dk7th wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

dk7th wrote:

EnySpree wrote:We need to appreciate what we have in Melo not trash him for what he can't do. We need what he can do to succeed right now. If they can get the team around him to function we should do that.

the more he cannot do the less he should be paid and the fewer players should have been traded for him. we did both but yeah lets "appreciate" what we have.

what have we had, again? the last 4 years have been...?

apparently your in the minority,

what the heck has any player every done for the knicks in the past 40+ years, take, take, take.

the problem has never been the individual player, it's the roster that they put around their high price players all the way back to King..Ewing may have kept us a playoff contender, but it was more heart broken then, the finger roles, the injuries, the fights, the lame ass pg's, the 2 for 18 starks, the hobbled allan houston, the camby sisters hostage situation.

The franchise hasn't gotten right, and has been hit with more bad luck, then black cats, broken mirrors, and splitting poles..smh

my issue with melo and ewing, regardless of the front office, is that both overrated themselves, asked for too much for their services, and never worked on expanding their games sufficiently. these three things are deeply intertwined but the root problem of the three remains a stubborn egocentricity.

some will say ewing was proud, a proud warrior, etc. and that's fine if you want to make him some sort of heroic person. i don't see it that way. but this ego clouded his judgement and made him less pragmatic than he could have been.

melo is just a lesser version.

I agree with your statement.

One might say the same stubbornness that creates greatness also exists with Pat Riley, Pop, Larry Brown and Phil.
SOme think Phil is inflexible given last season but we have also seen a purpose to this past summer which a team is being created. Its just a start of a long process.
The Triangle and his philosophy has put him at the top of the coaching world. No other man has coached in the pro's with success equal to his.

He signed melo to put him on the floor, if it don't work he'll trade him and melo I imagine will be happy too. To let him walk would have been a mistake.
If he is resigned to triangulate his career and give himself to the system why not give him the opportunity to do so. I doubt he gets 5 or Six rings as Jordan and Kobe have, but if one can be done so be it.

Delusional or hopeful. Color me either.

TripleThreat wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:Did you read the article?

Yes, I did.

Now read this one.

http://www.aol.com/article/2015/01/06/despite-what-carmelo-anthony-thinks-he-is-wildly-overrated/21125567

Despite what Carmelo Anthony thinks, he is wildly overrated
FanSided
Clint PembertonJan 6th 2015 12:03PM

When Carmelo Anthony called himself the "most underrated superstar that's out there" he was partially correct, there is undoubtedly a significant disparity between perception and performance as it relates to the New York Knicks star, just not in the way he thinks.

Take a look at Melo's career:

2003-11 Denver Nuggets, 2011-Present New York Knicks, Drafted 3rd (Syracuse)
7x All-Star, 2x All-NBA Second Team, 4x All-NBA Third Team, 1x NBA Scoring Champion

In the NBA there are no secrets, just hidden truths, and with the continued evolution of advanced metrics those hidden truths don't remain hidden for long. However truth is not completely self-evident in today's NBA, therefore public perception of some players is incongruous to their actual skills or production. It's why some NBA players are underrated and also why alleged "superstar" Carmelo Anthony is wildly overrated.

Carmelo Anthony can score just about as consistently and as often as anyone in the NBA. He averages 25.2 points per game, the 12th best mark in NBA history and was the league's leading scorer in 2012-13, never finishing a season lower than eighth on the scoring list.

Despite perennially being among the leaders in points per game and topping the scoring list in 2012-13, Anthony's actual contributions to winning games in the NBA materially underwhelms his reputation. With only one top five placing in MVP voting (2012-13, third), two top 10 seasons in PER (a fourth and a seventh), Melo has never had a season that finished in the top 20 in the NBA in VORP, only once has he finished in the top 20 in Box Plus Minus and he has authored exactly zero season where his Win Shares per 48 Minutes ranked in the top 20.

