nyknickzingis wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

arkrud wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nyknickzingis wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

nyknickzingis wrote:

Vmart wrote:

fishmike wrote:

Vmart wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:I'd rather keep melo unless we get good value. Otherwise a good new role for him next year is still a good option

That's not an option. He has to go so the team can turn the corner and define the next franchise player/players; he is actually a detriment to their growth.

yes... giving him a new role and him accepting a new role are two different things. The latter isnt happening and to think it is is utter folly

The Knicks have tried to get Melo to change his game and are basically exhausted from asking him to change. Now the inevitable breaking point is here. How is he even going to change his role at this point. Another futile attempt to get him to buy in.

Melo's usage rate went up this year despite adding Rose Jennings

Link?

Go to basketball reference or NBA.com
Look up Melo advanced stats
His usage rate actually went up this season
Not by much
But shocking still

You add Rose, KP is better this year as a scorer and BJ is added ... Noah is a great passer yet Melo plays the EXACT same game. This is on Melo as well. Yes his team mates deserve blame but so does Melo.

I went to Fox and it didn't match what you said. That was why I asked for a link.

Usage is slightly less but in general he is same player... how anyone can expect otherwise?

Usage% 2pt%# 3pt%# eFG% OReb% DReb% Ast% Stl% Blk%
2015-16 New York Knicks SF 29.7 46.0 33.8 47.4 4.0 18.3 15.5 1.1 0.8
2014-15 New York Knicks SF 32.2 47.1 34.0 48.2 5.2 15.0 11.8 1.3 0.7

He was talking about this year with Rose/Jennings. You are right about the same player though. The difference is one tenth. On nba.com he is plus 1/10 on Fox he is minus 1/10. I don't know why there is a difference or who is more accurate as a site but I wouldn't bring it up as a fault of Melo's. Both teams suck and have one guy that get buckets.

Wait what?
We suck defensively which Melo is also a part of the problem of.

On offense we are fine. We have enough scorers that if Melo shared the ball, aimed to play a 18 points/5 assists game that Rose and KP would be able to more as would Lee. The team would have been even better on offense, and maybe with sharing the ball they play more defense.

I know this team is not any good but it's not a team that Melo has to carry at all. He chooses to play this way. This team has a 18 point a night scorer in KP who is being underused and Rose is scoring at will on drives. Lee is one of the best shooters in the league. Come on, Melo does not have to carry this team. He chooses to play this way because it is who he is. His assists are DOWN this year. We are scoring more points, taking more shots than last year. Yet his assists are down. The reason is not that he can't pass, it's that he is not interested in playing a game like that. He loves to isolate, hold the ball long and stall the game into getting his rhythm. It makes him look good, great even at times. However it hurts teammates effectiveness and ryhthm. The best he plays is when he plays like Dad Melo. Which is not consistent at all this season. Last season in the first half he was playing great. He was in dad Melo mode. Had career high in assists. That's part of the reason the team did so well at 22-22.

Melo's who he is. I've accepted it. It makes building a team around him very tough. You may just have to go the Sixers/Allen Iverson route where you build a defensive team that caters to a ball dominant isolation scorer. Phil didn't try to build this kind of team and it was a mistake for the short run but it was also because those kind of teams would never win a title. Teams that win a title have 2-3 players sharing the ball and playing at a very high level and role players that play great off them.

nyknickzingis wrote:I think Phil made the mistake of thinking Melo would adapt to team ball and play in a system similar to that of San Antonio or Golden State. What Hornachek is running is a modern version of the Triangle with more pick and rolls. The thing is we don't consistently run it, we often go into isolation mode. Kristaps said it many times as have others. That's what the team does not play 36-40 minutes of system ball. They'll run it half a game then revert into isolation ball.

To run a good clean consistent system like that you need perimeter players that will move the ball and move off the ball. Melo stays in one spot usually (Not much of an off the ball mover) and loves to hold on to the ball. The teams that Phil had coached had players like Melo (better players but similar in that they had great isolation skills) but whom figured out how to get their points within the system and also allow teammates to succeed in the team's system.

I do concede the other part of your post, Crush. Yes Phil should have built a defensive team around Melo if he was signing Melo to a NTC, 5 year deal. If Phil wasn't interested in building a team like that he should have never kept Melo. However once again, I think Phil believed Melo would do what Kobe did and that's change his game a little for the system. The funny thing is Melo did, for a quarter of a season last year. He was leading the team in assists at one point, had career low in points per game. The team which was less talented than this year's team was playing better with dad Melo. He has it in him, but he reverts and refuses to play like that on a consistent basis.

The real bummer is Melo has all the tools and skills to be a 20 point 5 assist a night player who plays great in a system. He refuses to play this way. All his coaches have said this. From D'Antoni. Georeg Karl. Hornachek won't say it now, but I bet you after he's not coaching Melo, he'll cop to it as well. The right way for the team this year was to allow Rose/Jennings to call the shots and Melo to take a big backseat. He didn't do that. He came into the season to score and shoot, and continue his 23+ ppg career average. That's fine, but I also see why Phil had enough and put him on the block. At some point a player has to prioritize winning. Melo neither cares about winning in terms of his style of play, nor the city he plays in. He is fine being a great scorer on a bad team in NY rest of his career. How can anyone support that as your franchise guy? I just don't get it.

nyknickzingis wrote:I think Phil made the mistake of thinking Melo would adapt to team ball and play in a system similar to that of San Antonio or Golden State.

I think Phil Jackson had designs to run the LA Lakers. But Young Idiot Buss won the power struggle with his sister, and Jackson would not be the default show runner with Jeannie Buss handling the business side of the franchise.

The Knicks had a "clumsy" roster. He said so himself before they offered him a boat load of cash. He took a cushy retirement plan with the Knicks, if he failed, which he was likely to do in this situation, he could blame Dolan and Melo for it. ( Not that he'd be wrong in that regard)

I think Jackson knew exactly what Melo was and was not ( i.e. a selfish shotjacker who refuses to play defense and team basketball) and simply let it all ride out as he expected while cashing fat checks.

Melo has gotten pretty much everything he has wanted from the Knicks, and where has it gotten the franchise?

yellowboy90 wrote:What is really interesting is that Melo is putting up numbers close to his NY Playoff days when it comes to shooting . The real problem is he is not getting to the line as much. However, if he continues on the track he has been on these last two months he will be at a respectable level. He really needs to work on becoming a top notch Ft shooter now that he is older and not getting to the line as much. He needs to be 89%+ or higher. I do agree with Dakich though that Melo really gets beat up and that probably impacts his FT shooting.
His defense leaves a lot to be desired. I think Rambis has bad everyone a worse defender but Melo has not given enough effort on most nights on that side of the ball.

RE: Phil's Roster construction

What I was hoping for was a team that Portland built around Aldridge. When you have a stationary player you build a team around him that moves. When he isolates there still needs to be players that cut and set screens for each other on the weak side to create clearer passing lanes.

Been saying this for weeks, when he gets that ball in his sweet spot, everybody stops moving, ,he waits a few seconds for the double to come and by then the passing lanes are are narrow, and little margin for error.