Carmelo Anthony Really Is Better On Team USA

Carmelo Anthony and Team USA clobbered Serbia 96-66 in Sunday’s gold medal game to close out the Olympic tournament. Anthony has never won an NBA title and has only been past the second round in the playoffs once, yet it’s his third-straight gold medal, and capped 12 years of his involvement with Team USA. After the game, he choked up during an interview in which he said that this would be his final run with Team USA:

Anthony is a different player on the international court than when playing in the NBA. Internationally, he’s a spot-up shooting, ball-moving zone-buster; in the NBA, he’s an isolation-heavy volume scorer. It’s not as though Anthony is a fundamentally different player abroad — he’s a perfectly good spot-up shooter in the NBA when he finds time and space to spot up — but the nature of the international game and that of the Team USA roster change the way he influences a game.

We know that the international 3-point line — 22 feet, 1.75 inches from the rim, more than a foot and a half closer than the NBA version — has been crucial to Anthony’s success in FIBA competitions, and that in the past he’s brought the improved stroke home with him after an Olympics. And we’ve seen how Team USA carves up zone defenses, not just because it has athletes who are threats to drive and shoot, but because it’s stocked with players who can see over the zone and pick out players in threatening positions.

But these are the symptoms of the most basic difference: Team USA has a lot good players, and the New York Knicks do not. More to the point, the U.S. team has access to good players, while the Knicks in recent years have not, either because they’ve been maxed out under the salary cap or because they’ve rebuffed by the free agents it could afford. You can see Anthony’s salary relative to that of his NBA and Team USA teammates below.

One popular theory around these parts on what’s held back the Knicks is that Melo is worth a max contract, but not worth much more. The true value of a “max” slot on a roster is that it allows teams to amass surplus value by putting a ceiling on what the very best players in the league can earn under the salary cap. This is how you get LeBron James producing $64 million worth of value, relative to free agent market prices, while being paid just $23 million in salary. Carmelo has always been paid fairly relative to his production (he was “worth” $24.8 million last season and made $22.9 million), and that makes him far less valuable than some of his max-contract peers.

Melo has also been on the losing end of teammate acquisition. His windows for free agency have never lined up with those in which super teams were assembling (like the Wade-Bosh-James troika in Miami), and the teammates he had on hand were never good enough to make re-signing them over the cap worthwhile (like in Oklahoma City or at Golden State).

Team talent can transform even the most ball-dominant players into (relatively) eager passers. No Team USA player since 1992 has had a usage percentage greater than 30 during the Olympics — not even ’92 Michael Jordan, who in his 1992-93 NBA campaign posted a 34.7 usage percentage, the second highest of his career. Melo’s 2012 Olympics run is the next highest after Jordan, at 28.6, and he followed that up with a 2012-13 season in which he posted a 35.6 usage mark that lapped the field in the league that season.

The decline in usage rate affects the other extreme, too. Jason Kidd in 2008, who had so little to do on offense for the Redeem Team that he played 13.5 minutes per game, accrued just 0.9 field goal attempts per game. His line — 92.9 true shooting percentage on 7.3 usage percentage — was absurd enough that he didn’t fit on the chart above.

The point here is that Anthony’s share-happy offensive game in international ball isn’t at all limited to him — that happens to nearly everyone who plays on talent-rich Team USA. The difference for Anthony is that his teams stateside haven’t been good enough to allow him the luxury of seeing less of the ball.

Without another Olympics on the horizon, whatever demands Melo returns to in New York this season are likely the ones the he’ll be stuck with.

Great points throughout the article. I highlighted the ones of most interest.

Knixkik wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Carmelo Anthony Really Is Better On Team USA

Carmelo Anthony and Team USA clobbered Serbia 96-66 in Sunday’s gold medal game to close out the Olympic tournament. Anthony has never won an NBA title and has only been past the second round in the playoffs once, yet it’s his third-straight gold medal, and capped 12 years of his involvement with Team USA. After the game, he choked up during an interview in which he said that this would be his final run with Team USA:

Anthony is a different player on the international court than when playing in the NBA. Internationally, he’s a spot-up shooting, ball-moving zone-buster; in the NBA, he’s an isolation-heavy volume scorer. It’s not as though Anthony is a fundamentally different player abroad — he’s a perfectly good spot-up shooter in the NBA when he finds time and space to spot up — but the nature of the international game and that of the Team USA roster change the way he influences a game.

