As Carmelo Anthony leans toward leaving New York, Chicago and Houston emerge as frontrunners

What individual 4 would shut down players like Griffin, Aldridge anyway? With Carmelo the Rockets can force those guys to work on the other end and get them into foul trouble. The other benefit is that adding an elite offensive force like him means that Harden and Parson can reduce their minutes. Carmelo, himself, wouldn't have to play huge minutes if he can alternate playing the small and power forward with Parsons and whoever is left between Jones and D-Mo.

 

1. It depends on what they get back from the Bulls- pending the offer there could be plenty of reasons why. Plenty of teams have no issues doing inner-conference trades.. AS long as it makes THEIR team better and more marketable to the fans

2. 2 late first rounders and a 2nd rounder? Get real, they will hang onto melo if thats an offer- use him for marketability before unloading him by trade deadline for (what most likely be) a similar offer. Maybe the Knicks fans staff and team do surprise Melo next year to intrigue him to stay. There will be a team that risks probably just as much with no gauntees much like the Lakers with Howard.

 

Well he'd "help" us if playing at the 4 by letting every PF in the league have a huge game every night and by helping us losing the rebounding battle every night.

 

You are confused, there is no bidding war in this scenario.

My plan has created the cap space to sign Melo outright. His people say, look we are going to Houston, you can take these couple of picks so I can get more money, or we can walk and you get nothing.

It is a no brainer for New York unless they are so spiteful, they are willing to drastically hurt themselves for what amounts to a minor inconvenience to Houston.

 

You do realize that is the exact same deal Cleveland got for Lebron in the SnT to Miami, right? They had to wait until 2013 to get any first round picks. And they were lucky to get that! Lebron chose Miami and Cleveland had to play ball. If Melo chooses us, NY has to play ball or lose him for nothing. They can help him get the money he wants or he leaves them for absolutely nothing.

http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/news/trade_100710.html

 

I was thinking Melo had another year left //

 

Can't see any way NY takes Lin back. They actually dodged that bullet by our mistake. It will be Asik/Jones/DMo/picks

 

Look for CP25 to gain 20 lbs of muscle and be our stretch 4 with this lineup.

 

He said last summer that he would become stronger, i didn't see him bulking up a bit.

 

Bingo. A winner.

Melo is not going to stop Blake, Durant, whoever...but he's going to make them work hard as hell on the other end.

Besides, he's not that bad defensively. I don't know where people get that from. He used to be in Denver but he's way past matured since then and takes that side of the ball very seriously.

 

Then you just trade Jones, cut Daniels and outright sign carmelo.

NY then chooses to have nothing over having 4 draft picks, real smart of NY.

 

Woj said Melo was turned off by Phil Jackson's public talks of pay cuts. Given how well Jackson knows player psychology, I wonder if this is intentional-- that is, Phil Jackson would rather Melo, at his age with an expensive contract, not come back and he gets to start the 2015 Knicks with a clean slate.

 

I don't think the problem will be players like Griffin and LMA - these guys go off on everyone and to a certain extent, the Rockets just have to accept it (although I would certainly prefer that they have to work just a little for their point).

But it's the 2nd and 3rd tier PFs that will truly bother us. We saw how Portland had no compunction against allowing their 4th option Matthews to post up against Harden due to his terrible D. If we try putting Melo at the 4, we will see something similar EVERY night. Sure we can live with Griffin going off against us but will we be so forgiving when we see David Lee, Jason Thompson, Ibaka, and Markief Morris each get a 28/10+ performance? Will Melo really provide enough extra offense to offset all the points he will be giving up.

Maybe Jones isn't a great defender (let's face it, his defensive IQ is abysmal) but he has enough size to prevent the scenario I've described above. Melo has neither the size nor the track record indicating he can be anything other than a severe defensive liability at the 4 spot.

I'm just not convinced a Beverley-Harden-Parsons-Melo-Howard lineup will work against the kind of teams we'll see in the playoffs (though it may clean up against the bad teams). There's not enough defensive intensity (Beverly and Harden can't cover everyone's blown assignments) and I don't see enough touches for anyone. Either Harden or Melo will have to learn to play off the ball and I don't have faith that will happen. Championship teams are built by combining the strengths of the best players - not by asking them to become something fundamentally different then they've ever been.

We made this same mistake with Pippen,and he was at least a 2 way player. Melo is not - he'll give us more O but he won't solve the reasons we lost to Portland in the 1st round.

 

That's nice that you thought that out. But in your scenario there's absolutely NO REASON for the Rockets to trade for a freshly signed Melo. They can simply sign him themselves and keep the picks.

Keep thinking about how to make it better.

 

Here is the only relevant question those who are worried about defense need to ask yourselves: Is Melo worse than Terrence Jones on defense?

Obviously not. Melo's DRAPM last year was -0.2, compared to Jones' astounding -1.5

 

I heard Chicago wanted him to take a pay cut too.. I think they want cut Booz and keep Gibson..

 

Well taking a pay cut for a scrub Knicks team is very different than taking a pay cut for a better team.

 

That will probably be the best move for them future wise.

Melo can't carry that awful team anywhere, so why prolong the rebuilding phase. Next off season every single player on the team expires, Smith and Felton likely turn down player options to leave for contenders. Might as well start stocking up on draft picks by S&T Melo, Chandler and basically try to rebuild from scratch.

 

There's also the tax situation to factor in. It's way more expensive to live and work in NYC as opposed to the Greater Houston area. So 19 mil here may be pretty close to 22-24 mil there.

 

E.X.A.C.T.L.Y.

The pf position was so terrible defensively that Melo is an instant upgrade.

Morey even said the 4 needs to be upgraded more than the 1. Just more of a bonus that he's a premiere scorer.