2013-14 was Anthony's career season in terms of Win Shares with 10.7, however that number ranked 13th in the NBA and it's not just a matter of a few percentage points here or there between 13th and first. Kevin Durant topped the list with 19.2 Win Shares, LeBron James was second with 15.9 and in total five players had season Win Share numbers 20% or better than Melo.

Anthony's usage rate (estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor) consistently sits among the league leaders, not finishing lower than fifth in the NBA in a full season and not dropping below 30% since 2004-05 his second year in the league.

This presents a problem because Anthony does little else productive with the ball other than shoot it, which he does often, averaging between 18-22 FGA (Field Goal Attempts) per game in every year except his second. Anthony has never finished lower than sixth in the NBA in FGA and has never finished outside the top 10 in free throws attempted.

Last season Anthony produced only 6.2 assist opportunities per game, which ranked 94th in the NBA while genuine superstars with very similar usage rates LeBron James and Kevin Durant produced 12.0 and 10.3 opportunities respectively. That's a whole world of non-productive usage for Melo.

The only metric where Carmelo Anthony is elite is scoring, but even this is more volume related than efficiency related. The average NBA player in 2013-14 had an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of 50.1%, Melo's eFG% was 50.3%, slightly better than average but hardly elite. What does elite look like? Try LeBron James 61.0%, Steph Curry 56.6% and Kevin Durant 56.0%.

Anthony defenders will try to point to the Knicks having a significantly weaker supporting cast than James, Curry and Durant which hasn't always been the case. However those same three names feature atop ESPN.com's Offensive Real Plus Minus stat for 2013-14, which measures a team's offensive performance adjusted for teammates and opponents. Melo finished 18th on that offensive metric and 289th on defense.

Anthony and defense are rarely mentioned in the same sentence and there are good reasons why. Melo has never posted a positive DBPM (Defensive Box Plus Minus) and every year bar one has been negative, meaning that on average, Anthony's defensive contributions while on the court are negative or worse than the average player as per Basketball-Reference.com.

Carmelo Anthony has been the best player on teams that made the playoffs every year he was in the league barring last year and inevitably this year. However in those ten playoff trips Melo's teams have lost in the first-round eight times, the second round once and made only a solitary trip to the conference finals.

One of the knocks on Anthony is his teams haven't won a title, however evaluating players based on rings alone is a flawed and oversimplified narrative. Winning a championship is extremely difficult and requires considerable luck and good timing. There are 30 NBA teams and only one goes home happy every year. The list of best players never to win a title is long and illustrious and includes players generally perceived as superstars; Karl Malone, Elgin Baylor, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson and many others.

Statistically Anthony has had one season throughout the entirety of his career when a reasonable argument could be made that he might have been the third best player in the league. However when considering all components of the game it is difficult to argue that Anthony has even been consistently a top ten player throughout his career.

Overrated is an emotive term, but it needn't be. Being overrated doesn't mean that a player is bad, it simply means that their reputation exceeds their related contributions towards winning basketball games. Anthony's contribution is overrated because he excels at the most basic, obvious and quantifiable basketball skill; putting the ball in the hoop.

Basketball however is about much more than simply scoring, and for this reason Melo must be graded a level below the superstars of his era. In fact Basketball-Reference.com's similarity score through 11 seasons in Win Shares lists Anthony's best comparatives are Rasheed Wallace, A.C. Green and Otis Thorpe. Good players all but hardly superstars!

Despite what Carmelo Anthony thinks he's not a superstar and he is most definitely not underrated.

Carmelo Anthony might be a superstar scorer, but that's a very different thing to being a superstar player.

