LaMelephant: The LaMelo Ball Thread (#2)

[Rich4114]

Kemba is 100% correct.

Melo was playing hurt later in the season which is why his play dropped off significantly during that time. The entire ball family has had serious health issues. I think Gelo the only one who has stayed healthy for the most part. Not a good sign imo.

Yeah, I would still take "hurt Melo" playing like ass over any other player on this team lol. He is 50th in Vorp, 50th in EPM while playing terrible according to most of you. I mean who are we comparing LaMelo to that he is such an awful player? When he is still carrying the team when he does play.

11th best offensive EPM in the league while playing hurt, shooting terrible.

unfortunately the games that actually do "matter" are at the end of the year in a very condensed time frame with all the accumulated injuries and wear+tear present, and you don't get an averaged out version of the player from when they are fresh during Oct-Dec

Where do you think our record is if LaMelo played every single game this season? What if he played every single game and was averaging what he was averaging over the first 18? I'm here to tell you, we are no better than 8th or 9th worst with the play-in out of reach. What would be your opinion on LaMelo at that point? Trade him because he didn't average 45/15/15 and carry a roster of G leaguers to the 6th seed?

Imagine Cade or Haliburton on this roster instead of LaMelo? It's probably the exact same record we have right now.

[KembaWalker]

Yeah, I would still take "hurt Melo" playing like ass over any other player on this team lol. He is 50th in Vorp, 50th in EPM while playing terrible according to most of you. I mean who are we comparing LaMelo to that he is such an awful player? When he is still carrying the team when he does play.

11th best offensive EPM in the league while playing hurt, shooting terrible.

unfortunately the games that actually do "matter" are at the end of the year in a very condensed time frame with all the accumulated injuries and wear+tear present, and you don't get an averaged out version of the player from when they are fresh during Oct-Dec

Where do you think our record is if LaMelo played every single game this season? What if he played every single game and was averaging what he was averaging over the first 18? I'm here to tell you, we are no better than 8th or 9th worst with the play-in out of reach. What would be your opinion on LaMelo at that point? Trade him because he didn't average 45/15/15 and carry a roster of G leaguers to the 6th seed
Imagine Cade or Haliburton on this roster instead of LaMelo? It's probably the exact same record we have right now.

if LaMelo played every game and kept his November averages I wouldn't be concerned about his ability to survive till or play well in hypothetical postseason basketball. unfortunately we don't live in such a NBA2k injuries-off world, so I'm concerned. trust me, i don't think the team around LaMelo is good lol, you guys know my opinion of this team better than that. the team is capable of addressing more than one issue per offseason if they want to, although i know thats hard to fathom with this team sometimes. again, for the dozenth time, the idea isn't to trade LaMelo at any cost. its to NOT obsess on keeping him at any cost. They know the offers, and they know his medicals a lot better than you or me. They pulled the trigger on Mark, I just wouldn't be surprised to see them do the same on LaMelo

[JustBuzzin]

Bro did you just compare LaMelo to SGA for a 18 game sample?

This is what gets me. Yeah the stats are great, but we didn't win many games. Sure you can blame injuries, but Melo is also part of that problem as well. You can't compare him to SGA who is the likely MVP.

You guys want to ignore his only issue which is his ability to healthy! Nobody on here is questioning his game. He's a good player when he plays. The problem is he doesn't play enough games. We aren't going to win a lot of games if our best player is only on the floor for half a season.

OK maybe I should be more clear since my point didn't seem to land. LaMelo, playing the best basketball of his career averaging over 30ppg and putting up MVP caliber numbers across 18 games got us a 6-12 record.

Are you really just going to look at that and be like "yeah but he obviously didn't do enough"? If that is the conclusion you're coming to, then there is no point in me further explaining.

My issue is not about his play. It's the fact you chose a specific 18 game sample in which is was his best basketball of the season and you compared it to a guy who's did it all season and he had team success.


