The Anthony Renaissance Tour

[Epicurus]

One would hope that Carmello Anthony brings decent shooting as an undersized PF who can't defend well. Unfortunately, however, of the 65 NBA players playing this season 30 games or more and averaging at least 13 shots per game, Anthony is dead last in True Shot Percent, over 6% less than the median for that group. His 50% TS% is simply awful for a somewhat high volume shooter.

[BlazersBroncos]

One would hope that Carmello Anthony brings decent shooting as an undersized PF who can't defend well. Unfortunately, however, of the 65 NBA players playing this season 30 games or more and averaging at least 13 shots per game, Anthony is dead last in True Shot Percent, over 6% less than the median for that group. His 50% TS% is simply awful for a somewhat high volume shooter.

Ya, he is pretty cooked. If his shot isn't going he really is quite a slug.

I would bring him back under certain circumstances, but only as an 8th man type at 18-20mpg. He has the worst TS% of his career and his WS/48 is atrocious. I do think he has been a good locker room guy and that with a much reduced role could be a nice bench scorer. His effectiveness has slowly gone down as the season has worn on, I think he just hasn't had his legs for weeks now.

But, if we can get him for the BAE, we should keep him around. We need all the talent we can get. Even flawed talent. The avenues to improving this team decreased significantly after NO sat on his hands (Or had them tied) at the trade deadline. We now need to get creative, and keeping Melo around could be a necessary supplement to roster scoring if we allocate the MLE elsewhere or let everyone walk to get cap space for a 15-18M guy.

[JRoy]

All the above is true.

Melo is still light years better than Hezonja/Caleb/whatever stiff the blazers claim is a PF

[PDXKnight]

I know this won’t be the popular opinion but I have zero doubts melo makes us worse. If a player shoots that inefficiently you’re better off without them

[Epicurus]

I know this won’t be the popular opinion but I have zero doubts melo makes us worse. If a player shoots that inefficiently you’re better off without them

You certainly are better if a generous portion of the shots taken by the inefficient are taken by someone not as inefficient.

[DaVoiceMaster]

I agree that Melo is not shooting well and at this point, I would not bring him back next season. The guy is done and another year is not going to help. Sadly, the Blazers really have no one else to play PF so he probably is doing better for the Blazers than anyone else on the roster would do at the position. I've enjoyed having him on the roster this season, but I would not bring him back next year.

[JasonStern]

*** Breaking! ***
A nearly 36 year old NBA player that relied heavily on his athleticism isn't efficient playing 32 minutes a game after sitting out a year.

I'm not sure the point of this thread.

BENCH MELO!!!

Ah, there it is.

[red_power]

The only problem with Melo is that Olshey signed a bunch of lame scrubs to play PF during the offseason and then we had expected nothing less from him but salvage the whole mess.

A thing that he quite expectedly couldn't do.

Idk what you want to do now. Blazers currently have nobody useful to replace Melo with. Hezonja's bad and Little's constantly injured
(thanks Neil I don't need to mention Tolliver in this context anymore)

[d-train]

I don't mind Melo having a bad shooting game as long as he takes good shots. Every player has bad shooting games, unless all your shots are near the basket, off feeds from teammates after your man leaves to double. Melo is shooting a good percentage of the shots he is taking and he's not forcing anything. Efficiency stats don't account for the shots taken. In fact, efficiency stats are deliberately inaccurate in favor of players that draw fouls on shots near the basket. Melo could improve his efficiency if he didn't take long 2's, but we need him to take the long 2's he takes. We have only 2 other players that can get and make the shots Melo takes.

My only problem with Melo is he didn't play a game he was physically capable of playing but was mentally weak. I'm ok with having him as long as we have strong coattails to carry his mentally weak ass.

[Epicurus]

You seem quite confused. The guy is last in the named group. Both those who shoot largely from low and those who shoot from distance have much better TS%. His shooting is awful, especially for a somewhat high volume shooter.

[Capn'O]

From an "outsider" who lives here... my take is that the Blazers and Melo have a wink wink agreement to essentially use each other. In a lost season, the Blazers bring on effectively the biggest name to ever sign in Portland as a free agent and give him free reign to run up his stats. The team and the city treat him like royalty and it raises both profiles. Melo will likely end up in the top 15 all time in scoring by the year's end and he'll have nothing but good things to say about signing in Portland. He's not affecting the win column but he's not hurting anything long term either this season.

Then, everyone moves on.

[mighty_duck]

Look at these two players:

Code: Select all

GP   MIN    FG         FG%    3PT        3P%   FT        FT%     REB   AST   TO   PTS
19   32.5   6.9-13.7   50.2   2.1-4.2   48.8   2.2-2.6   84.0   7.3   2.0   1.5   18.1
24   32.8   5.0-14.3   35.4   1.0-4.1   25.5   2.4-2.8   85.3   5.8   1.0   1.9   13.5


One is Melo in wins, the other is Melo in losses.
That top guy is a borderline all star, I wish he could play here more often...

[DaVoiceMaster]

So the Knicks have interest in Melo next season? So much for resigning him for the veteran's minimum.