CrushAlot wrote:Older article but backs up some of what the original article says about Anthony.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-carmelo-anthony-is-the-ultimate-team-player-and-what-advanced-stats-miss-about-him/

i have never bought into silver's perspective.

firstly winning 48 games even in a loaded western conference means less than he wants it to for the mere fact that: the league is diluted and half the teams are going to be below .500 teams that a slightly better than mediocre team should beat. and frankly, given the melo-nuggets almost complete underachieving in the playoffs, we should not look at 48 regular-season wins as any major accomplishment. yet silver uses this amount of regular-season winning as a premise for the rest of the article.

in particular this material about carmelo making others more efficient while he himself remains inefficient is counter-intuitive in the extreme to the point that i have to question the validity of these statistics. silver left out the relationship between usage rate and efficiency and the ability to make others more efficient. any decent offensive player should have this effect on his teammates, moreover be an efficient offensive player himself and with a strong TS%.

again, in my opinion the trouble is that with anthony his usage rate is through the roof and though he allegedly makes others more efficient in the regular season by his presence, he should be making them better than he does given how much of the time the ball is in his hands, and doing so through a higher assist average.

long story short the issue remains: how well does carmelo's game (1) mesh with others and (2) how much better does he ACTIVELY make his teammates given his absurdly high usage rate? the answer is (1) "not very well" and (2) "not enough," respectively. your best player should be better at making others better and if he doesn't then you can certainly expect more failure than success in the playoffs where you play better than average teams.

does anyone envision carmelo adjusting his game without becoming disgruntled or envision fisher adapting his offense to suit the proclivities of carmelo anthony? i sure as hell don't. hence we could be in for a wild ride this season. maybe melo has grown up some... i see him as pretty infantile.

dk7th wrote:long story short the issue remains: how well does carmelo's game (1) mesh with others and (2) how much better does he ACTIVELY make his teammates given his absurdly high usage rate? the answer is (1) "not very well" and (2) "not enough," respectively. your best player should be better at making others better and if he doesn't then you can certainly expect more failure than success in the playoffs where you play better than average teams.

does anyone envision carmelo adjusting his game without becoming disgruntled or envision fisher adapting his offense to suit the proclivities of carmelo anthony? i sure as hell don't. hence we could be in for a wild ride this season. maybe melo has grown up some... i see him as pretty infantile.

Melo Shot 47.4% from Mid Range last year. He scored at 1.199 PPS. If he had shot the 3 ball like he has in recent years he would've had a great individual season.

Melo's game for the most part fits very well into the Triangle. The plays that he's best at running are built into the basic format of the Triangle. It's not necessary to make any adjustments to the Triangle for Melo. All Melo has to do is play and he'll end up in his one on one situations in prime spots on the floor. Melo is best working out of the Pinch Post where he's in a 2 man game and can be the post man or the ball handler. He's deadly in that scenario.

The biggest issue last year is the guard play. We simply must have credible guard play so that Melo can play fast rather than try to take things in his own hands and force offense going ISO or one on 3. The better everyone else plays the easier and more efficiently Melo will play as he sticks to catch and shoot, drive or One on One looks in rhythm. Melo isn't going to be a problem as long as the rest of the team is functioning as it should.

holfresh wrote:

dk7th wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

dk7th wrote:

EnySpree wrote:We need to appreciate what we have in Melo not trash him for what he can't do. We need what he can do to succeed right now. If they can get the team around him to function we should do that.

the more he cannot do the less he should be paid and the fewer players should have been traded for him. we did both but yeah lets "appreciate" what we have.

what have we had, again? the last 4 years have been...?

apparently your in the minority,

what the heck has any player every done for the knicks in the past 40+ years, take, take, take.

the problem has never been the individual player, it's the roster that they put around their high price players all the way back to King..Ewing may have kept us a playoff contender, but it was more heart broken then, the finger roles, the injuries, the fights, the lame ass pg's, the 2 for 18 starks, the hobbled allan houston, the camby sisters hostage situation.

The franchise hasn't gotten right, and has been hit with more bad luck, then black cats, broken mirrors, and splitting poles..smh

my issue with melo and ewing, regardless of the front office, is that both overrated themselves, asked for too much for their services, and never worked on expanding their games sufficiently. these three things are deeply intertwined but the root problem of the three remains a stubborn egocentricity.

some will say ewing was proud, a proud warrior, etc. and that's fine if you want to make him some sort of heroic person. i don't see it that way. but this ego clouded his judgement and made him less pragmatic than he could have been.

melo is just a lesser version.

