Would you roll the dice on a Melo experiment?

[Harry Garris]

No, even though we have a need at the backup 4. But I like all the players on our roster better than Melo so I'm not a big fan of having to get rid of a guy for a really low upside player.

[Myth]

Nope. I would have as recently as this past summer, and would have gave up decent pieces for him the year before, but now I don't want him even at the minimum.

[DusterBuster]

No, even though we have a need at the backup 4. But I like all the players on our roster better than Melo so I'm not a big fan of having to get rid of a guy for a really low upside player.

I'm curious why people seem to pigeon hole Melo as only a 4 nowadays. Dwight Jaynes brought up this same thing as a reason for why Melo will never come here, because the team won't/shouldn't play Melo over Collins. I don't see how those things are mutually exclusive... I get the forward position has changed in the last few years, but I still view Melo as interchangeable at the 3 or 4. If he by some chance ends up in Portland, I don't have him slotted on the team as a 4 or taking away any minutes from Collins or Aminu at PF. The team (again, on paper - big caveat) is improved if you swap Melo for Layman in the starting lineup...

Dame/Curry/Stauskas
CJ/Stauskas/Turner
Melo/Turner/Harkless/Layman
Aminu/Collins/Harkless/Swanigan
Nurk/Leonard/Collins

The guy I see him taking minutes from primarily is Layman - who, to his credit, has performed admirably - but is not the threat Melo is. Then he probably eats into Curry and Harkless' minutes a tiny bit. Curry sees a few less minutes when Turner goes to the 2 for Harkless to get some minutes at the 3. Harkless probably gets the brunt of the minutes crunch, but I'm just not sure what he brings anymore. Seeing how good the team has been in his absence makes me believe he's a lot more expendable than he has been in years past.

[tester551]

No, even though we have a need at the backup 4. But I like all the players on our roster better than Melo so I'm not a big fan of having to get rid of a guy for a really low upside player.

I'm curious why people seem to pigeon hole Melo as only a 4 nowadays. Dwight Jaynes brought up this same thing as a reason for why Melo will never come here, because the team won't/shouldn't play Melo over Collins. I don't see how those things are mutually exclusive... I get the forward position has changed in the last few years, but I still view Melo as interchangeable at the 3 or 4. If he by some chance ends up in Portland, I don't have him slotted on the team as a 4 or taking away any minutes from Collins or Aminu at PF. The team (again, on paper - big caveat) is improved if you swap Melo for Layman in the starting lineup...

Dame/Curry/Stauskas
CJ/Stauskas/Turner
Melo/Turner/Harkless/Layman
Aminu/Collins/Harkless/Swanigan
Nurk/Leonard/Collins

The guy I see him taking minutes from primarily is Layman - who, to his credit, has performed admirably - but is not the threat Melo is. Then he probably eats into Curry and Harkless' minutes a tiny bit. Curry sees a few less minutes when Turner goes to the 2 for Harkless to get some minutes at the 3. Harkless probably gets the brunt of the minutes crunch, but I'm just not sure what he brings anymore. Seeing how good the team has been in his absence makes me believe he's a lot more expendable than he has been in years past.

Because he's old & slow now. He doesn't have enough speed to continue to play SF.

I don't think Layman is really that impactful, but he's still better than Melo at this point... and it's really not even close.

[d-train]

No, even though we have a need at the backup 4. But I like all the players on our roster better than Melo so I'm not a big fan of having to get rid of a guy for a really low upside player.

I'm curious why people seem to pigeon hole Melo as only a 4 nowadays. Dwight Jaynes brought up this same thing as a reason for why Melo will never come here, because the team won't/shouldn't play Melo over Collins. I don't see how those things are mutually exclusive... I get the forward position has changed in the last few years, but I still view Melo as interchangeable at the 3 or 4. If he by some chance ends up in Portland, I don't have him slotted on the team as a 4 or taking away any minutes from Collins or Aminu at PF. The team (again, on paper - big caveat) is improved if you swap Melo for Layman in the starting lineup...

Dame/Curry/Stauskas
CJ/Stauskas/Turner
Melo/Turner/Harkless/Layman
Aminu/Collins/Harkless/Swanigan
Nurk/Leonard/Collins

The guy I see him taking minutes from primarily is Layman - who, to his credit, has performed admirably - but is not the threat Melo is. Then he probably eats into Curry and Harkless' minutes a tiny bit. Curry sees a few less minutes when Turner goes to the 2 for Harkless to get some minutes at the 3. Harkless probably gets the brunt of the minutes crunch, but I'm just not sure what he brings anymore. Seeing how good the team has been in his absence makes me believe he's a lot more expendable than he has been in years past.

Because he's old & slow now. He doesn't have enough speed to continue to play SF.

I don't think Layman is really that impactful, but he's still better than Melo at this point... and it's really not even close.

Larry Bird was slow when he was young, but nobody had a problem with him at SF. Melo is a better defender at any position than Layman is.

[tester551]

Because he's old & slow now. He doesn't have enough speed to continue to play SF.

I don't think Layman is really that impactful, but he's still better than Melo at this point... and it's really not even close.

Larry Bird was slow when he was young, but nobody had a problem with him at SF. Melo is a better defender at any position than Layman is.

Bird played over 25-years ago. The game (and athleticism) has changed since then.

Layman is not a good defender, but Melo is much worse from the games I've watched of his recently. At least Layman TRIES to play defense.

[d-train]

Because he's old & slow now. He doesn't have enough speed to continue to play SF.

I don't think Layman is really that impactful, but he's still better than Melo at this point... and it's really not even close.

Larry Bird was slow when he was young, but nobody had a problem with him at SF. Melo is a better defender at any position than Layman is.

Bird played over 25-years ago. The game (and athleticism) has changed since then.

Layman is not a good defender, but Melo is much worse from the games I've watched of his recently. At least Layman TRIES to play defense.

Then you see something I don't. The games I have seen, Melo works hard on defense. In particular, he appears to always be in sync with his team and works hard to of overcome his deficiencies.

[Sinobas]

People get caught up in "positions", but there are really no set positions in basketball, they are just names. You can put any 5 guys out there that you want to and they can be anywhere except for parked in the key. It's generally good to have some mixture of size, agility and ball handling skills, but there's no rule that says you need to get a certain prototypical player for every "position".

What's wrong with a bench of Turner, Curry, Stauskas, Melo and Collins?

[Sinobas]

Because he's old & slow now. He doesn't have enough speed to continue to play SF.

I don't think Layman is really that impactful, but he's still better than Melo at this point... and it's really not even close.

Larry Bird was slow when he was young, but nobody had a problem with him at SF. Melo is a better defender at any position than Layman is.

Bird played over 25-years ago. The game (and athleticism) has changed since then.

Layman is not a good defender, but Melo is much worse from the games I've watched of his recently. At least Layman TRIES to play defense.

I call bull on that. The players back then were not slower. He played in the era of Clyde, Jordan and Dr. J, and there really aren't any players out there today that match those guys. Bird was a good defender though, because of great timing, anticipation, and coordination. Watch these clips of him defending Jordan for example...

Watch on YouTube

[JasonStern]

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[Dzon Dilindzer]

other than carmelo being bad, i think he would **** up nurkic by taking shots, hes not gonna take two shots like jake layman or harkless... carmelo is one of my favorite nba players, but no thanks