Start up the tank

[fatlever]

Imagine if Melo just had the willpower to refrain from taking 3 or 4 moronic 30 ft 3s with 15+ on shot clock off a bunch of dribbles. That's the growth I want to see between now and next year, assuming he decides to grace us with his presence again this season.

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[SWedd523]

Imagine if Melo just had the willpower to refrain from taking 3 or 4 moronic 30 ft 3s with 15+ on shot clock off a bunch of dribbles. That's the growth I want to see between now and next year, assuming he decides to grace us with his presence again this season.

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That's really all I want.

I understand the (now outdated?) Kemba belief that literally any Melo shot is better than anyone else shooting but there's just no excuse for the random heat check bombs with 16 seconds on the clock and nobody in rebounding position.

At least he's mostly cut down on the stupid random frustration reaching fouls. At least Lee has managed to get that tick pulled

[KembaWalker]

Holy cow you are obsessed with talking about his usage lol... Has to be the main reason he is good.
Nothing to do with the passing stats I showed, his drive volume and efficiency, his fta, his on/off metrics that say Hornets are 6 points better when he plays vs when he is on bench...

LaMelo usage the previous 4 seasons and Off EPM.

2025 37.7 usage and 98% Off EPM
2024 31.7 usage and 96% Off EPM
2023 29.9 usage and 93% Off EPM
2022 27.3 usage and 95% Off EPM
2021 24.8 usage and 73% Off EPM

but hey this might be an outlier year only because he has a high usage...

but hey why use stats when you can invalidate them because your gut says they are wrong lol

the usage is the most important part, if you're an "elite" offensive player and youre using an insane amount of possessions and teams offense is about as far from elite as there is in the league, what are we even doing here? who cares? lol

Yes, the best players in the league typically have the highest usage, which would indicate LaMelo is one of the better offensive players in the league. Yet here you are trying to disqualify him as a good offensive player because he has a high usage? Your logic makes no sense, no sense at all.[/quote]

i can only process this degree of reading comprehension as an actual trolling attempt, i dunno.

i'll let you live in your fantasy land of LaMelo>Giannis/Booker/AD/Tatum etc etc etc. it's probably much comfier there than the reality the rest of us are experiencing rn

good luck in your future spreadsheet sorting endeavors

[JMAC3]

What's more likely:

Melo is putting up all time great box stats on a bad team a la early career MJ

or

A distilled stat trying to encompass everything down to one number isn't a foolproof way to measure a player's true impact.



a question for those who care:

Has there ever been a "historically great" high usage offensive player who happened to be on a bottom 3-5 offense?

You can go stat by stat and LaMelo is going to grade out well in most offensive stats.

Do you also think Trae Young is a bad offensive player because he shoots 48% EFG and 33% from three both lower than LaMelo... and has a 94% Off EPM.

[KembaWalker]

Imagine if Melo just had the willpower to refrain from taking 3 or 4 moronic 30 ft 3s with 15+ on shot clock off a bunch of dribbles. That's the growth I want to see between now and next year, assuming he decides to grace us with his presence again this season.

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That's really all I want.

I understand the (now outdated?) Kemba belief that literally any Melo shot is better than anyone else shooting but there's just no excuse for the random heat check bombs with 16 seconds on the clock and nobody in rebounding position.

At least he's mostly cut down on the stupid random frustration reaching fouls. At least Lee has managed to get that tick pulled

i stand by letting Melo farm his stats and still think a Melo bomb is as good as anything else we can do, but im not gonna actually fool myself into thinking he's better than he actually is from doing it. trust me, if LaMelo was Luka or Jokic on offense, we wouldn't be where we are right now

[JMAC3]

Bucks are only 15th in offensive rating, by your logic that means Giannis is only an average offensive player.
Same with Trae Young, Hawks are 16th in offensive rating so he also must be an average offensive player.

EPM must be fake news if it says those guys are elite offensive players.

[JMAC3]

i can only process this degree of reading comprehension as an actual trolling attempt, i dunno.

i'll let you live in your fantasy land of LaMelo>Giannis/Booker/AD/Tatum etc etc etc. it's probably much comfier there than the reality the rest of us are experiencing rn

good luck in your future spreadsheet sorting endeavors

I also think you don't understand stats if you reason for saying is a stat is broken because Giannis only ranks 10th out of 400+ players.
Same with Tatum only ranking 9th, must be broken lol..

At no point is my argument that LaMelo is absolutely the 6th best offensive player in the league because that is what EPM says.... He could be 12th and I would still think he is an elite offensive player... but for some reason you are trying to win argument based on guys being 3 slots lower than him...

Take a second to realize how broken your macro logic is here....

[JMAC3]

Imagine if Melo just had the willpower to refrain from taking 3 or 4 moronic 30 ft 3s with 15+ on shot clock off a bunch of dribbles. That's the growth I want to see between now and next year, assuming he decides to grace us with his presence again this season.

Sent from my SM-G973U using RealGM mobile app

That's really all I want.

I understand the (now outdated?) Kemba belief that literally any Melo shot is better than anyone else shooting but there's just no excuse for the random heat check bombs with 16 seconds on the clock and nobody in rebounding position.

At least he's mostly cut down on the stupid random frustration reaching fouls. At least Lee has managed to get that tick pulled

i stand by letting Melo farm his stats and still think a Melo bomb is as good as anything else we can do, but im not gonna actually fool myself into thinking he's better than he actually is from doing it. trust me, if LaMelo was Luka or Jokic on offense, we wouldn't be where we are right now

Who said he is better than Luka or Jokic? Lol

You have lost the rope and are dangling out in space without any direction at this point.