Have you ever thought it's what has made them who they are..It's that stubbornness that drives their careers...They aren't the greatest athletes, they weren't chiseled from Mount Olympus.. I think it's great...I never wanted MJ and I don't want LeBron on my team...I wish we had more guys like Ewing on our team, we would have won...Guys like Ewing and Melo thinks they can beat MJ and LeBrons of the world...I want these guys on my team..They are the underdog and they come to fight..Melo has gotten better over the years...He is stubborn and wants to win...I can't ask for more...

As for Jordan, the guy was one of the great competitors of all time-in any sport, and was able to have an impact in every aspect of the game. Not many prolific scorers have been as intense on the defensive end like he was. There was nobody more stubborn than this guy- he took it personally if you scored on him. Hated the guy, but respected him on the court. Had an ego, but it fueled his competitiveness.

Kobe is more like Jordan than James, IMO, but James has some of the same competitiveness in him.

For one reason or another, Anthony is not in the conversation with Jordan, Ewing, or Lebron as a player.

He has his moments...usually as a scorer- but his limitations as a player are significant, and his defensive deficiencies are telling.

WaltLongmire wrote:

holfresh wrote:

dk7th wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

dk7th wrote:

EnySpree wrote:We need to appreciate what we have in Melo not trash him for what he can't do. We need what he can do to succeed right now. If they can get the team around him to function we should do that.

the more he cannot do the less he should be paid and the fewer players should have been traded for him. we did both but yeah lets "appreciate" what we have.

what have we had, again? the last 4 years have been...?

apparently your in the minority,

what the heck has any player every done for the knicks in the past 40+ years, take, take, take.

the problem has never been the individual player, it's the roster that they put around their high price players all the way back to King..Ewing may have kept us a playoff contender, but it was more heart broken then, the finger roles, the injuries, the fights, the lame ass pg's, the 2 for 18 starks, the hobbled allan houston, the camby sisters hostage situation.

The franchise hasn't gotten right, and has been hit with more bad luck, then black cats, broken mirrors, and splitting poles..smh

my issue with melo and ewing, regardless of the front office, is that both overrated themselves, asked for too much for their services, and never worked on expanding their games sufficiently. these three things are deeply intertwined but the root problem of the three remains a stubborn egocentricity.

some will say ewing was proud, a proud warrior, etc. and that's fine if you want to make him some sort of heroic person. i don't see it that way. but this ego clouded his judgement and made him less pragmatic than he could have been.

melo is just a lesser version.

Have you ever thought it's what has made them who they are..It's that stubbornness that drives their careers...They aren't the greatest athletes, they weren't chiseled from Mount Olympus.. I think it's great...I never wanted MJ and I don't want LeBron on my team...I wish we had more guys like Ewing on our team, we would have won...Guys like Ewing and Melo thinks they can beat MJ and LeBrons of the world...I want these guys on my team..They are the underdog and they come to fight..Melo has gotten better over the years...He is stubborn and wants to win...I can't ask for more...

I would never put Anthony and Ewing in the same category. Always felt that Ewing fell in love with the jumper a bit too much, neglected to refine his game in the post, and he was never a good passer, but he had a significant impact on both sides of the court, and played with intensity.

As for Jordan, the guy was one of the great competitors of all time-in any sport, and was able to have an impact in every aspect of the game. Not many prolific scorers have been as intense on the defensive end like he was. There was nobody more stubborn than this guy- he took it personally if you scored on him. Hated the guy, but respected him on the court. Had an ego, but it fueled his competitiveness.

Kobe is more like Jordan than James, IMO, but James has some of the same competitiveness in him.

For one reason or another, Anthony is not in the conversation with Jordan, Ewing, or Lebron as a player.

