martin wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

At this point Melo can't carry a team. Period. He was really good in 2012-13 and 2013-14, ages 28 and 29. Injured half the year in 2014-15, DadMelo 2015-16 and shell of self in 2016-17.

Harden is just about 28 and may have 2-3 years at this level. Maybe.

Has there been a team that is built on a player who is a super star at one end of the court but a minus at the other? You may have a 2-3 year window with that player and every other player around him has to be a defensive specialist. Iverson needed Defensive player of the year and 3-4 other high level defensive players just to make up for him. Made it to finals once but otherwise not sustainable.

Can Harden and Westbrook carry their respective teams? They just played each other and Westbrook out first round. It'll be interesting to see if Harden can go further than next round.

Personally, I'd rather have a team concept like Utah than either OKC or Houston.

I would, too. Yes, I agree with most of that.

Obviously the period of building around Melo has ended. I just get really sick of some of the rhetoric that it was all his fault. It's so tiring. If he's too old to carry a team, it was a bad idea to build a team where he was meant to be the guy.

Melo needs to transition to that Joe Johnson role at this point.

I'd be very happy to build a team concept. Though also, when you look at a team like Utah - when the game is on the line, they almost exclusively go Iso Joe. It's still a valuable thing to have in the arsenal. I think you can make a strong argument that the Clippers would've beat the Jazz in this series if they'd traded for Melo.

Also, for what it's worth - Austin Rivers has looked terrible in this series and he has a worse defensive rating than Melo in that newfangled rating system that guy made. I hope we get more than him in return, but at this point, that's looking like the most likely return to me.

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

+1-Amen

It's going to be KP for sure.. Knicks fans pick the most talented or highest paid player on the roster and they are always going to be the scapegoat.

whats laughable is the fact that we are going to get offered trash, and phil(so far) isn't going for trash..so I would not be the least bit surprise if he is here next season.

We have no tradable assets but lee..lol

nixluva wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

+1-Amen

It's going to be KP for sure.. Knicks fans pick the most talented or highest paid player on the roster and they are always going to be the scapegoat.

whats laughable is the fact that we are going to get offered trash, and phil(so far) isn't going for trash..so I would not be the least bit surprise if he is here next season.

We have no tradable assets but lee..lol

Scapegoat is only used for LOSERS! None of you can say that the Knicks will be guaranteed to lose long term. My guess is the team makes steady progress as the young drafted players mature. KP can't avoid getting more heavily scrutinized as he matures. It's only natural. He won't be alone tho!

The whole idea of this build is to upgrade the talent on the roster so it's not all on one guy!!! We've been there and done that.

Through the d league, get guys like galloway, baker and randle, and build around those types

EwingsGlass wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:
Winning Percentages Without their All-Star Forward

61% - Blake Griffin's Teammates (51-32)

54% - Kevin Durant's Teammates (46-39)

44% - Paul George's Teammates (37-47)

15% - Anthony's Teammates (9-51)

And just for good measure:

32% - Anthony Davis Teammates (24-51)

I know many people here already have their minds made up one way or another with Carmelo, but this was a really well-written and well-researched column. Definitely read this one if nothing else today.

Take it from Chauncey: "You got to have a really strong point guard with (Carmelo) that knows how to get him the ball, when to get him the ball and when not to get it to him. He's at his best playing like that.”

A good question to ask is: If Carmelo can win 54 games with the Knicks and with J.R. Smith and Tyson Chandler as his next best players, what might he do with Chris Paul creating easy buckets, and a rebounding force like DeAndre Jordan?

The question that keeps me mind boggled, why is melo the blame, and we disregard his support

with a record that bad(all under phil) you have to question the rosters, how that get swept under the rug is beyond haterade.http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/carmelo-anthony-leave-knicks-nba-team-article-1.3098249

Ball don't lie. Numbers are a bit more misleading. Especially the one's you data dredged. Your analysis is flawed because in the first instance it fails to compare the percentages back to the norm so we understand the actual effect you are trying to dramatize. Then, it fails to critically anlayze the difference between the Clippers, Thunder/Warriors, Pacers and the Knicks. Are there other causes to the differences between team performance? And finally, you gave a flawed reasoning of what it means that the team failed to perform in his absence. At best, you can only state that the team does not perform well without Melo. This says nothing about Melo's skill.