You can't compare LaMelo to the MVP SGA. That was my issue.

[JustBuzzin]

Yeah, I would still take "hurt Melo" playing like ass over any other player on this team lol. He is 50th in Vorp, 50th in EPM while playing terrible according to most of you. I mean who are we comparing LaMelo to that he is such an awful player? When he is still carrying the team when he does play.

11th best offensive EPM in the league while playing hurt, shooting terrible.

unfortunately the games that actually do "matter" are at the end of the year in a very condensed time frame with all the accumulated injuries and wear+tear present, and you don't get an averaged out version of the player from when they are fresh during Oct-Dec

Where do you think our record is if LaMelo played every single game this season? What if he played every single game and was averaging what he was averaging over the first 18? I'm here to tell you, we are no better than 8th or 9th worst with the play-in out of reach. What would be your opinion on LaMelo at that point? Trade him because he didn't average 45/15/15 and carry a roster of G leaguers to the 6th seed?

Imagine Cade or Haliburton on this roster instead of LaMelo? It's probably the exact same record we have right now.

If Melo played a full season none of this is a conversation. We all would be happy with our healthy superstar.

I don't understand how you guys continue to ignore his health. Then you play the what if game. Well unfortunately we live in reality. Every season it always comes back to his health.

This franchise is kind of stuck at a dead end. Either keep Melo gamble on his health every season or trade him and move on. New ownership has had a full season of LaMelo. He is obviously not there guy, so it's up to them if they want to continue to play the waiting game with LaMelo.

[JMAC3]

the idea isn't to trade LaMelo at any cost. its to NOT obsess on keeping him at any cost.

I think most of us are living under the pretense of the most logical LaMelo return. Where we become a worse basketball team overnight by trading LaMelo for pieced together 3-4 asset package of future picks/players. Seems like you want to view this as some 50/50 chances we improve in the next 12 months by trading LaMelo. However, the odds are probably nowhere close to 50/50. It is probably 90% chance we are worse, especially if you are trading LaMelo at this perceived depressed value of him being injured or just not that good or whatever pretense that is leading us to make him available.

[JMAC3]

My issue is not about his play. It's the fact you chose a specific 18 game sample in which is was his best basketball of the season and you compared it to a guy who's did it all season and he had team success.


You can't compare LaMelo to the MVP SGA. That was my issue.

Him comparing him to SGA had nothing to do with his point, he could have compared him to Michael Jordan. The point is that even LaMelo playing at an MVP Level the team was not good enough to win. So yeah LaMelo could play at his MVP level all year and we still wouldn't be good because the bigger issue the team around LaMelo.

If you want to rank the issues with the Hornets, LaMelo health isn't even top 3 for me.

1. Overall, lack of talent. Even when healthy.
2-4. We didn't build to win, wasted cap space for future picks, one of lowest payrolls. We operated on a daily basis as a team that didn't take winning serious. Sat on future assets instead of trying to improve the team.
4. Overall team health, Miller, Grant, Tre, Mark all missing more games than LaMelo and performing at a lower level to LaMelo.
5. The Coach- who went 3-25 without LaMelo. winning percentage of 12%. Dude would have won 8 games all year if LaMelo missed whole yr.
6. LaMelo health- went 16-31 with him. 34% win percent. We would have won 28 games if LaMelo played all year. 28-54
7. Miles Bridges efficiency.

LaMelo is worth 20 wins alone to this team if you view it like that lol and some of you want to trade him away for a bag of beans.

[Rich4114]

My issue is not about his play. It's the fact you chose a specific 18 game sample in which is was his best basketball of the season and you compared it to a guy who's did it all season and he had team success.


You can't compare LaMelo to the MVP SGA. That was my issue.

Him comparing him to SGA had nothing to do with his point, he could have compared him to Michael Jordan. The point is that even LaMelo playing at an MVP Level the team was not good enough to win. So yeah LaMelo could play at his MVP level all year and we still wouldn't be good because the bigger issue the team around LaMelo.