He has his moments...usually as a scorer- but his limitations as a player are significant, and his defensive deficiencies are telling.

so you will except every other players flaws(ewing), but ooohh nooo, melo has to be perfect, if not he's over paid.

Like i keep saying, every super star, avg star, avg player,has flaws. There are a rare few like, jordan, hakeem, barkley, kobe, russel, malone, who bring it on both ends every night and are very versatile.

The prolific scorers and superior defenders for guys like Mutumbo, melo, Ewing,ect who can completely dominate on one end are not to be taken for granted. If you have a player like the latter, then management needs to be smart on how you incorporate other players to compliment them, weather thats bringing in more offense, or more defense depending on the player.

I'm done wishing for players in their prime to change their game, and develop into something their just not good at, just balance your roster

WaltLongmire wrote:

holfresh wrote:

dk7th wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

dk7th wrote:

EnySpree wrote:We need to appreciate what we have in Melo not trash him for what he can't do. We need what he can do to succeed right now. If they can get the team around him to function we should do that.

the more he cannot do the less he should be paid and the fewer players should have been traded for him. we did both but yeah lets "appreciate" what we have.

what have we had, again? the last 4 years have been...?

apparently your in the minority,

what the heck has any player every done for the knicks in the past 40+ years, take, take, take.

the problem has never been the individual player, it's the roster that they put around their high price players all the way back to King..Ewing may have kept us a playoff contender, but it was more heart broken then, the finger roles, the injuries, the fights, the lame ass pg's, the 2 for 18 starks, the hobbled allan houston, the camby sisters hostage situation.

The franchise hasn't gotten right, and has been hit with more bad luck, then black cats, broken mirrors, and splitting poles..smh

my issue with melo and ewing, regardless of the front office, is that both overrated themselves, asked for too much for their services, and never worked on expanding their games sufficiently. these three things are deeply intertwined but the root problem of the three remains a stubborn egocentricity.

some will say ewing was proud, a proud warrior, etc. and that's fine if you want to make him some sort of heroic person. i don't see it that way. but this ego clouded his judgement and made him less pragmatic than he could have been.

melo is just a lesser version.

Have you ever thought it's what has made them who they are..It's that stubbornness that drives their careers...They aren't the greatest athletes, they weren't chiseled from Mount Olympus.. I think it's great...I never wanted MJ and I don't want LeBron on my team...I wish we had more guys like Ewing on our team, we would have won...Guys like Ewing and Melo thinks they can beat MJ and LeBrons of the world...I want these guys on my team..They are the underdog and they come to fight..Melo has gotten better over the years...He is stubborn and wants to win...I can't ask for more...

I would never put Anthony and Ewing in the same category. Always felt that Ewing fell in love with the jumper a bit too much, neglected to refine his game in the post, and he was never a good passer, but he had a significant impact on both sides of the court, and played with intensity.

As for Jordan, the guy was one of the great competitors of all time-in any sport, and was able to have an impact in every aspect of the game. Not many prolific scorers have been as intense on the defensive end like he was. There was nobody more stubborn than this guy- he took it personally if you scored on him. Hated the guy, but respected him on the court. Had an ego, but it fueled his competitiveness.

Kobe is more like Jordan than James, IMO, but James has some of the same competitiveness in him.

For one reason or another, Anthony is not in the conversation with Jordan, Ewing, or Lebron as a player.

He has his moments...usually as a scorer- but his limitations as a player are significant, and his defensive deficiencies are telling.

You guys have to stop the BS about Melo's defense..You lose me bcause I think u don't know what you are talking about..He isn't the greatest defender but he plays defense..People who don't watch him play every night will say that because they read it and it's easy to get people to agree with them..But you who claim to watch the Knicks and say Melo don't play defense it's either you don't watch the games or you are just lying...Dirk and Nash are two of the consistently worst defenders every to play the game, yet they don't have that label..Melo is a much better defender than both yet he has the label...You think it's a little press running with it??...