[d-train]

So the Knicks have interest in Melo next season? So much for resigning him for the veteran's minimum.

If Melo signs with the Knicks, he's an idiot. I believe Melo will have options better than Knicks if Blazers decide they don't want him. It would be good for Blazers if Melo re-signed for the BAE. I don't see Blazers getting a better player than Melo for the MLE, but I would like Blazers to try.

[Roy The Natural]

So the Knicks have interest in Melo next season? So much for resigning him for the veteran's minimum.

If Melo signs with the Knicks, he's an idiot. I believe Melo will have options better than Knicks if Blazers decide they don't want him. It would be good for Blazers if Melo re-signed for the BAE. I don't see Blazers getting a better player than Melo for the MLE, but I would like Blazers to try.

MLE!?

Whoof.... I would hope not. Melo isn't worth anywhere near the MLE. MLE is something around $10M a year. Melo is maybe worth $3M a year. I'd rather have Layman on a well constructed team to be honest.

[Roy The Natural]

Look at these two players:

Code: Select all

GP   MIN    FG         FG%    3PT        3P%   FT        FT%     REB   AST   TO   PTS
19   32.5   6.9-13.7   50.2   2.1-4.2   48.8   2.2-2.6   84.0   7.3   2.0   1.5   18.1
24   32.8   5.0-14.3   35.4   1.0-4.1   25.5   2.4-2.8   85.3   5.8   1.0   1.9   13.5


One is Melo in wins, the other is Melo in losses.
That top guy is a borderline all star, I wish he could play here more often...

Both of those guys are providing a red carpet for about 18 points a game, so you're definitely not going to have an easy time when the bottom guy shows up. Especially when the bottom guy still shoots the same amount of shots despite eye gouging efficiency.

[Roy The Natural]

From an "outsider" who lives here... my take is that the Blazers and Melo have a wink wink agreement to essentially use each other. In a lost season, the Blazers bring on effectively the biggest name to ever sign in Portland as a free agent and give him free reign to run up his stats. The team and the city treat him like royalty and it raises both profiles. Melo will likely end up in the top 15 all time in scoring by the year's end and he'll have nothing but good things to say about signing in Portland. He's not affecting the win column but he's not hurting anything long term either this season.

Then, everyone moves on.

Yea that would probably be my take. I don't think Melo will have it easy finding a decent team next year though. He's really a 12-15 minute situational bench guy at this point. Given his relatively limited effectiveness, and his severe flaws, it's just a difficult and unrewarding task for any good team to try and assemble the correct pieces around him as a bench guy.

I think he'll get a buffet of Detroit/Cleveland/Charlotte type options next year. I certainly don't see the upper echelon teams wanting to bring him in.

[d-train]

So the Knicks have interest in Melo next season? So much for resigning him for the veteran's minimum.

If Melo signs with the Knicks, he's an idiot. I believe Melo will have options better than Knicks if Blazers decide they don't want him. It would be good for Blazers if Melo re-signed for the BAE. I don't see Blazers getting a better player than Melo for the MLE, but I would like Blazers to try.

MLE!?

Whoof.... I would hope not. Melo isn't worth anywhere near the MLE. MLE is something around $10M a year. Melo is maybe worth $3M a year. I'd rather have Layman on a well constructed team to be honest.

I'm sure I don't want the Blazers to be anything like a team you consider to be well constructed. I do want Melo back next year and I don't want Layman back, not for $3.8M or even VME.

[d-train]

So the Knicks have interest in Melo next season? So much for resigning him for the veteran's minimum.

If Melo signs with the Knicks, he's an idiot. I believe Melo will have options better than Knicks if Blazers decide they don't want him. It would be good for Blazers if Melo re-signed for the BAE. I don't see Blazers getting a better player than Melo for the MLE, but I would like Blazers to try.

MLE!?

Whoof.... I would hope not. Melo isn't worth anywhere near the MLE. MLE is something around $10M a year. Melo is maybe worth $3M a year. I'd rather have Layman on a well constructed team to be honest.

An intelligent argument against spending the MLE on a 35 year old player is it would be better to invest a valuable roster building tool (full MLE) on a longer term player. An argument to use the full MLE on an better older player is Blazers might not be able to financially afford a long term $10M/year player with Lillard's supermax kicking in and Zack's extension coming up.

[Sinobas]

I don't mind Melo having a bad shooting game as long as he takes good shots. Every player has bad shooting games, unless all your shots are near the basket, off feeds from teammates after your man leaves to double. Melo is shooting a good percentage of the shots he is taking and he's not forcing anything. Efficiency stats don't account for the shots taken. In fact, efficiency stats are deliberately inaccurate in favor of players that draw fouls on shots near the basket. Melo could improve his efficiency if he didn't take long 2's, but we need him to take the long 2's he takes. We have only 2 other players that can get and make the shots Melo takes.

My only problem with Melo is he didn't play a game he was physically capable of playing but was mentally weak. I'm ok with having him as long as we have strong coattails to carry his mentally weak ass.

Efficiency stats are not "deliberately inaccurate", they are simply math. There's a reason the whole league has fallen in love with the 3pt shot. You say we "need Carmelo to take those long 2s". Based on what?