If you want to rank the issues with the Hornets, LaMelo health isn't even top 3 for me.

1. Overall, lack of talent. Even when healthy.
2-4. We didn't build to win, wasted cap space for future picks, one of lowest payrolls. We operated on a daily basis as a team that didn't take winning serious. Sat on future assets instead of trying to improve the team.
4. Overall team health, Miller, Grant, Tre, Mark all missing more games than LaMelo and performing at a lower level to LaMelo.
5. The Coach- who went 3-25 without LaMelo. winning percentage of 12%. Dude would have won 8 games all year if LaMelo missed whole yr.
6. LaMelo health- went 16-31 with him. 34% win percent. We would have won 28 games if LaMelo played all year. 28-54
7. Miles Bridges efficiency.

LaMelo is worth 20 wins alone to this team if you view it like that lol and some of you want to trade him away for a bag of beans.

Thank you lol

[JustBuzzin]

I'm done you can't debate people who keep making excuses for our best player. Jmac literally just said that our best player health is not even a top 3 concern for him.


LMAO I'm dead!

[fatlever]

i cant speak for everyone, so my thoughts
- Agreed, the talent on this roster isn't good enough to win, With or without melo. Even if he played 35 minutes a night for 82 games this team wouldn't be over 500
- It must be at least considered, however, the talent on the roster this year was depleted mostly by injuries. It is possible that had everyone been healthy all year this would have been a playoff team. Serious injuries to three of your top 6? - miller, grant, mann. With long term chronic injury management for two of your top 6 - melo, mark. The five of your top six players are either dealing with serious injuries or chronic injuries. No team in the league is winning under those circumstances, Even with the best coach in the league. That is not a statement of support for coach Lee, just stating what I believe to be true.
- I think everyone is getting hung up on the number of games melo Did play the season or could have played this season. Hypothetically if he waited until the End of the season to have this surgery, therefore not missing the last 10 games. Based on his previous availability it's reasonable to suggest he would have played in six of the last 10 game, For a total of 53 games played. Had this team been battling for a playoff spot it's possible that at least seven of the games he missed for back to backs he could have suited up for getting him up to 60 potentially. You look at that number and I think all of us would have been at least ok with him playing 60 games this year.
- I think the bigger concern is the constant managing of the chronic nagging injuries to both his wrist and ankle. Even when he played in the second half of the season he didn't look fully healthy. I think that showed statistically as well. In the past three and a half seasons I think the longest stretch of games he's played without missing a game is 18 games.
- I think we're starting to have a big enough sample size over five years and especially the past three and a half years to see the pattern that this is probably not a player who's going to play a stretch of games without missing time either for minor sprains, or long term chronic injury maintenance. I think that's probably best case scenario. You start to look at similar incredibly talented players who have been dealing with chronic injuries during their careers - embiid, zion, ja, kahwi, lonzo... Guys for whatever reason just cannot seem to stay on the floor for any stretch of time. I also don't think it's necessarily correct to think that if we were in a playoff hunt that he would play through pain that he has not been playing through previously. You can point to some of these other guys I just mentioned and see how many times they missed very important playoff games while managing injuries. Some players just don't have bodies capable of playing a long grueling 8 month season without their body breaking down to some degree.
- So a whole lot of things can be true here that we're arguing about. Yes it's true that the team is devoid of talent. Yes it is true they are better when he plays. Yes its true he probably could have played in more games this season if things were being competitive. Yes it's also true that we should be very concerned about the direction of his health going forward and not to assume that things will get better over time. Yes it's also true to consider that even if the games were meaningful that he still might miss time with injury management.
- The real question that each of us has to ask, and all of us are going to have a different idea, risk tolerance that I've mentioned before, is what do we do about it going forward? Do you stay the course trying to build around him in hopes that his health improves? Do you take the approach that maybe you need to build around someone else and have him be a secondary piece? Do you just put so much talent on the roster that when he misses time it's less impactful aka Memphis? Or do you trade him for 50 to 75 cents on the dollar, And if so are you looking for immediate returns by trading for another similarly talented player with warts or are you looking for future flexibility with picks? The bottom line is there's no easy solution here.