ChuckBuck wrote:

holfresh wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:

holfresh wrote:

dk7th wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

dk7th wrote:

EnySpree wrote:We need to appreciate what we have in Melo not trash him for what he can't do. We need what he can do to succeed right now. If they can get the team around him to function we should do that.

the more he cannot do the less he should be paid and the fewer players should have been traded for him. we did both but yeah lets "appreciate" what we have.

what have we had, again? the last 4 years have been...?

apparently your in the minority,

what the heck has any player every done for the knicks in the past 40+ years, take, take, take.

the problem has never been the individual player, it's the roster that they put around their high price players all the way back to King..Ewing may have kept us a playoff contender, but it was more heart broken then, the finger roles, the injuries, the fights, the lame ass pg's, the 2 for 18 starks, the hobbled allan houston, the camby sisters hostage situation.

The franchise hasn't gotten right, and has been hit with more bad luck, then black cats, broken mirrors, and splitting poles..smh

my issue with melo and ewing, regardless of the front office, is that both overrated themselves, asked for too much for their services, and never worked on expanding their games sufficiently. these three things are deeply intertwined but the root problem of the three remains a stubborn egocentricity.

some will say ewing was proud, a proud warrior, etc. and that's fine if you want to make him some sort of heroic person. i don't see it that way. but this ego clouded his judgement and made him less pragmatic than he could have been.

melo is just a lesser version.

Have you ever thought it's what has made them who they are..It's that stubbornness that drives their careers...They aren't the greatest athletes, they weren't chiseled from Mount Olympus.. I think it's great...I never wanted MJ and I don't want LeBron on my team...I wish we had more guys like Ewing on our team, we would have won...Guys like Ewing and Melo thinks they can beat MJ and LeBrons of the world...I want these guys on my team..They are the underdog and they come to fight..Melo has gotten better over the years...He is stubborn and wants to win...I can't ask for more...

I would never put Anthony and Ewing in the same category. Always felt that Ewing fell in love with the jumper a bit too much, neglected to refine his game in the post, and he was never a good passer, but he had a significant impact on both sides of the court, and played with intensity.

As for Jordan, the guy was one of the great competitors of all time-in any sport, and was able to have an impact in every aspect of the game. Not many prolific scorers have been as intense on the defensive end like he was. There was nobody more stubborn than this guy- he took it personally if you scored on him. Hated the guy, but respected him on the court. Had an ego, but it fueled his competitiveness.

Kobe is more like Jordan than James, IMO, but James has some of the same competitiveness in him.

For one reason or another, Anthony is not in the conversation with Jordan, Ewing, or Lebron as a player.

He has his moments...usually as a scorer- but his limitations as a player are significant, and his defensive deficiencies are telling.

You guys have to stop the BS about Melo's defense..You lose me bcause I think u don't know what you are talking about..He isn't the greatest defender but he plays defense..People who don't watch him play every night will say that because they read it and it's easy to get people to aggree with them..But you who claim to watch the Knicks and say Melo don't play defense it's either you don't watch the games or you just lying...

He hasn't made an All NBA Defensive 1st or 2nd team in his career yet...even Ewing made 3 All NBA Defensive 2nd teams.

Proof is in the pudding. Guy only plays one way and is average to mediocre on the defensive end.

Mediocre on defense is a lot different than saying he doesn't play defense which is a complete lie...He isn't a great defender but he plays defense...I can't talk about what he has done in Denver..I sometimes watch Knick games twice...The defense talk is BS....

I compared him to Ewing in saying they are both stubborn and it may be what drives them..You dudes need a chill pill..

knicks1248 wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:

holfresh wrote:

dk7th wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

dk7th wrote:

EnySpree wrote:We need to appreciate what we have in Melo not trash him for what he can't do. We need what he can do to succeed right now. If they can get the team around him to function we should do that.

the more he cannot do the less he should be paid and the fewer players should have been traded for him. we did both but yeah lets "appreciate" what we have.

what have we had, again? the last 4 years have been...?

apparently your in the minority,

what the heck has any player every done for the knicks in the past 40+ years, take, take, take.

the problem has never been the individual player, it's the roster that they put around their high price players all the way back to King..Ewing may have kept us a playoff contender, but it was more heart broken then, the finger roles, the injuries, the fights, the lame ass pg's, the 2 for 18 starks, the hobbled allan houston, the camby sisters hostage situation.

