It's like all of these people have forgotten how terrible the Nuggets were before they attained Melo in the draft.
You could, but you would be really wrong. Lacks D - Lebron has been 1st team all-defense two years in a row. His on the ball defense is not great, but he's a very good help defender. mediocre 3 pt shot - His three-point shot is decent enough that it has to be respected. He's similar to Kobe in this regard, in fact they shot almost exactly the same percentage last year. low character - You might not like "The Decision." You might not like how he left Cleveland. But the guy has never really been in trouble off the court. His teammates love him. That's not a low character guy. trigger happy - Lebron has actually been criticized for being too unselfish. He's definitely not trigger happy. only average efficiency - Lebron has been historically good in terms of efficiency the last few regular seasons. Only MJ has been better in the modern NBA. Drama queen - This one is somewhat fair. I would say it's less about being a drama queen than wanting attention.
Kobe is a mediocre 3 pt shooter. Anthony is a Drama Queen, but so are the vast majority of superstars in the NBA. On the same level as Wade? I don't think so.
Melo may not be Kobe, Lebron or Wade But he's undeniably a Top 5-10 player. And arguably the best scorer in the whole bunch (Kobe doesn't have his size, Wade doesn't have his stroke and Lebron doesn't have his post up game). With 430 NBA players, that's the top 5% in the NBA...aka elite.
partly agreed. He is near elite because people define elites who are top 3 as of late....expectations getting higher and higher Melo is the best scorer among those and younger than KB. He has major deficiencies but he is great at getting his shot off and getting to the hole. He could be the piece to the puzzle but I think we can even win without him. Still a very good player to have. I hope he matured. Forget this thing on TWITTER already! twitter is a curse. well sometimes, nearly every time.
Actual, it's arguable that he's not even a top 10 player. There was a thread about this a while ago. Lebron, Wade, Kobe, Durant, Howard, Paul, Deron Williams, Nash, Dirk, and Roy are all arguably (some undoubtedly) better than Melo. That could put him outside the top 10. He's also not the best scorer in the league. Best scorer and most versatile scorer are not the same thing. Lebron, Wade, Durant and Kobe all score about as much or more than Melo and do so more efficiently. I don't think the scoreboard cares where on the floor they score from or what type of move they make, just that they score.
Technically Carmelo was slightly more efficient than Kobe last year in the regular and post season. http://www.nba.com/statistics/playe...itScope=GAME&qualified=N&yearsExp=-1&splitDD=
What other roster and coaching changes did they make? Were there any key players who were injured for a significant part of 02-03 and came back when Melo joined the team?
Let me just say this reply is not aiming to you only. But damn, when Melo fans put up post like the above to prove Melo's eliteness, do they bother to check the roster change in Deven between the two seasons? In 2002-03, the 7 Nuggets who played most minutes were: Juwan Howard (2730 min, PER 17.2) Nene Hilario (2258 min, PER 15.4) Junior Harrington (2203 min, PER 6.4) Donnell Harvey (1613 min, PER 12.5) Rodney White (1593 min, PER 9.8) Vincent Yarbrough (1381 min, PER 9.5) Nikoloz Tskitishvili (1320 min, PER 4.9) In 2003-04, they were: Carmelo Anthony (2995 min, PER 17.6) Andre Miller (2838 min, PER 18.8) Nene Hilario (2504 min, PER 14.8) Voshon Lenard (2233 min, PER 13.8) Marcus Camby (2162 min, PER 17.8) Earl Boykins (1849 min, PER 16.2) Jon Barry (1102 min, PER 14.6)
Both teams role players are not great at all. This forum is full of posters who are okay with mediocracy. I really do not get it. The only valid point that has been made is his questionable character, this I question to. If you drop him in our squad then we are an Elite team, period. We are right there with Lakers and Heat. How would anyone not want that is beyond me.
You said he he is not as efficient as Kobe which plain wrong. For a wing, he is only behind Durant, Lebron, and Paul and is ahead of Kobe. That is pretty elite, if you ask me considering he has been at top 3 scorer for much of his career.
A top 5 power forward? More like the best PF to ever play the game. I'm not a Spurs fan, but you gotta give it to Duncan, the consummate team player.
I say instead of going after Melo, we should go after Nash. His value is rather low as he is getting older and it looks like Phoenix may be willing to rebuild. We need a Elite playmaker, not an elite scorer. Nash, Martin, Battier, Scola, Yao would Be enough offensively. We could give up Brooks, Hill and a First for him. Are second Unit would still be great and we would finally have a true playmaker. Or even if not Nash, someone like Baron Davis who is a proven playmaker.
As I've said before, the thing about top ten players is that there are only ten of them. Get er done!
Regardless of how you define "elite," who is a top ten player, and who deserves a maximum salary, Carmelo Anthony would instantly become the best player on the Rockets. Plain and simple. As far as fit goes, ask yourself this question: Which is easier, acquiring role players that fit around your best player, or finding a best player that fits in with your role players? When you have a chance to get a player who is easily better than anyone on your current roster, you go for it. Those opportunities don't come often.