My whole argument in this thread, up to now, has only simply been I'm concerned about the fact that he's having multiple surgeries to fix something that he already had surgery on several years ago.

I do agree that if we're ranking the overall concerns with the franchise that the health of melo is not number one. I absolutely agree that the number one issue on the team is the overall lack of talent and direction and my distrust of past and previous ownership and front office. My concerns that this front office may not be any better at drafting than the last two front offices we've had. My concern that ownership won't spend the money it takes to build an actual quality product on the floor. And I'm also seriously concerned about the fact that three of our top 6 players had very serious injuries this year and we have no idea what they will look like next to season. Miller's wrist, as plow pointed out on his pod, of the players that have had that similar injury to the wrist they've all been to their non shooting hand. How does his wrist surgery impact his ability to shoot over the next year or two? What does Miller look like if his three point shot is 5% points worse because of this surgery? What happens if we get screwed in the lottery again and end up picking 6th? to me those are bigger concerns right now than his health. But it's still a pretty big concern.

[HornetJail]

I'm done you can't debate people who keep making excuses for our best player. Jmac literally just said that our best player health is not even a top 3 concern for him.


LMAO I'm dead!

way to miss the point. we were on pace for 28-54 with him... the issues on this team extend FAR beyond just LaMelo. His health is a concern, but we should focus on fixing what we can actually fix.

Look at Memphis. Ja Morant will finish this season having played less regular season games than LaMelo over the last four years (the four full 82-game seasons since the covid shortened years). And Memphis has gone 178-144 anyway.

Why? because they actually built a damn team. they added depth so that they could withstand their top players missing games and not go 1-20 or whatever we were without LaMelo before the all-star break, and have multiple shot creators so that their best player didn't have to take on NBA record usage for them to win games when they're fully healthy.

[KembaWalker]

we should follow Memphis plan in a few different ways

[JustBuzzin]

I'm done you can't debate people who keep making excuses for our best player. Jmac literally just said that our best player health is not even a top 3 concern for him.


LMAO I'm dead!

way to miss the point. we were on pace for 28-54 with him... the issues on this team extend FAR beyond just LaMelo. His health is a concern, but we should focus on fixing what we can actually fix.

Look at Memphis. Ja Morant will finish this season having played less regular season games than LaMelo over the last four years (the four full 82-game seasons since the covid shortened years). And Memphis has gone 178-144 anyway.

Why? because they actually built a damn team. they added depth so that they could withstand their top players missing games and not go 1-20 or whatever we were without LaMelo before the all-star break, and have multiple shot creators so that their best player didn't have to take on NBA record usage for them to win games when they're fully healthy.

You're missing my point. Why are we just accepting Melo's injury history?

It's cool to just accept he's only going to give us half a season every year? I don't think that's cool and I should just accept it either. I know we have other issues, but our best player needs to be healthy moving forward if we are going to be a threat at winning games.

This thread is just people saying Melo will be fine. Then he proves he's not fine when he's getting surgery year after year. Sorry I'm not going to ignore that. Accountability we must hold everyone accountable. Melo doesn't get any passes.

[SWedd523]

Melo playing 47 or 60 games is irrelevant without context.

Playing 47 or 60 with his form crashing after the ASB and being shut down early for even more surgeries changes the narrative from he played 47 "but he could've played more if he wanted"

Third year in a row his season ends because of more injuries and surgeries.

This is the new normal for him. This team will never be any good hoping Melo will be the centerpiece


The "the fix other stuff before worrying about Melo" doesn't make sense to me. There doesn't need to be mutual exclusivity. Fixing the rest of the roster isn't going to keep him healthy at the end of the year.