The franchise hasn't gotten right, and has been hit with more bad luck, then black cats, broken mirrors, and splitting poles..smh

my issue with melo and ewing, regardless of the front office, is that both overrated themselves, asked for too much for their services, and never worked on expanding their games sufficiently. these three things are deeply intertwined but the root problem of the three remains a stubborn egocentricity.

some will say ewing was proud, a proud warrior, etc. and that's fine if you want to make him some sort of heroic person. i don't see it that way. but this ego clouded his judgement and made him less pragmatic than he could have been.

melo is just a lesser version.

Have you ever thought it's what has made them who they are..It's that stubbornness that drives their careers...They aren't the greatest athletes, they weren't chiseled from Mount Olympus.. I think it's great...I never wanted MJ and I don't want LeBron on my team...I wish we had more guys like Ewing on our team, we would have won...Guys like Ewing and Melo thinks they can beat MJ and LeBrons of the world...I want these guys on my team..They are the underdog and they come to fight..Melo has gotten better over the years...He is stubborn and wants to win...I can't ask for more...

I would never put Anthony and Ewing in the same category. Always felt that Ewing fell in love with the jumper a bit too much, neglected to refine his game in the post, and he was never a good passer, but he had a significant impact on both sides of the court, and played with intensity.

As for Jordan, the guy was one of the great competitors of all time-in any sport, and was able to have an impact in every aspect of the game. Not many prolific scorers have been as intense on the defensive end like he was. There was nobody more stubborn than this guy- he took it personally if you scored on him. Hated the guy, but respected him on the court. Had an ego, but it fueled his competitiveness.

Kobe is more like Jordan than James, IMO, but James has some of the same competitiveness in him.

For one reason or another, Anthony is not in the conversation with Jordan, Ewing, or Lebron as a player.

He has his moments...usually as a scorer- but his limitations as a player are significant, and his defensive deficiencies are telling.

so you will except every other players flaws(ewing), but ooohh nooo, melo has to be perfect, if not he's over paid.

Like i keep saying, every super star, avg star, avg player,has flaws. There are a rare few like, jordan, hakeem, barkley, kobe, russel, malone, who bring it on both ends every night and are very versatile.

The prolific scorers and superior defenders for guys like Mutumbo, melo, Ewing,ect who can completely dominate on one end are not to be taken for granted. If you have a player like the latter, then management needs to be smart on how you incorporate other players to compliment them, weather thats bringing in more offense, or more defense depending on the player.

I'm done wishing for players in their prime to change their game, and develop into something their just not good at, just balance your roster

I have no problem saying that Anthony is a great scorer, which he has been, and probably still is.

I understand there are market forces, as well as the CBA, which will determine how much a player gets, and that some players are overpaid or underpaid. I know its a quaint idea to some of you, but I like to evaluate the worth of a player by looking what they do on the floor and how they help their teams in all aspects of the game. The Tri-State area, IMO, has had 4 terribly overpaid players in recent years- Anthony, Amare, D. Williams, and Joe Johnson.

Is the real issue about a player in his prime changing his game, does it have to do with that player making adjustments for the betterment of the team, or is it about a player doing things he is capable of doing, but has chosen not to do, for one reason or another?

Players make changes to their games all the time...what's the big deal? Bosh made adjustments when he played with Wade and James, and was able to win 2 titles. Pierce's scoring dropped about 5 PPG but he stepped up his D and his passing and helped his team win a title and reach the finals another time. James has made significant changes to his game over the years to round out his game. Earl Monroe changed his game to fit a team oriented system.