To disguise the error, you use other name brand players to create a flawed baseline where you don't show the difference between before and after.

Furthermore, you use a small sample set on what should be a multi-variable equation which creates its own set of reliance flaws.

In terms of skill, we can look at numbers that account for his usage and efficiency. We have enough numbers to create sample sets. I suggest you look at those numbers and see what they say.

Numbers don't lie. People just read them poorly.

dude I didn't come up with those numbers, that was the article, I just posted them, you can read it for yourself, thats why people post to the link with the stats

knicks1248 wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

martin wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

At this point Melo can't carry a team. Period. He was really good in 2012-13 and 2013-14, ages 28 and 29. Injured half the year in 2014-15, DadMelo 2015-16 and shell of self in 2016-17.

Harden is just about 28 and may have 2-3 years at this level. Maybe.

Has there been a team that is built on a player who is a super star at one end of the court but a minus at the other? You may have a 2-3 year window with that player and every other player around him has to be a defensive specialist. Iverson needed Defensive player of the year and 3-4 other high level defensive players just to make up for him. Made it to finals once but otherwise not sustainable.

Can Harden and Westbrook carry their respective teams? They just played each other and Westbrook out first round. It'll be interesting to see if Harden can go further than next round.

Personally, I'd rather have a team concept like Utah than either OKC or Houston.

Utah sure looks good don't they. Just solid basketball. Making the Clips look silly.

They remind me of the 54 win roster, just way to many 30 yr olds, and a very weak bench, and no blake

Good comparison. There's not much to like about that team at all. I dread the idea of trading Melo there just because there is no return worth taking. I've never been a Rivers fan and I'm not enamored by Blake. IMO, if I were Ballmer I'd start over.

fwk00 wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

martin wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

At this point Melo can't carry a team. Period. He was really good in 2012-13 and 2013-14, ages 28 and 29. Injured half the year in 2014-15, DadMelo 2015-16 and shell of self in 2016-17.

Harden is just about 28 and may have 2-3 years at this level. Maybe.

Has there been a team that is built on a player who is a super star at one end of the court but a minus at the other? You may have a 2-3 year window with that player and every other player around him has to be a defensive specialist. Iverson needed Defensive player of the year and 3-4 other high level defensive players just to make up for him. Made it to finals once but otherwise not sustainable.

Can Harden and Westbrook carry their respective teams? They just played each other and Westbrook out first round. It'll be interesting to see if Harden can go further than next round.

Personally, I'd rather have a team concept like Utah than either OKC or Houston.

Utah sure looks good don't they. Just solid basketball. Making the Clips look silly.

They remind me of the 54 win roster, just way to many 30 yr olds, and a very weak bench, and no blake

Good comparison. There's not much to like about that team at all. I dread the idea of trading Melo there just because there is no return worth taking. I've never been a Rivers fan and I'm not enamored by Blake. IMO, if I were Ballmer I'd start over.

CrushAlot wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

martin wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

At this point Melo can't carry a team. Period. He was really good in 2012-13 and 2013-14, ages 28 and 29. Injured half the year in 2014-15, DadMelo 2015-16 and shell of self in 2016-17.

Harden is just about 28 and may have 2-3 years at this level. Maybe.

Has there been a team that is built on a player who is a super star at one end of the court but a minus at the other? You may have a 2-3 year window with that player and every other player around him has to be a defensive specialist. Iverson needed Defensive player of the year and 3-4 other high level defensive players just to make up for him. Made it to finals once but otherwise not sustainable.

Can Harden and Westbrook carry their respective teams? They just played each other and Westbrook out first round. It'll be interesting to see if Harden can go further than next round.

Personally, I'd rather have a team concept like Utah than either OKC or Houston.

Utah sure looks good don't they. Just solid basketball. Making the Clips look silly.

