The whole Melo thing is on CP3

Melo has been a human catastrophe in the NBA, both as a leader and franchise player, a cancerous locker room presence and one of the biggest underachievers ever, but somehow Rockets were always in the mix for his services (Jeremy Lin anybody?) and they have been there for reason: their whole philosophy is actually for Melo and is about acquiring him.

The whole pace and space thing is Morey's way to improve that original Nuggets team of the late 2010-'s, that was 2-2 with a dominant LA Lakers in Western Conference Finals at sometime.

That Denver team was the first original layup/dunk-three-pointer-FT team under George Karl with an obvious similarities.

Harden is a Billups type guard, that is controlling the offense on his own pace, delivers the ball and scores for his own, obvious upgrade as a player and way more obvious downgrade as a leader.

Dwight (heck) was a Nene-type enforcer, who sets screens, rebounds, defends and attacks the rim of the catch and rolling to the basket. In theory.

Beverley and Ariza, alongside big body in the paint, were both great perimeter, team and on-ball-wise defenders, guys that provide anything necessary for the group to be a solid defensive team and not a sub-par like those Nuggets essentially were.

Melo was a final piece. Attacking off the catch and killing at the elbow. Dwight as a dominant rebounder and help defender would cover for most of his weaknesses of playing the four defensively.

In theory: Part II

Now with basketball dynamic has changed a lot, this could still be a plan, but not the original one.

Melo may still be a lethal jump-shooter for the team with CP3 controlling the action alongside Harden's ability to draw extreme defensive attention to him on every single play, but we don't need to say that Anthony may be the Olympic Melo on this team.

Anthony is old, overweight and slow, he doesn't drive to the basket this much at all.

He had only 94 attempts made at rim last season, comparing to Harden 299.

Well, even Olympic games (sic!) has shown his decline:

FIBA World Cup 2006 - 54.5% on two-pointers
FIBA Olympics 2008 - 48% on two-pointers
FIBA Olympics 2012 - 57.5% on two-pointers
FIBA Olympics 2016 - 38.5% on two-pointers

If you put him on a team with immature Harden alone under MDA, who was forced from the Knicks, because of Melo ultimatum to fire him.... that's a disaster waiting to happen.

But with Chris Paul in the locker room as a leader we may still have a chance.

Listen, it always takes time for a guy to take a locker room leader role as a newcomer, but it may not be the case here.

Rockets have traded almost the half of the locker room to the Clippers and now it's Harden, who asked him to come here, young Capela, who would benefit the most for playing with him, both financially and improving his game-wise, CP3 friends Ariza and Tucker, positive Nene and a newcomers, so it's a basically a new locker room, where Chris may force his powers from day one.

The best situation for the Rockets is to let Chris be a leader, while Harden would be a superstar and the best player on the court.

If so, CP3 may be a guy who would keep Melo on a right track and not letting him to provide his bad habits and well-known cancerous stuff all over the group, which he obviously did in the past. Just look at Porzingis actions from last couple of month. That's Melo's influence on the young guns, much like Stephon Shitbury on Rondo in Boston.

If you should give a lot for him - it's obviously still a big-time and unparalleled risk, but if you could acquire him for Anderson and couple of picks (most of them coming to a third team) - it's probably OK

But we shouldn't expect him to be an All-Star in the West.

He's not that caliber of player anymore and he will never be that kind of player, especially after all those Eastern boys coming to the West to take the reserve places the last couple of days.

Lillard wasn't an All-Star last year, despite being healthy, unlike CP3

If he'll be a slight and a bit consistent improvement over Rhyno and he'll knock some big-time shots, it would be great.

Asking for anything more is ridiculous, we would be truly blessed if he could deliver it.

Basically, it's all on CP3 here

 

Don Nelson was in lottery with a small-ball and positionless basketball, when he simply put the five best guys on the floor together

Now it's called a championship philosophy and modern-day basketball, with LeBron, Durant, Giannis playing playmaking as centers in the next couple of years

The game is changing, son. It's all about catching the wave