The real issue for me is whether or not Anthony is willing to accept a diminished, or more situational, role in the offense if that is what is best for the team. How would Melo (Or fans who seem to think that individual accolades are more important than team success)feel if the team came on strong at the end of the year, finished 41-41, and got the 8th seed, but he averaged under 20 PPG for the first time in his career, and perhaps missed out on making the All-Star game?

What concessions will he make to be on a successful team, if that is what is necessary? Do you build around Anthony, or simply ask him to play a complete game and give the system a chance? Other than his salary, I'm not sure that you should go out of your way to "build around" Anthony anymore, unless by "building around" you mean adding players to compensate for his limitations.

CrushAlot wrote:

dk7th wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:Older article but backs up some of what the original article says about Anthony.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-carmelo-anthony-is-the-ultimate-team-player-and-what-advanced-stats-miss-about-him/

i have never bought into silver's perspective.

firstly winning 48 games even in a loaded western conference means less than he wants it to for the mere fact that: the league is diluted and half the teams are going to be below .500 teams that a slightly better than mediocre team should beat. and frankly, given the melo-nuggets almost complete underachieving in the playoffs, we should not look at 48 regular-season wins as any major accomplishment. yet silver uses this amount of regular-season winning as a premise for the rest of the article.

in particular this material about carmelo making others more efficient while he himself remains inefficient is counter-intuitive in the extreme to the point that i have to question the validity of these statistics. silver left out the relationship between usage rate and efficiency and the ability to make others more efficient. any decent offensive player should have this effect on his teammates, moreover be an efficient offensive player himself and with a strong TS%.

again, in my opinion the trouble is that with anthony his usage rate is through the roof and though he allegedly makes others more efficient in the regular season by his presence, he should be making them better than he does given how much of the time the ball is in his hands, and doing so through a higher assist average.

long story short the issue remains: how well does carmelo's game (1) mesh with others and (2) how much better does he ACTIVELY make his teammates given his absurdly high usage rate? the answer is (1) "not very well" and (2) "not enough," respectively. your best player should be better at making others better and if he doesn't then you can certainly expect more failure than success in the playoffs where you play better than average teams.

does anyone envision carmelo adjusting his game without becoming disgruntled or envision fisher adapting his offense to suit the proclivities of carmelo anthony? i sure as hell don't. hence we could be in for a wild ride this season. maybe melo has grown up some... i see him as pretty infantile.

I think Silver explains his points very well.

What is missing from formulas like Berri’s is an account of what Anthony does to the rest of the Nuggets. Because he is able to score from anywhere in the court, Anthony draws attention and defenders away from his teammates, sometimes leaving them with wide-open shots. He also allows them to be more selective about the shots that they choose to take, since they know that Anthony can usually get a respectable shot off before the 24-second clock expires if needed.

on average, he improved his teammates’ TS% by 3.8 points (to 55.0 percent from 51.2 percent).

The effect of a player who improves the rest of his team’s TS% by 3.8 points is extremely substantial: it is works out to their scoring about 5 or 5.5 additional points per game solely on the basis of this efficiency gain. That, in turn, translates into about 15 additional wins per season for an average team, according to a commonly-used formula. This is how Anthony creates most of his value — not in the shots he takes himself, but in the ones he creates for his teammates – and some of the “advanced” formulas completely miss it.

Also, the year Anthony posted his lowest assist numbers as a Knick was the 54 win season. Things to at least contemplate.

And it's also great how Melo gets to make Fishlips, Toney Douglas, JR and Shump "not enough" better, but other greats get to make people like Wade, Bosh, Pau, Love, Kyrie, KG, Shaq, Ray Allen, Tony Parker and Manu better "enough".

Complain about Melo having the ball in his hands without listing his options. Great argument there. Yes, many on this board like watching Stat dribble the ball off his foot, Tyson and SammyD clanging short jumpers, or Shump or JR going 2 for 12. I'd much rather have spent more time seeing the ball in the hands of toney D or the invisible Jesus Lin. Especially in the playoffs.