[KembaWalker]

15 and 16th out of 30 is a lot better than 28th. If LaMelo was leading us to a league average offense at that usage I’d be pretty happy. We are not that

[KembaWalker]

That's really all I want.

I understand the (now outdated?) Kemba belief that literally any Melo shot is better than anyone else shooting but there's just no excuse for the random heat check bombs with 16 seconds on the clock and nobody in rebounding position.

At least he's mostly cut down on the stupid random frustration reaching fouls. At least Lee has managed to get that tick pulled

i stand by letting Melo farm his stats and still think a Melo bomb is as good as anything else we can do, but im not gonna actually fool myself into thinking he's better than he actually is from doing it. trust me, if LaMelo was Luka or Jokic on offense, we wouldn't be where we are right now

Who said he is better than Luka or Jokic? Lol

You have lost the rope and are dangling out in space without any direction at this point.

Says the guy who started the argument straw manning my argument with Scoot? Full on projection straight from fantasy land here

[JMAC3]

Says the guy who started the argument straw manning my argument with Scoot? Full on projection straight from fantasy land here

Yes because you didn't say Jordan Poole lololol

[KembaWalker]

Says the guy who started the argument straw manning my argument with Scoot? Full on projection straight from fantasy land here

Yes because you didn't say Jordan Poole lololol

I like LaMelo a lot but he’s a lot closer to Jordan Poole than he is to Giannis lol. The results speak for themselves

[SWedd523]

15 and 16th out of 30 is a lot better than 28th. If LaMelo was leading us to a league average offense at that usage I’d be pretty happy. We are not that

Big difference being a high usage player leading your team to a good offense and a high usage player leading your team to an awful one.

switch Jokic and Melo, do we still have a bottom 3 offense?

I doubt it

[JMAC3]

Says the guy who started the argument straw manning my argument with Scoot? Full on projection straight from fantasy land here

Yes because you didn't say Jordan Poole lololol

I like LaMelo a lot but he’s a lot closer to Jordan Poole than he is to Giannis lol. The results speak for themselves

Yes, I am sure we would have to attach a 1st rounder to LaMelo just to have some sucker team accept him in a trade like Warriors did with Jordan Poole, practically twins. I am sold now on your original comparison of them as players.......

You do realize we are talking about Offensive end only right?? If Giannis was as bad on defense as LaMelo then yeah they would probably have the same value.

[JMAC3]

15 and 16th out of 30 is a lot better than 28th. If LaMelo was leading us to a league average offense at that usage I’d be pretty happy. We are not that

Big difference being a high usage player leading your team to a good offense and a high usage player leading your team to an awful one.

switch Jokic and Melo, do we still have a bottom 3 offense?

I doubt it

If only the NBA had stats that showed how impactful guys were when they played... oh well.

Probably best to just live in these weird hypotheticals where we use team stats to decide if a player is good individually. Way more fun lol

[GiggitySmalls]

Wow this thread went from light humor about how bad we are and a bit of fun about draft picks, to grown men just bickering about basically nothing that matters. This season freaking sucks. Let's atleast pretend we are talking for flagg or Harper, and imagine what that could look like for us.

I'll start

Flagg would look great next to Williams on defense, and he's also a connector. He can pass and make plays while probably being the 3rd option in year one. Would be our best defender, and Grant Williams could be a good vet for him. Also a miles replacement and change in culture. Especially if we get something decent for miles.

Harper. Wow, could you imagine the offense that Melo, Miller, and Harper could produce if they can be on the court together for a significant amount of time and a lot of games. Man, that would be freaking awesome!

There thread reset. Ready set go!

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[JustBuzzin]

With the way we play I have a hard time believing they would select Flagg over Harper tbh. 3's aren't exactly what Flagg brings to the table.

I'm confident they would take Harper because it's quite clear we need another ball handler/creator besides Melo. I'm salivating at the thought of a Harper/Melo backcourt.

[JustBuzzin]

Also people keep forgetting we took Salaun to develop into our starting pf. I doubt they would give up on him if given the choice between Harper/Flagg.

[GiggitySmalls]

With the way we play I have a hard time believing they would select Flagg over Harper tbh. 3's aren't exactly what Flagg brings to the table.

I'm confident they would take Harper because it's quite clear we need another ball handler/creator besides Melo. I'm salivating at the thought of a Harper/Melo backcourt.

Flagg does everything else that no one on this team does well. 3s are important in a spamming 3 ball league, but so is real basketball. 3 spamming is lame and is ruining the game. Give me the guy to level everything out and bring some balance. I love both, but I like flagg a tad more for everything that isn't a 3. Rebounding, defense, passing, slashing, effort. He will be a fine 3 point shooter in time as he should still be a high school senior at his age. I'll take everything he already does and bet on his improvement from 3.

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[GiggitySmalls]

Also people keep forgetting we took Salaun to develop into our starting pf. I doubt they would give up on him if given the choice between Harper/Flagg.

Salaun doesn't matter in regards to flagg. He gets deleted or moved back. The dude is trash after and can't play any form of anything that resembles good, let alone mediocre basketball. He's that bad. I don't care about him being 19. The dude is a baby dear in every aspect of his game. To me, he's a nothing burger.

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