We know that the international 3-point line — 22 feet, 1.75 inches from the rim, more than a foot and a half closer than the NBA version — has been crucial to Anthony’s success in FIBA competitions, and that in the past he’s brought the improved stroke home with him after an Olympics. And we’ve seen how Team USA carves up zone defenses, not just because it has athletes who are threats to drive and shoot, but because it’s stocked with players who can see over the zone and pick out players in threatening positions.

But these are the symptoms of the most basic difference: Team USA has a lot good players, and the New York Knicks do not. More to the point, the U.S. team has access to good players, while the Knicks in recent years have not, either because they’ve been maxed out under the salary cap or because they’ve rebuffed by the free agents it could afford. You can see Anthony’s salary relative to that of his NBA and Team USA teammates below.

One popular theory around these parts on what’s held back the Knicks is that Melo is worth a max contract, but not worth much more. The true value of a “max” slot on a roster is that it allows teams to amass surplus value by putting a ceiling on what the very best players in the league can earn under the salary cap. This is how you get LeBron James producing $64 million worth of value, relative to free agent market prices, while being paid just $23 million in salary. Carmelo has always been paid fairly relative to his production (he was “worth” $24.8 million last season and made $22.9 million), and that makes him far less valuable than some of his max-contract peers.

Melo has also been on the losing end of teammate acquisition. His windows for free agency have never lined up with those in which super teams were assembling (like the Wade-Bosh-James troika in Miami), and the teammates he had on hand were never good enough to make re-signing them over the cap worthwhile (like in Oklahoma City or at Golden State).

Team talent can transform even the most ball-dominant players into (relatively) eager passers. No Team USA player since 1992 has had a usage percentage greater than 30 during the Olympics — not even ’92 Michael Jordan, who in his 1992-93 NBA campaign posted a 34.7 usage percentage, the second highest of his career. Melo’s 2012 Olympics run is the next highest after Jordan, at 28.6, and he followed that up with a 2012-13 season in which he posted a 35.6 usage mark that lapped the field in the league that season.

The decline in usage rate affects the other extreme, too. Jason Kidd in 2008, who had so little to do on offense for the Redeem Team that he played 13.5 minutes per game, accrued just 0.9 field goal attempts per game. His line — 92.9 true shooting percentage on 7.3 usage percentage — was absurd enough that he didn’t fit on the chart above.

The point here is that Anthony’s share-happy offensive game in international ball isn’t at all limited to him — that happens to nearly everyone who plays on talent-rich Team USA. The difference for Anthony is that his teams stateside haven’t been good enough to allow him the luxury of seeing less of the ball.

Without another Olympics on the horizon, whatever demands Melo returns to in New York this season are likely the ones the he’ll be stuck with.

Great points throughout the article. I highlighted the ones of most interest.

The theory about his max contract value is very interesting. I would say that now applies to most players who are making max money now. Only a few (maybe 5-7) are worth much more than the max salary they can make. It also goes along with the theory that you need to have a top 5 player in the league to be a contender. You have something like 17 years straight of NBA finals where at least one of Lebron, Kobe, Wade, Duncan, and Shaq have been in i think. Not sure if that is exact, but its something like that. That's only 5 players. All in all, Melo continues to be judged on that level of player, where he doesn't belong. No question he is worth his max contract in any salary cap structure, but he is not an all-time great where the player's value drastically exceeds the salary.

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Carmelo Anthony Really Is Better On Team USA

Carmelo Anthony and Team USA clobbered Serbia 96-66 in Sunday’s gold medal game to close out the Olympic tournament. Anthony has never won an NBA title and has only been past the second round in the playoffs once, yet it’s his third-straight gold medal, and capped 12 years of his involvement with Team USA. After the game, he choked up during an interview in which he said that this would be his final run with Team USA:

Anthony is a different player on the international court than when playing in the NBA. Internationally, he’s a spot-up shooting, ball-moving zone-buster; in the NBA, he’s an isolation-heavy volume scorer. It’s not as though Anthony is a fundamentally different player abroad — he’s a perfectly good spot-up shooter in the NBA when he finds time and space to spot up — but the nature of the international game and that of the Team USA roster change the way he influences a game.

