He's played around 2/3 of his minutes at PF these last two years (the best of his career). I suspect he would see the same split in Houston, being the primary offensive creator at the 3 the 10-12 minutes Harden sits. 24 minutes at PF. 12 minutes at SF. No different than what he's used to.
I should add that Melo actually was a better defensive rebounder and defender than Terrence Jones last year, so there's no downgrade there. The main issue would be replacing Asik with a reliable defensive center with likely only the exceptions at Morey's disposal.
Except the East is not the West. Love, Aldridge, Randolph, Griffin, Ibaka, Duncan, Dirk, Anthony Davis... Lots of big PFs to guard in the west.
David West, Nene, Boozer/Gibson, Monroe, Millsap, Melo had to guard his fair share of bruising power forwards. And like I've said, you need to keep in mind that Terrence Jones started the majority of games at PF for the Rockets and he couldn't guard most of those guys at all. For instance, LMA only shot a combined 12/37 for 33 points vs the Knicks this season.
Not sure what you're trying to say. Are you suggesting that it takes the same amount of energy to guard those East PFs as the ones in the west? We'll have to disagree, because I would say players like Millsap and Monroe a bit easier to guard than the players I listed.
The only guy in the west that's a bruiser is Zbo, Griffin and Davis are athletes (which is probably just as bad for Melo) and the rest are jump shooters. I'd say you're more likely to get a physical game out of the east with players like West, Monroe, Gibson/Boozer than anyone but Zbo in the west.
I'm not sure you have to really guard those PFs if you're Melo. How much do these players touch the ball per game? As opposed to western PFs? I see LMA in the post more times than I've seen any EC forward in any Rockets game. And I think LMA is soft as hell.
Guarding them isn't really the issue, as much as being hammered over and over wearing them down (see Lebron's b****ing about West), if you're guarding dirk who is basically put your hands up and hope he misses, you're probably not being pushed that physically. If you're dealing with Zbo smashing into you over and over, it's going to wear you down.
Even 3-5 years ago I would agree with you, but not now... Anthony already played more minutes at PF than SF last year and did well... He actually defends better at the 4 as well. I agree the Rockets would need another classic, solid PF for the bench though.
Would love to have him at PF but I think Love would cost a lot less if he agrees to come here. With Melo at the 4 we'd also need to shore up our overall rebounding and still need to improve our defense. Hopefully, Harden won't be able to make the excuse that he's generating so much offense that he doesn't have the energy for defense.
"redneck and fat ass stripper city"..... I see you have never been to Houston... also the percentage of "trash" is pretty consistent in all the major American cities.....
The biggest issue imo from Melo would be that in Chicago, he gets to rest on the opponents worst offensive wing every single game, whereas we what? need him to spend a lot of time at PF? If you were Melo, what would you choose?
That's the beauty of having Melo he can go back to playing SF his natural position. Moot point whether he becomes a Rocket though, I don't see him being on Morey's radar not wanting to go all in on Melo's max contract.