They remind me of the 54 win roster, just way to many 30 yr olds, and a very weak bench, and no blake

Good comparison. There's not much to like about that team at all. I dread the idea of trading Melo there just because there is no return worth taking. I've never been a Rivers fan and I'm not enamored by Blake. IMO, if I were Ballmer I'd start over.

I agree about the clips not having much to give back. But with the NTC that is probably where he ends up. The clips will need to be very creative to get a deal done with the trade kicker. Also, I know there s talk about Melo waiving his trade kicker but there are rules in the cba that prevent that depending on the receiving teams cap situation and salaries going out etc.

We can only hope its a three team trade.

knicks1248 wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

martin wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

At this point Melo can't carry a team. Period. He was really good in 2012-13 and 2013-14, ages 28 and 29. Injured half the year in 2014-15, DadMelo 2015-16 and shell of self in 2016-17.

Harden is just about 28 and may have 2-3 years at this level. Maybe.

Has there been a team that is built on a player who is a super star at one end of the court but a minus at the other? You may have a 2-3 year window with that player and every other player around him has to be a defensive specialist. Iverson needed Defensive player of the year and 3-4 other high level defensive players just to make up for him. Made it to finals once but otherwise not sustainable.

Can Harden and Westbrook carry their respective teams? They just played each other and Westbrook out first round. It'll be interesting to see if Harden can go further than next round.

Personally, I'd rather have a team concept like Utah than either OKC or Houston.

Utah sure looks good don't they. Just solid basketball. Making the Clips look silly.

They remind me of the 54 win roster, just way to many 30 yr olds, and a very weak bench, and no blake

Good comparison. There's not much to like about that team at all. I dread the idea of trading Melo there just because there is no return worth taking. I've never been a Rivers fan and I'm not enamored by Blake. IMO, if I were Ballmer I'd start over.

I agree about the clips not having much to give back. But with the NTC that is probably where he ends up. The clips will need to be very creative to get a deal done with the trade kicker. Also, I know there s talk about Melo waiving his trade kicker but there are rules in the cba that prevent that depending on the receiving teams cap situation and salaries going out etc.

We can only hope its a three team trade.

I can't see how you guys can be so optimistic, we have ZERO assets.

WTF are you talking about? Melo is an asset even if we may not see him as a fit here. It's only because of the size of his contract that there will be some assets coming back. Teams will have to send enough back to make it work. A 3 team deal makes the most sense.

fwk00 wrote:

crzymdups wrote:

martin wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

At this point Melo can't carry a team. Period. He was really good in 2012-13 and 2013-14, ages 28 and 29. Injured half the year in 2014-15, DadMelo 2015-16 and shell of self in 2016-17.

Harden is just about 28 and may have 2-3 years at this level. Maybe.

Has there been a team that is built on a player who is a super star at one end of the court but a minus at the other? You may have a 2-3 year window with that player and every other player around him has to be a defensive specialist. Iverson needed Defensive player of the year and 3-4 other high level defensive players just to make up for him. Made it to finals once but otherwise not sustainable.

Can Harden and Westbrook carry their respective teams? They just played each other and Westbrook out first round. It'll be interesting to see if Harden can go further than next round.

Personally, I'd rather have a team concept like Utah than either OKC or Houston.

I would, too. Yes, I agree with most of that.

Obviously the period of building around Melo has ended. I just get really sick of some of the rhetoric that it was all his fault. It's so tiring. If he's too old to carry a team, it was a bad idea to build a team where he was meant to be the guy.

Melo needs to transition to that Joe Johnson role at this point.

I'd be very happy to build a team concept. Though also, when you look at a team like Utah - when the game is on the line, they almost exclusively go Iso Joe. It's still a valuable thing to have in the arsenal. I think you can make a strong argument that the Clippers would've beat the Jazz in this series if they'd traded for Melo.

Also, for what it's worth - Austin Rivers has looked terrible in this series and he has a worse defensive rating than Melo in that newfangled rating system that guy made. I hope we get more than him in return, but at this point, that's looking like the most likely return to me.