We know that the international 3-point line — 22 feet, 1.75 inches from the rim, more than a foot and a half closer than the NBA version — has been crucial to Anthony’s success in FIBA competitions, and that in the past he’s brought the improved stroke home with him after an Olympics. And we’ve seen how Team USA carves up zone defenses, not just because it has athletes who are threats to drive and shoot, but because it’s stocked with players who can see over the zone and pick out players in threatening positions.

But these are the symptoms of the most basic difference: Team USA has a lot good players, and the New York Knicks do not. More to the point, the U.S. team has access to good players, while the Knicks in recent years have not, either because they’ve been maxed out under the salary cap or because they’ve rebuffed by the free agents it could afford. You can see Anthony’s salary relative to that of his NBA and Team USA teammates below.

One popular theory around these parts on what’s held back the Knicks is that Melo is worth a max contract, but not worth much more. The true value of a “max” slot on a roster is that it allows teams to amass surplus value by putting a ceiling on what the very best players in the league can earn under the salary cap. This is how you get LeBron James producing $64 million worth of value, relative to free agent market prices, while being paid just $23 million in salary. Carmelo has always been paid fairly relative to his production (he was “worth” $24.8 million last season and made $22.9 million), and that makes him far less valuable than some of his max-contract peers.

Melo has also been on the losing end of teammate acquisition. His windows for free agency have never lined up with those in which super teams were assembling (like the Wade-Bosh-James troika in Miami), and the teammates he had on hand were never good enough to make re-signing them over the cap worthwhile (like in Oklahoma City or at Golden State).

Team talent can transform even the most ball-dominant players into (relatively) eager passers. No Team USA player since 1992 has had a usage percentage greater than 30 during the Olympics — not even ’92 Michael Jordan, who in his 1992-93 NBA campaign posted a 34.7 usage percentage, the second highest of his career. Melo’s 2012 Olympics run is the next highest after Jordan, at 28.6, and he followed that up with a 2012-13 season in which he posted a 35.6 usage mark that lapped the field in the league that season.

The decline in usage rate affects the other extreme, too. Jason Kidd in 2008, who had so little to do on offense for the Redeem Team that he played 13.5 minutes per game, accrued just 0.9 field goal attempts per game. His line — 92.9 true shooting percentage on 7.3 usage percentage — was absurd enough that he didn’t fit on the chart above.

The point here is that Anthony’s share-happy offensive game in international ball isn’t at all limited to him — that happens to nearly everyone who plays on talent-rich Team USA. The difference for Anthony is that his teams stateside haven’t been good enough to allow him the luxury of seeing less of the ball.

Without another Olympics on the horizon, whatever demands Melo returns to in New York this season are likely the ones the he’ll be stuck with.

Great points throughout the article. I highlighted the ones of most interest.

The theory about his max contract value is very interesting. I would say that now applies to most players who are making max money now. Only a few (maybe 5-7) are worth much more than the max salary they can make. It also goes along with the theory that you need to have a top 5 player in the league to be a contender. You have something like 17 years straight of NBA finals where at least one of Lebron, Kobe, Wade, Duncan, and Shaq have been in i think. Not sure if that is exact, but its something like that. That's only 5 players. All in all, Melo continues to be judged on that level of player, where he doesn't belong. No question he is worth his max contract in any salary cap structure, but he is not an all-time great where the player's value drastically exceeds the salary.

Also, there's a great article here by Nate Silver on the problem of paying a player what they're worth rather than below what their worth. (And Silver is actually a bit more positive towards Melo than most in the metrics community.) Getting average value (what the player is worth) out of contracts is basically the definition of a .500 team.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/carmelo-anthonys-contract-could-doom-the-knicks-to-mediocrity/

Well, my thought is we are probably getting average value from Melo in the old salary cap. In the new one, where Conley is getting paid much more than Melo, and Fournier and Crabbe are only making a few million less per year, i think Melo's value is higher than his "old max." Also, everything from this year forward is based on Porzingis anyways. How much he exceeds expectations, how quickly he can become a true franchise player, and in relation to this topic, how far his value exceeds his salary. If every player on our roster plays average to their salary, Porzingis should take this team from .500 to significantly more wins if he continues to improve at a steady rate expected of a player his age with his work ethic. He should be worth, what, 4 or 5 times more than his annual salary?

