playoffs if we're lucky enough to finally get back there..We put up a lot of pts against Utah the other night but that was more anomaly than norm -- we play at a semi-fast pace to begin with so we're gonna score some points and we had two reserve wings shoot the lights out (not consistently mind you, only at different stages in the game [Walker early, Williams later on] not the whole way through and not down the stretch when we needed it most). That's not gonna be there every night as we're seeing now---conversely, Carmelo Anthony's offense WOULD BE THERE ALL THE TIME, EVERY NIGHT and against ANYONE trying to guard him. That's the difference as far as I'm concerned.
This team played poorly yesterday..Very poorly. I don't care that we scored 121 pts yesterday, big deal -- we were never in control of that game at any point. Other than Amar'e, where were the consistent points coming from, esp. down the stretch?? We were never in control of the Sacramento game either -- two bad losses on our home floor. Same deal with the Utah game..That's 3 in a row, games where the offense completely stalled at the worse possibly time..I'm not saying there weren't other contibuting factors at play -- of course we still need more size & skill, better defense and better rebounding -- I've been saying that from day 1..But consistent scoring at crucial points of the game is still very much a concern as well..With Melo, we're talking about adding a bonafide STAR player that would help us take control of games like these with his dominant scoring. I'm all for adding this guy if the price makes sense. Absolutely..
Let's break it down individually just to get a better sense: Amar'e's gonna get his every night but as we've seen, there will be some nights where he's gonna struggle to get there, esp. if he's continually asked to shoulder the entire burden in crunch time..Nobody else is a consistent offensive threat on any kind of a big-time level -- NO ONE -- not Gallinari, not Chandler, not Fields (not yet anyway -- I for one wanna see this kid shoot the ball much more), not Toney Douglas and like we've been seeing lately, not even Ray Felton, unfortuately..They're all capable offensive players on any given night, but none of them are guys that you can count on to go out there and dominate a 4th quarter on any kind of a consistent basis and lead the team to victory..They definitely could use another consistent offensive threat as part of the attack, regardless of position. To me that's also very much a need here, just as much as finding a way to add more skilled size, rebounding and defense.