Melo had a self-defined window of opportunity that he wanted to succeed within. So there was no success. But - you would think - given that it IS Melo's window - that Melo would have had some urgency to succeed THIS past season. As far as I could see, Melo floated downstream during that long losing streak almost maliciously. Just unforgivable.

So yeah I blame him but so what. The monkey is on Melo's back - his window closed while he was busy playing politics. Hard to shed tears over that.

In coming years Melo will be in the playoffs and amaze people. The question that will be asked, "Why didn't he do that with the Knicks?" It will be a burning question.

I prefer Blake to Rivers with the intent to flip him if possible.

Not quite - I thought Melo turned it up at one point - go look at his January & February #'s - they were all strong. At the time, I thought, wow, Melo can still ball.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/anthoca01/splits/2017

January- 25.4pts per game .469 FG% .408% 3pt
February- 25.5pts per game .454 FG% .388% 3pt

Maybe Melo hasn't bought in as much as he could have, tried as hard on defense as maybe a marginal talent who needs to go all out on defense.

And we certainly can't build around him like maybe we tried to in the past.

But I don't have an issue with him being part of the team moving forward. I might ask him to come off the bench.

newyorknewyork wrote:With less talent last year Melo played like dad Melo and we were a 500 club. Nobody was talking about the triangle.

nixluva wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:

fwk00 wrote:

martin wrote:

crzymdups wrote:Metrics say Harden is as bad a defender as Melo. But the Rockets built a team to Harden's strengths and have players like Beverly to compensate for his weaknesses. It's called building a team.

The Knicks were essentially built like Westbrook's OKC Thunder team - and you could make a strong argument that the Thunder roster outside Westbrook is miles better than a Knicks roster outside Melo.

And yet guys here KEEP blaming Melo like taking him off the team is some sort of solution. The problem is the guy who built the team. Maybe he's better at rebuilding through the draft than building a team through trades and free agency. Let's hope so.

Good lord, I can't wait for Melo to be gone, if only to see who the next scapegoat is. It's so ****ing tired at this point. Yes, Melo should be gone this summer. What's next? God only knows. If you have a lot of optimism about where Phil goes from here in spite of how he's handled the Melo situation, the KP developing situation, free agency, trades, the coaching situation, the media... I have a bridge in Brooklyn I think we could make a competitive offer on.

At this point Melo can't carry a team. Period. He was really good in 2012-13 and 2013-14, ages 28 and 29. Injured half the year in 2014-15, DadMelo 2015-16 and shell of self in 2016-17.

Harden is just about 28 and may have 2-3 years at this level. Maybe.

Has there been a team that is built on a player who is a super star at one end of the court but a minus at the other? You may have a 2-3 year window with that player and every other player around him has to be a defensive specialist. Iverson needed Defensive player of the year and 3-4 other high level defensive players just to make up for him. Made it to finals once but otherwise not sustainable.

Can Harden and Westbrook carry their respective teams? They just played each other and Westbrook out first round. It'll be interesting to see if Harden can go further than next round.

Personally, I'd rather have a team concept like Utah than either OKC or Houston.

Utah sure looks good don't they. Just solid basketball. Making the Clips look silly.

They remind me of the 54 win roster, just way to many 30 yr olds, and a very weak bench, and no blake

Good comparison. There's not much to like about that team at all. I dread the idea of trading Melo there just because there is no return worth taking. I've never been a Rivers fan and I'm not enamored by Blake. IMO, if I were Ballmer I'd start over.

I agree about the clips not having much to give back. But with the NTC that is probably where he ends up. The clips will need to be very creative to get a deal done with the trade kicker. Also, I know there s talk about Melo waiving his trade kicker but there are rules in the cba that prevent that depending on the receiving teams cap situation and salaries going out etc.

We can only hope its a three team trade.

I can't see how you guys can be so optimistic, we have ZERO assets.

WTF are you talking about? Melo is an asset even if we may not see him as a fit here. It's only because of the size of his contract that there will be some assets coming back. Teams will have to send enough back to make it work. A 3 team deal makes the most sense.

Melo is a asset when the team controls his destination, that isn't the case now is it?