Knixkik wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Carmelo Anthony Really Is Better On Team USA

Carmelo Anthony and Team USA clobbered Serbia 96-66 in Sunday’s gold medal game to close out the Olympic tournament. Anthony has never won an NBA title and has only been past the second round in the playoffs once, yet it’s his third-straight gold medal, and capped 12 years of his involvement with Team USA. After the game, he choked up during an interview in which he said that this would be his final run with Team USA:

Anthony is a different player on the international court than when playing in the NBA. Internationally, he’s a spot-up shooting, ball-moving zone-buster; in the NBA, he’s an isolation-heavy volume scorer. It’s not as though Anthony is a fundamentally different player abroad — he’s a perfectly good spot-up shooter in the NBA when he finds time and space to spot up — but the nature of the international game and that of the Team USA roster change the way he influences a game.

We know that the international 3-point line — 22 feet, 1.75 inches from the rim, more than a foot and a half closer than the NBA version — has been crucial to Anthony’s success in FIBA competitions, and that in the past he’s brought the improved stroke home with him after an Olympics. And we’ve seen how Team USA carves up zone defenses, not just because it has athletes who are threats to drive and shoot, but because it’s stocked with players who can see over the zone and pick out players in threatening positions.

But these are the symptoms of the most basic difference: Team USA has a lot good players, and the New York Knicks do not. More to the point, the U.S. team has access to good players, while the Knicks in recent years have not, either because they’ve been maxed out under the salary cap or because they’ve rebuffed by the free agents it could afford. You can see Anthony’s salary relative to that of his NBA and Team USA teammates below.

One popular theory around these parts on what’s held back the Knicks is that Melo is worth a max contract, but not worth much more. The true value of a “max” slot on a roster is that it allows teams to amass surplus value by putting a ceiling on what the very best players in the league can earn under the salary cap. This is how you get LeBron James producing $64 million worth of value, relative to free agent market prices, while being paid just $23 million in salary. Carmelo has always been paid fairly relative to his production (he was “worth” $24.8 million last season and made $22.9 million), and that makes him far less valuable than some of his max-contract peers.

Melo has also been on the losing end of teammate acquisition. His windows for free agency have never lined up with those in which super teams were assembling (like the Wade-Bosh-James troika in Miami), and the teammates he had on hand were never good enough to make re-signing them over the cap worthwhile (like in Oklahoma City or at Golden State).

Team talent can transform even the most ball-dominant players into (relatively) eager passers. No Team USA player since 1992 has had a usage percentage greater than 30 during the Olympics — not even ’92 Michael Jordan, who in his 1992-93 NBA campaign posted a 34.7 usage percentage, the second highest of his career. Melo’s 2012 Olympics run is the next highest after Jordan, at 28.6, and he followed that up with a 2012-13 season in which he posted a 35.6 usage mark that lapped the field in the league that season.

The decline in usage rate affects the other extreme, too. Jason Kidd in 2008, who had so little to do on offense for the Redeem Team that he played 13.5 minutes per game, accrued just 0.9 field goal attempts per game. His line — 92.9 true shooting percentage on 7.3 usage percentage — was absurd enough that he didn’t fit on the chart above.

The point here is that Anthony’s share-happy offensive game in international ball isn’t at all limited to him — that happens to nearly everyone who plays on talent-rich Team USA. The difference for Anthony is that his teams stateside haven’t been good enough to allow him the luxury of seeing less of the ball.

Without another Olympics on the horizon, whatever demands Melo returns to in New York this season are likely the ones the he’ll be stuck with.

Great points throughout the article. I highlighted the ones of most interest.

The theory about his max contract value is very interesting. I would say that now applies to most players who are making max money now. Only a few (maybe 5-7) are worth much more than the max salary they can make. It also goes along with the theory that you need to have a top 5 player in the league to be a contender. You have something like 17 years straight of NBA finals where at least one of Lebron, Kobe, Wade, Duncan, and Shaq have been in i think. Not sure if that is exact, but its something like that. That's only 5 players. All in all, Melo continues to be judged on that level of player, where he doesn't belong. No question he is worth his max contract in any salary cap structure, but he is not an all-time great where the player's value drastically exceeds the salary.

