RealGM

You have a 50 page thread about his situation. Forget that. I want to know what Nuggs fans thing of his as a BB player. You have watched him for 7 years. Is he a top 10 player? Top 20? 3 All stars in 7 years is good, but is he great? Is he more than just a good volume scorer who can kill you at the FT line? Is he as good a finisher as Kobe? As Pierce? Does he make teammates better? Why has he never won in the playoffs? Does he bring it on D on a Tuesday night in January?

nobody has heen him play more than you guys... trying to be unbiased of whether he stays or goes how to do rank/evaluate Melo as a player?

He's pretty good.

Apparently he isn't good enough for you to spell his name correctly.

He is unique. Attack minded SF with killer instinct.

Next couple years will be his top form.

I think he is a top 10 player in the league. Every year that he has been in the league he has improved upon some aspect of his game. When he was in his first year or two in the league, he couldn't recognize a double team, but now he is pretty good at making teams pay for bringing the double team at him. At the moment, he is the best rebounding sf in the league, is in the top 10 in steals at his position, and top 5 in assists at his position. This year he has been blocking more shots then he has in the past, so he is buying into the defense wins philosophy. There really aren't many players better in the league at hitting a shot at the buzzer for the win, he has done it several times and the last time was this past week against the Bulls.

If you watch some of his video clips/highlight mixes, you will find that he is a very underated passer in traffic and he often finds Nene, The Birdman or Kmart for easy dunks. His 3 point shooting isn't the greatest percentage on the planet, but it has improved. He still has his weaknesses, but his strengths more then make up for them. Whoever it is that acquires his services in the future will be an improved team the moment he takes the floor for that team.

Bill Walker thinks Melo is better than Lebron
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT3bY3oE4V4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_MY0qUt5CM[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU8ep5LAuBs&feature=related[/youtube]

This is my favorite Melo buzzer beater
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ickvo81Bep0&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Melo takes over
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmGfy23hvAI&feature=related[/youtube]

never heard of this carmello guy before.

Is he a top 10 player?

depends who you ask. probably right on that line. yes if he's on a good streak, no if he's having an off month.

realgm always seems to have him ranked outside the top 10....instead favoring the flavor of the season. i remember extended Kirilenko vs. Melo arguments years ago in the PC board and the votes were pretty much 50/50. then luol deng made a bunch of open 18 foot jumpers against the heat a couple seasons ago in the playoffs and immediately jumped ahead of melo in 'top SF rankings.' oden was drafted and there were rumors of a melo for oden deal....and the portland board was like "lulz you could never get our franchise big man for your small forward".... then someone like Roy has a good year and bumps melo out of rgm's 'top 10', or probably Westbrook now since he's putting up good stats. but those guys always come and go....and melo steadily improves year after year while remaining injury free and scoring 25+ with 6+ boards and a handful of assists and getting his team to the playoffs despite depleted rosters...etc.

Top 20?

unquestionably.

3 All stars in 7 years is good, but is he great?

should have been 4-5. kirilenko stole at least one from him.

Is he more than just a good volume scorer who can kill you at the FT line?

he's a great and consistent volume scorer, not a good one. and his willingness to be a good passer has increased over the years, particularly with the additions of good shooters/finishers. i've never really liked him doing extended, probing dribble drives or multiple p&rs...because he's not that sort of player. but he also gets that, and sticks more to the midpost and block and getting assists out of double teams that way.

Is he as good a finisher as Kobe? As Pierce?

with the ball in the last 24 seconds....hell yes. as far as dominating a 4th quarter and willing his team to victory, not as much...perhaps. but not far off either.

Does he make teammates better?

yes. that or karl or something in the water in denver. cause every player (with few exceptions) that's come here in the past 7 years has had very good seasons as compared to their career averages, or the seasons before/after they were in denver. AI was an all-star with denver, got traded...and now he's in turkey. earl boykins was playing like 25mpg, got traded....then had to go to europe to get another contract. greg buckner, ruben patterson, anthony carter, marcus camby to name some others that have had resurgences in denver despite being meh players.

compare that to going and playing with lebron, where you're numbers and career immediately takes a nosedive into the basement and all of the sudden you're 'old and washed up'

Why has he never won in the playoffs?

bad matchups, small & injured big men, and probably some blame goes to karl for his style and the fact that he's a tier below popovich/jackson.

Does he bring it on D on a Tuesday night in January?

depends on who we're playing on tuesday in january.

depends who you ask. probably right on that line. yes if he's on a good streak, no if he's having an off month.

I remember at the beginning of his 2nd year in the league the Hinrich over Melo posts

After 7 years I'd say the biggest gripe on Melo is that while he's lead the Nuggets to the playoffs every year (in the west mind you) they've only been out of the first round once.

Now is that his fault? As Corona said not really but some of the blame falls on the best player on the team.

Even if he leaves most fans will still consider Melo a great Nugget.....as long as the divorce isn't ugly/ doesn't happen during a 1 hour tv special.

He is a lot like Amare. Has a good all around game but has always been put behind the elite players at his position (Garnett, TD, Lebron, Kobe). In a way they both get overshadowed. I am not sure if Melo is top 10 but he is top 15 for sure.

corona wrote:never heard of this carmello guy before.

Is he a top 10 player?

depends who you ask. probably right on that line. yes if he's on a good streak, no if he's having an off month.

realgm always seems to have him ranked outside the top 10....instead favoring the flavor of the season. i remember extended Kirilenko vs. Melo arguments years ago in the PC board and the votes were pretty much 50/50. then luol deng made a bunch of open 18 foot jumpers against the heat a couple seasons ago in the playoffs and immediately jumped ahead of melo in 'top SF rankings.' oden was drafted and there were rumors of a melo for oden deal....and the portland board was like "lulz you could never get our franchise big man for your small forward".... then someone like Roy has a good year and bumps melo out of rgm's 'top 10', or probably Westbrook now since he's putting up good stats. but those guys always come and go....and melo steadily improves year after year while remaining injury free and scoring 25+ with 6+ boards and a handful of assists and getting his team to the playoffs despite depleted rosters...etc.

