Gudris wrote:Melo is good player, but he is not a leader, not a natural gifted leader, he is trying to be leader, but that is not the same, we need really strong leader

BRIGGS wrote:In THREE full years you should atleast be able to change the culture.

And you can.

In the NFL. Where most players can simply be cut without much repercussion. The one case where the massive salary guarantee from bonuses caused a problem was Albert Haynesworth in Washington. His signing bonus was so huge, his first three years were basically guaranteed deals, he knew it and loafed it accordingly.

The NBA talent base is HEIGHT DEPENDENT. Which narrows the pool down a ton. About 12 percent of all adult males in America are 6 feet or over. Think about the statistical odds of being 6'7, then again the odds of being that height with outstanding athleticism for that size.

I'm not saying finding an NFL QB is easy, it's very hard to find a young franchise QB. However if the requirements were that NFL QBs had to be 6'7 to compete, you'd find it a much different animal in terms of player power versus the league and versus ownership.

Vince Carter didn't learn to play team basketball until near the end of his career when he had no choice. Before that, he didn't have to, he could coast on natural talent. Lots of NBA players do that, coast, because they are talented enough to not have work harder and are too hard to replace because of the height dependency of the general talent pool.

Not as simple as getting a great coach or GM, you need your core player and franchise players to buy in and lead the process. Jackson can't hold a gun to Melo's head to play defense. Melo will play it or not play it, but it's not like the league is brimming with so much talent that they can just kick him off the team.

You demand change without understanding why the status quo exists in the first place. The most dangerous thing to any franchise's fanbase is a hard core fan who is not as clever as he thinks he is because he's not humble enough to see there's just a lot he doesn't know.

nixluva wrote:Melo should look for a playoff team he can go to and spend the rest of his career challenging for a title somewhere.

How is this possible?

If he ends up like Mitch Richmond ( end of career, on a tiny contract, out of the rotation but like a 10th or 11th man) then maybe as a pure ring chaser right before the end of his career.

But at this point, how?

He makes far too much money to not play defense and not be a pivot or a wing.

In order to hide his deficiencies, you need a complete team around him, to allow him to excel in his only functional role, as a scoring 6th man in isolation, which means multiple young players, operating above the norm for player development, all in their cost controlled rookie contracts to allow such a massive cap hit like his to occur in a capped environment.

You need essentially a total anomaly against how the NBA marketplace operates. And yet, in his career, it could have happened TWICE. Once if the Pistons drafted him instead of Darko, on a heavily defensive team. And second, with the Bulls, who spent most of two season clearing space just for him and were a strong defensive team. He had his chance and missed it.

There's a reason tons of teams are not beating down the door for him in a trade. He creates a massive number of negative trade offs and his limitations are tough to hide when factoring in the market place cost for pivots and wings to actually win in the modern NBA.