Also, there's a great article here by Nate Silver on the problem of paying a player what they're worth rather than below what their worth. (And Silver is actually a bit more positive towards Melo than most in the metrics community.) Getting average value (what the player is worth) out of contracts is basically the definition of a .500 team.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/carmelo-anthonys-contract-could-doom-the-knicks-to-mediocrity/

Well, my thought is we are probably getting average value from Melo in the old salary cap. In the new one, where Conley is getting paid much more than Melo, and Fournier and Crabbe are only making a few million less per year, i think Melo's value is higher than his "old max." Also, everything from this year forward is based on Porzingis anyways. How much he exceeds expectations, how quickly he can become a true franchise player, and in relation to this topic, how far his value exceeds his salary. If every player on our roster plays average to their salary, Porzingis should take this team from .500 to significantly more wins if he continues to improve at a steady rate expected of a player his age with his work ethic. He should be worth, what, 4 or 5 times more than his annual salary?

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Knixkik wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

Carmelo Anthony Really Is Better On Team USA

Carmelo Anthony and Team USA clobbered Serbia 96-66 in Sunday’s gold medal game to close out the Olympic tournament. Anthony has never won an NBA title and has only been past the second round in the playoffs once, yet it’s his third-straight gold medal, and capped 12 years of his involvement with Team USA. After the game, he choked up during an interview in which he said that this would be his final run with Team USA:

Anthony is a different player on the international court than when playing in the NBA. Internationally, he’s a spot-up shooting, ball-moving zone-buster; in the NBA, he’s an isolation-heavy volume scorer. It’s not as though Anthony is a fundamentally different player abroad — he’s a perfectly good spot-up shooter in the NBA when he finds time and space to spot up — but the nature of the international game and that of the Team USA roster change the way he influences a game.

We know that the international 3-point line — 22 feet, 1.75 inches from the rim, more than a foot and a half closer than the NBA version — has been crucial to Anthony’s success in FIBA competitions, and that in the past he’s brought the improved stroke home with him after an Olympics. And we’ve seen how Team USA carves up zone defenses, not just because it has athletes who are threats to drive and shoot, but because it’s stocked with players who can see over the zone and pick out players in threatening positions.

But these are the symptoms of the most basic difference: Team USA has a lot good players, and the New York Knicks do not. More to the point, the U.S. team has access to good players, while the Knicks in recent years have not, either because they’ve been maxed out under the salary cap or because they’ve rebuffed by the free agents it could afford. You can see Anthony’s salary relative to that of his NBA and Team USA teammates below.

One popular theory around these parts on what’s held back the Knicks is that Melo is worth a max contract, but not worth much more. The true value of a “max” slot on a roster is that it allows teams to amass surplus value by putting a ceiling on what the very best players in the league can earn under the salary cap. This is how you get LeBron James producing $64 million worth of value, relative to free agent market prices, while being paid just $23 million in salary. Carmelo has always been paid fairly relative to his production (he was “worth” $24.8 million last season and made $22.9 million), and that makes him far less valuable than some of his max-contract peers.

Melo has also been on the losing end of teammate acquisition. His windows for free agency have never lined up with those in which super teams were assembling (like the Wade-Bosh-James troika in Miami), and the teammates he had on hand were never good enough to make re-signing them over the cap worthwhile (like in Oklahoma City or at Golden State).

Team talent can transform even the most ball-dominant players into (relatively) eager passers. No Team USA player since 1992 has had a usage percentage greater than 30 during the Olympics — not even ’92 Michael Jordan, who in his 1992-93 NBA campaign posted a 34.7 usage percentage, the second highest of his career. Melo’s 2012 Olympics run is the next highest after Jordan, at 28.6, and he followed that up with a 2012-13 season in which he posted a 35.6 usage mark that lapped the field in the league that season.

The decline in usage rate affects the other extreme, too. Jason Kidd in 2008, who had so little to do on offense for the Redeem Team that he played 13.5 minutes per game, accrued just 0.9 field goal attempts per game. His line — 92.9 true shooting percentage on 7.3 usage percentage — was absurd enough that he didn’t fit on the chart above.

