Ray Allen vs Carmelo Anthony

[NeilsCeltics]

Who was the better player and why, Ray Allen or Carmelo Anthony?

[Jaivl]

Ray Allen. Because of a variety of reasons: Better shooter from every distance, from rim to 3p, way more portable skillset, not as atrocious on defense, longer prime.

And because I'm seeing it coming:

%Assisted 2p: Melo 45.6 % / Allen 44.3 %
%Assisted 3p: Melo 79.1 % / Allen 84.6 %

[euliss]

Ray Allen quite handily, much better player. Just watch him play in Milwaukee in 01' or Seattle in 05', much more capable player than Carmelo.

[Doctor MJ]

Allen.

It's possible that had Melo adopted his FIBA approach to the NBA while learning without ego he'd have been better than Allen, but he didn't. The reality is that Allen's just been a more reliably valuable guy in his career.

[trex_8063]

Allen, for reasons already stated above.

[tsherkin]

Allen.

It's possible that had Melo adopted his FIBA approach to the NBA while learning without ego he'd have been better than Allen, but he didn't. The reality is that Allen's just been a more reliably valuable guy in his career.

Yes, this.

Ray Allen didn't have Melo's size. His physical tools are under-represented sometimes, but he had nothing like Melo's power game or ability off of the drive. He was, however, arguably the GOAT shooter until Steph came along, and he had a numbers-suppressed career in Milwaukee. He proved himself in the West with the 05 Sonics and how they made the second round with a nobody squad that was mainly double down screening to get him corner threes as their primary offense while he rocked out to 25 ppg, and of course he was big-time even before that. He was a wonderful player who maximized himself with slavish devotion to physical development and skill maintenance, and who had huge basketball IQ.

Melo has basically underperformed his whole career, which is a little weird to say given that he has been a pretty good player for most of the seasons he's been in the league. Like many, of course, he just didn't maximize his gifts. Still did very well, but could have been a LOT better without some of the mentality issues which troubled him. Approach issues, mind, I'm not talking about character issues, just strategic ones.

[Doctor MJ]

Allen.

It's possible that had Melo adopted his FIBA approach to the NBA while learning without ego he'd have been better than Allen, but he didn't. The reality is that Allen's just been a more reliably valuable guy in his career.

Yes, this.

Ray Allen didn't have Melo's size. His physical tools are under-represented sometimes, but he had nothing like Melo's power game or ability off of the drive. He was, however, arguably the GOAT shooter until Steph came along, and he had a numbers-suppressed career in Milwaukee. He proved himself in the West with the 05 Sonics and how they made the second round with a nobody squad that was mainly double down screening to get him corner threes as their primary offense while he rocked out to 25 ppg, and of course he was big-time even before that. He was a wonderful player who maximized himself with slavish devotion to physical development and skill maintenance, and who had huge basketball IQ.

Melo has basically underperformed his whole career, which is a little weird to say given that he has been a pretty good player for most of the seasons he's been in the league. Like many, of course, he just didn't maximize his gifts. Still did very well, but could have been a LOT better without some of the mentality issues which troubled him. Approach issues, mind, I'm not talking about character issues, just strategic ones.

What I see in Melo is essentially the personification of a certain misguided trend that's very common among all who follow basketball:

Focusing on what a player can do vs what he actually does do

Melo has every tool you could basically want in a scorer, but in the flow of the game he's still quite predictable because he's not actually choosing how to attack by instantly evaluating the best possible attack given the defense, he's largely just going to one of his pet moves.

None of this is his actual weakness from the perspective of what parts of the game he's good at - scoring is his best thing - but to me it explains why you'll here some, including many players, talk about someone like Melo as being about as good as it gets at scoring despite the fact the numbers never bear this out.

[mikejames23]

Carmelo in 2013 was generally as good as anything Ray Allen has ever done. So I don't feel Melo at his best is worse than Ray Allen at his best.

Felton-Kidd-Smith-Melo-Chandler.

This supporting cast outside of Chandler (who is still the perfect roleplayer and not exactly a star), is not very strong. 82games.com has this measured at 1.24 Offense and .96 defense with a Win % of 75. That is seriously impressive.

Throughout their careers as a whole Ray Allen's been worth a lot more to his teams, though. I would've liked to see Melo play more PF during his career.

[blueNorange]

Melo has basically underperformed his whole career,

underperforming himself into first ballot hof tho.

[tsherkin]

Melo has basically underperformed his whole career,

underperforming himself into first ballot hof tho.

This isn't really a relevant comment to what I said. He could have been much better than he was, which was the salient point. You don't need to leap to his defense each time someone doesn't say the most flattering thing in the world on the topic of Melo.