Over the last three years he's played a total of 11 games after March 1st. Doesn't really matter how good you are in November.

[KembaWalker]

i feel like if yall went to a Pelicans board and were reading people being like "we absolutely need to KEEP Zion, build around him, hell, build a team thats so freakin stacked that they can win 50 games without him and he puts them over the top in the playoffs, he'd be playing every game if they mattered" we'd be like lol those guys are kind of delusional

[JMAC3]

I'm done you can't debate people who keep making excuses for our best player. Jmac literally just said that our best player health is not even a top 3 concern for him.


LMAO I'm dead!

LaMelo could play all 82 games, that doesn't fix the team, we still wouldn't be a good team. Why would that be the biggest concern then?

The bigger issues are the rest of the roster being bad, the front office purposefully not improving the team, having one of the lowest payrolls, etc you know all the things I took time to list out.

[JustBuzzin]

I'm done you can't debate people who keep making excuses for our best player. Jmac literally just said that our best player health is not even a top 3 concern for him.


LMAO I'm dead!

LaMelo could play all 82 games, that doesn't fix the team, we still wouldn't be a good team. Why would that be the biggest concern then?

The bigger issues are the rest of the roster being bad, the front office purposefully not improving the team, having one of the lowest payrolls, etc you know all the things I took time to list out.

Wait Melo could play all 82 games and he wouldn't make us a winning team.

So what the hell are we keeping him around for. You keep blaming everyone but Melo. It's kind of sad quite honestly. Go back and look at your post in this thread you just making excuses for Melo.

The topic is about Melo. I know we don't have a good roster around him. That still doesn't excuse his injury history. That's literally what I been preaching this entire time yet you keep ignoring it.

[JMAC3]

Melo playing 47 or 60 games is irrelevant without context.

Playing 47 or 60 with his form crashing after the ASB and being shut down early for even more surgeries changes the narrative from he played 47 "but he could've played more if he wanted"

Third year in a row his season ends because of more injuries and surgeries.

This is the new normal for him. This team will never be any good hoping Melo will be the centerpiece


The "the fix other stuff before worrying about Melo" doesn't make sense to me. There doesn't need to be mutual exclusivity. Fixing the rest of the roster isn't going to keep him healthy at the end of the year.

Over the last three years he's played a total of 11 games after March 1st. Doesn't really matter how good you are in November.

We were also not in position for any of those March games to matter. Because the roster is purposefully bad.

When the All-NBA rosters come out in a few weeks and you guys see who is missing because of how many big names didn't qualify for the 65 game mark maybe then you will understand that guys missing games isn't just a Melo thing or Hornets thing.

[JMAC3]

Wait Melo could play all 82 games and he wouldn't make us a winning team.

So what the hell are we keeping him around for.

Brother what? You think Melo should make us a winning team with DaQuan Jeffries, Moussa, Josh Green and Nick Smith playing major minutes.
Otherwise he isn't worth keeping around?

Put the pipe down.

[JustBuzzin]

Wait Melo could play all 82 games and he wouldn't make us a winning team.

So what the hell are we keeping him around for.

Brother what? You think Melo should make us a winning team with DaQuan Jeffries, Moussa, Josh Green and Nick Smith playing major minutes.
Otherwise he isn't worth keeping around?

Put the pipe down.

Brother we haven't won in the LaMelo era. You put the pipe down.

[JMAC3]

Wait Melo could play all 82 games and he wouldn't make us a winning team.

So what the hell are we keeping him around for.

Brother what? You think Melo should make us a winning team with DaQuan Jeffries, Moussa, Josh Green and Nick Smith playing major minutes.
Otherwise he isn't worth keeping around?

Put the pipe down.

Brother we haven't won in the LaMelo era. You put the pipe down.

Nah nah nah.. you think Melo should be good enough to win with Moussa, Jeffries, Green and NSJ playing major minutes? Double down on this. We need to be playoff team or Melo isn't worth keeping around? I don't want you to just skip over that comment.