The point here is that Anthony’s share-happy offensive game in international ball isn’t at all limited to him — that happens to nearly everyone who plays on talent-rich Team USA. The difference for Anthony is that his teams stateside haven’t been good enough to allow him the luxury of seeing less of the ball.

Without another Olympics on the horizon, whatever demands Melo returns to in New York this season are likely the ones the he’ll be stuck with.

Great points throughout the article. I highlighted the ones of most interest.

The theory about his max contract value is very interesting. I would say that now applies to most players who are making max money now. Only a few (maybe 5-7) are worth much more than the max salary they can make. It also goes along with the theory that you need to have a top 5 player in the league to be a contender. You have something like 17 years straight of NBA finals where at least one of Lebron, Kobe, Wade, Duncan, and Shaq have been in i think. Not sure if that is exact, but its something like that. That's only 5 players. All in all, Melo continues to be judged on that level of player, where he doesn't belong. No question he is worth his max contract in any salary cap structure, but he is not an all-time great where the player's value drastically exceeds the salary.

Also, there's a great article here by Nate Silver on the problem of paying a player what they're worth rather than below what their worth. (And Silver is actually a bit more positive towards Melo than most in the metrics community.) Getting average value (what the player is worth) out of contracts is basically the definition of a .500 team.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/carmelo-anthonys-contract-could-doom-the-knicks-to-mediocrity/

Well, my thought is we are probably getting average value from Melo in the old salary cap. In the new one, where Conley is getting paid much more than Melo, and Fournier and Crabbe are only making a few million less per year, i think Melo's value is higher than his "old max." Also, everything from this year forward is based on Porzingis anyways. How much he exceeds expectations, how quickly he can become a true franchise player, and in relation to this topic, how far his value exceeds his salary. If every player on our roster plays average to their salary, Porzingis should take this team from .500 to significantly more wins if he continues to improve at a steady rate expected of a player his age with his work ethic. He should be worth, what, 4 or 5 times more than his annual salary?

The unknown question is what will happen faster: Melo declines due to aging or average player salaries increase? We don't know. It's nothing personal with Melo but him on a max contract is not the gamble I would have taken on a .400 team that needs to be rebuilding. I'd rather be gambling on players who might be able to team up with KP for the next 10 years.
I would disagree with the KP comment, though. If you look at championship teams, they don't just have one key player outperforming their salary. They usually have like 90% of their roster on a discount.

It's been written that Melo is highly likely to age well in terms of his late career decline. Hopefully that proves true.

So, where does Carmelo Anthony go from here?

His days as the team’s 1A and 1B option are most likely over; but as someone who never really over-relied on his athletic gifts, Anthony’s game should theoretically age rather gracefully — think a bigger Paul Pierce.

To successfully unearth the second phase of his career arc, though, Melo must swallow his pride and take on a more team-oriented approach and complementary role.

No doubt, he’s still one of the league’s most effective and stress-inducing isolation players — currently ranking within the top 67-percentile, producing over 0.97 PPP (points per possession) when isolated, which consumes nearly 27 percent of his offensive touches.

However, as his skills continue to somewhat gradually diminish, Melo’s isolation aspirations needs to be modestly and judiciously tempered.

A permanent move to the 4 should also help preserve Anthony’s effectiveness, allowing him to revive some of his advantages in foot speed he had on 3s during his prime. Carmelo has also quietly built a nice rapport with the Knicks’ prized rookie, Kristaps Porzingis; however, the pick-and-roll/pick-and-pop has always played an underutilized role in the triangle offense.

Most optimistically, despite his dire scoring output (when compared to his historical production), Anthony is posting an assist percentage, defensive rebounding percentage, and overall rebounding percentage that exceeds his career averages.

Additionally, Melo has noticeably increased his fervor and effort on the defensive end of the floor. In fact, opponents are only shooting 34.6 percent on Anthony, 9.6 percent lower than what they usually shoot.

All in all, while it’s en vogue to overreact and prematurely proclaim the complete demise of Carmelo Anthony, he should age quite modestly once he fully finds his footing from his knee surgery.