Top 20?

unquestionably.

3 All stars in 7 years is good, but is he great?

should have been 4-5. kirilenko stole at least one from him.

Is he more than just a good volume scorer who can kill you at the FT line?

he's a great and consistent volume scorer, not a good one. and his willingness to be a good passer has increased over the years, particularly with the additions of good shooters/finishers. i've never really liked him doing extended, probing dribble drives or multiple p&rs...because he's not that sort of player. but he also gets that, and sticks more to the midpost and block and getting assists out of double teams that way.

Is he as good a finisher as Kobe? As Pierce?

with the ball in the last 24 seconds....hell yes. as far as dominating a 4th quarter and willing his team to victory, not as much...perhaps. but not far off either.

Does he make teammates better?

yes. that or karl or something in the water in denver. cause every player (with few exceptions) that's come here in the past 7 years has had very good seasons as compared to their career averages, or the seasons before/after they were in denver. AI was an all-star with denver, got traded...and now he's in turkey. earl boykins was playing like 25mpg, got traded....then had to go to europe to get another contract. greg buckner, ruben patterson, anthony carter, marcus camby to name some others that have had resurgences in denver despite being meh players.

compare that to going and playing with lebron, where you're numbers and career immediately takes a nosedive into the basement and all of the sudden you're 'old and washed up'

Why has he never won in the playoffs?

bad matchups, small & injured big men, and probably some blame goes to karl for his style and the fact that he's a tier below popovich/jackson.

Does he bring it on D on a Tuesday night in January?

depends on who we're playing on tuesday in january.

great post... thanks

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba/feed/20 ... ba-players


SN puts Melo at 6th, given that their list is based on the opinions of hall of famer, current and former players, executives/ former executives, and coaches, I would take their opinion as being pretty close.

Easily top 10. Guy you can build a championship team around with the right pieces.

However, I'm not so sure about him making his teammates better.. or at least on a consistent basis. Guy still has a tendency to become a ballstopper. You see our offense without him run fluidly, and for brief instances it resembles an actual halfcourt offense, but then when Melo returns he destroys all of that. Ball gets stuck on one side and off-ball movement ceases.

And sometimes dude has tunnel vision. He knows the double is coming. Even though the paint is temporarily open, someone is going to confront him as soon as he beats his man. Yet, he doesn't always make right play.

It's this isolation basketball he has been forced into playing. Yes, he is an awesome iso scorer, and giving him the ball 15-feet-out and clearing out of the f*cking way at times is easy offense. But good Lord, I wish we could give him some different looks. Run him off a screen like Durant, let him run the pick and roll whenever he isn't matched up against ball hawker like Artest or have him run a backdoor cut/screen for a lob pass. I can't remember the last halfcourt alleyoop Melo has had. Those died once Camby/Miller left.

Lastly, sometimes his attitude pisses me off. I have always blindly supported Melo, but he really f*cking pissed me off last game. He didn't want to play defense and I could tell from the start. And his laziness gets in the way of us making correct rotations/adjustments on defense. And then this newfound barking at the refs---he didn't do it as much last year, and now with a shorter leash he is trying to push the refs past their limit. I mean, refs give out that first technical without thinking twice, but they are trying hard not to eject star players for a second technical. But Melo keeps on nagging and nagging..

/end rant

Borderline superstar player, but I question his motivation a lot.

He's a top 10 player without question. Offensive genius. Most talented offensive player in the game. His issue is playmaking ability and on ball defense. He can have motivation issue too. His team defense is good when motivated and his off ball is just average. His on ball defense can be pretty bad.

He's a selfish, whipped and traitorous SOB, but that's just my opinion. !

Well I'm glad we brought this back up...

The reason the knicks are struggling is becasue of the KNICKS...and carmelo

In the 4 years ny has had melo, they have never had a team that was better than any of the denver nugget teams carmelo played on. Part of that has to do with the fact that ny traded all of their assets to denver. Even when you look at the ny team that won 55-56 games, they were chucking up three's against the eastern conference. when you would actually watch ny play, they didnt look like a true top 6-7 team in the league. this can be said about the pacers team from this past season that finished atop the east(everyone knew they were just beneficiaries of a already weak eastern conference obsessed with "tanking".

just think about this: carmelo anthony had ty lawson and chancey billups for point guards, jr smith and aaron afflalo for shooting guards, nene kmart chris anderson and al harrington as bigs. melo should have just rode the ship and let the team keep improving. theres alot of good teams in the west so sometimes you have to hit the reset button and start over. Dirk Nowitski and Tim Duncan hit the reset button out west a couple of times and look at the results (Dirk has 1 rings, and TD won his 5th this year with it being 6-7 years since the last one)

To answer your question, yeah melo is a top 10 player but for him to be sucessful, he cant be the top dog. When melo played with billups, chancey served as a stabalizer for carmelo. its not as simple as having a good point guard. melo needs to have a pg whom he respects to allow to dictate how the ball is distrubuted. The other day, Lebron was quoted saying that "kyrie is going to run the show". Lebron has enough respect that he trust kyries decision making with the bball. Idk If things will be as smooth for Carmelo Anthony and Jose Calderon this year although i am a calderon fan. ny needs to get a proven pg carmelo recongnizes as a floor general. ( its not rajon rondo)