The Last Melo Thread? Melo comments on his departure from HOU

It was his defense. He couldn't do the switching defense as he would get targeted. Sure, we could have kept him as a Gerald Green type offensive punch off the bench, but Gerald is a happy 9-11th man, who is still very athletic. I think keeping Melo on the bench would have been worse for him and his career, so we gave him a chance to find another team and keep his money.

When it came to GSW, he would have been unplayable. Another point is, we had young talent like House and Clark that had higher ceilings, and definitely better defensive players. If we kept him, out of respect or whatever the hell they wanted us to do, we would not have seen House display his immense potential, and our outcomes would be the same (or worse). It was the right move, and its bc Melo's defense was exploitable.

 

Its good for him to talk about it and clear things up

I wish him the best of luck

 

Bottom line to all this:

Melo has a reason to talk now and give his side of the story. Morey has a reason not to fully give his side. If he says anything bad whatsoever about Melo (even about his defense), it could affect our ability to attract players in the future. Cutting him after 10 games was bad enough, but throwing him under the bus would be even more damaging.

 

I'm not saying this stuff is true, but it's feasible and it's interesting to consider during an offseason lull.

 

LOL Gary Clark was just a convenient excuse at the time to cut him loose.

 

I thought canning him after 10 games was premature. I don’t think Morey scapegoated Carmelo but’s lets be honest, the majority of Clutchfans DID scapegoat Carmelo. I remember specifically saying that Melo is the least of the Rockets problems and sure enough they continued to struggle once he was released.

 

The team had defensive struggles and Gary Clark was one piece of the solution. I don't think it was an excuse.

Melo probably wanted to stay. But Morey was taking the 10,000 foot view and *feared* that Melo staying *under a new scenario* might cause too many waves. We will never know, but that is what Morey thought. And they made the change.

 

I am not saying blame some for that.

It was unfortunate. But at least we are hearing from Melo's side. One year later, lelz.

Now, Daryl and MDA got major deficiencies in communicating what they want to do......and Morey is the guy who chases after the girl that got away in the past, gets her when she is all preggers and got ugly.

Comes to his senses, and ditches her, so typical.

Question begs, Morey, why do you have crushes on Ex NBA stars? Friggin let it go, he should go into rebuild mode badly.

 

I believe this. I also believe Harden was involved even if it was Morey asking him if Harden would care if Melo was moved.

 

All we know now is just melo's side of the story. We can't say for sure why, or who's the reason he was let go. I assume there must have been multiple reasons, because 10 games is such a low sample size for this to be strictly a game performance decision. Could it be because of harden? Morey? Tillman? His defense? Ego? Not fitting with our team? Or more importantly, was Eric Gordon not having FUN?!?

 

I think Melo is 100% right when he says it’s more than basketball. Like you said, 10 games is an extremely small sample size. 13 and 5 isn’t that bad for such a release to be strictly a basketball move.

 

Just so you wait, half a year or more later, CP3 is the next to speak out.

Everything comes out one or the other way.

I could understand if they needed a scape goat. They could easily carry Melo around for half a year without playing him much.

 

I think Maury is diplomatic about it. Rather than detail a timeline, he prob asked Jimmy leading questions on how Melo is doing/will do or how the season will look with Melo...just to see if Harden's okay with the idea.

This lets Maury take responsibility for big decisions while keeping Harden in the loop with his general input.

I suspect they didn't connect the dots when they talked about Butler in the offseason (to not cross over tampering)...leading to some doofus thinking there'd be fireworks.

 

^^^^So much this^^^^

When Lakers nor Heat nor Toronto nor Philly nor any other NBA team picked him up that spoke volumes to me.

And yes... I was a Rox fan who believed Melo could / would be our 6th / 7th man scorer-extraordinaire off the bench (that is start him for a few minutes and then play him primarily with CP3 and in the second half of games).

 

I do not think it was the last straw for CP3 but the beginning of the end.......those trust issues go deeper than fellas can imagine.

Those things are having a way of adding up.

 

Yep, I could see that.

No, they couldn't, at least not easily. This year a team might be able to sign him and play him sporadically, but even then you'd have the media always asking questions. Last year, it would have been much, much worse. For the Rox to make a big deal about signing Melo, then relegating him to the same level of participation of Gerald? It would have been an absolutely shitshow and distracted everyone from the goal.

 

No one should have been surprised that an aging former superstar like Melo was going to play horrible defense. (And he did play mostly horrible defense for the Rockets.) But he still had value on the other end and proved it, scoring 28, 24, 22, and 17 points, in his best games as a Rocket.

I'm sure there was some stuff going on behind the scenes, but throwing him and his vet minimum contract away after ten games was pretty messed up. You add that to the coach firings, MDA contract BS, the CP3 rumors, ridiculous boasts from the front office, and big and little Tilman's tax fears, and the organization doesn't look so good.

 

I get that the WB trade decision was made by Harden and then Fertitta green lit it.

But the Melo thing was more complex, we knew Daryl chased him for years, but now according to Anthony, Darnell also initiated the breakup?

I am not sure he is the only guy at work here, this felt like the McHale firing, scape goat.

Yeah sure, the Defense was bad but Gerald Green was bad at D too......no need to cut ties.

 

Exactly, it was the moment when CP3 first thought, "What the hell are these guys doing?" And being the stubborn guy he is, I'm sure that thought festered as the year went on. It probably made him feel less a part of the team that he had no say whatsoever in the matter concerning his bestie. I mean, CP3 was a career superstar we brought in to form an unstoppable duo. Then we unceremoniously dump his former-star buddy. That's gotta make you feel like a little bit of an outsider. And when Harden blew up during Paul's absence, it's easy to see him come out of all that feeling like a distant #2 on a team that he formerly felt he had a pretty equal say in.

 

Edit: Read your post wrong. I think the below still fits the possibilities though.

I'm gonna drop the Tilman angle. Tilman probably told Morey he needed to get Bzdelik back and Bzedlik didn't want Melo there if he was to come back. Thus Morey did what he had to do to appease ownership.