[mischievous]

Career wise, Melo doesn't really have a case unless you ignore longevity and think that he was clearly better in his prime than Allen. Peak vs peak i'm not sure who was better, but over an extended Prime i believe Allen was better. Melo's failure to improve his defense and playmaking over his career is alarming for me, Allen was more efficient, a better playmaker and even better defender despite not being elite or anything. I'd trust Allen more in the playoffs too given what he did in 2001.

[HeartBreakKid]

Melo has basically underperformed his whole career,

underperforming himself into first ballot hof tho.

Is he? Reggie Miller didn't make first ballot and he's had more playoff success than Anthony.

[hundreth]

Just reading through this thread I have to agree with most of the critiques against Melo up to this point in his career.

That being said, it looks as though Melo has really evolved his game this past season to become the well rounded player we all hoped we would see. He's had a stretch of almost half a season where his assists have gone up considerably and you can see the impact he has on the floor outside of scoring. His defense has been superb as well. Here are highlights from his game last night against the Jazz:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f316uEKyIM[/youtube]

So my question is, how do you see Carmelo Anthony stacking up to Ray Allen if he continues evolving his game into Paul Pierce? I could see them ending their careers as very similar players.

[tsherkin]

So my question is, how do you see Carmelo Anthony stacking up to Ray Allen if he continues evolving his game into Paul Pierce? I could see them ending their careers as very similar players.

Probably still won't because he's leaving his prime and has lost value as a scorer. He's shooting less and passing a little more of course, which is a sound adaptation, but while it's useful in-season to the Knicks and a good thing to be doing, I don't really look at it as majorly meaningful in comparison to someone like Ray. We're at the usual phase for him. His game is good beyond three feet and inside the arc. His three is acceptable, though it's been up and down in his career and is sometimes a weapon. He's okay to solid at drawing fouls, but he's not finishing well for a guy his size or super-well for his position. The result is roughly average efficiency on what is still significant usage. That's...I mean it isn't BAD, especially on that team. But he's the improvements he's showing on D and as a playmaker aren't enough to overcome the deficit in his major focus role, which is volume scoring. He still doesn't compare to Ray because he's not as effective a playmaker and this year, as last season, he's considerably worse as a scorer.

TL;DR, he's taking good steps to making himself valuable to the team and the evolution is nice, but it doesn't help him versus Ray.

[hundreth]

So my question is, how do you see Carmelo Anthony stacking up to Ray Allen if he continues evolving his game into Paul Pierce? I could see them ending their careers as very similar players.

Probably still won't because he's leaving his prime and has lost value as a scorer. He's shooting less and passing a little more of course, which is a sound adaptation, but while it's useful in-season to the Knicks and a good thing to be doing, I don't really look at it as majorly meaningful in comparison to someone like Ray. We're at the usual phase for him. His game is good beyond three feet and inside the arc. His three is acceptable, though it's been up and down in his career and is sometimes a weapon. He's okay to solid at drawing fouls, but he's not finishing well for a guy his size or super-well for his position. The result is roughly average efficiency on what is still significant usage. That's...I mean it isn't BAD, especially on that team. But he's the improvements he's showing on D and as a playmaker aren't enough to overcome the deficit in his major focus role, which is volume scoring. He still doesn't compare to Ray because he's not as effective a playmaker and this year, as last season, he's considerably worse as a scorer.

TL;DR, he's taking good steps to making himself valuable to the team and the evolution is nice, but it doesn't help him versus Ray.

Thanks for the response.

If you're going by the stats this season, his shooting has been bad. His scoring hasn't been great. My feeling is that it takes time to return from an injury. His scoring will return. The most promising part is that he's leading us to wins despite his lackluster scoring by impacting the game in so many other ways. Carmelo is another player who has a Steph Curry like gravity effect for his teammates, albeit much less pronounced. No, I'm not saying Carmelo is close to Curry, but Porzingis repeatedly mentions how much easier the game becomes when he's on the court with Melo vs. without. His added passing ability is only going to open up more scoring opportunities for him going forward, and Melo never was especially reliant on his athleticism to begin with. I believe Melo has a few more excellent seasons of play ahead of him, and his alleged decline has been overstated.

[Woodsanity]

Melo started the season very poorly due to injury. His efficiency while semi-healthy is probably significantly better. I expect his scoring to continue to improve. He even had a few nice dunks and finishes last game which is a rarity for him.

[blueNorange]

Derailing

[blueNorange]

Melo has basically underperformed his whole career,

underperforming himself into first ballot hof tho.

Is he? Reggie Miller didn't make first ballot and he's had more playoff success than Anthony.

2 gold medals, ncaa champion, scoring title.

yeah, first ballot.

[Witzig-Okashi]

I'm taking Ray, especially if it's the 01 or 05 renditions.

I feel that Ray Allen is more incline to adapt within a team structure than Melo, though the latter is making strides that weren't realized in either Denver or New York hitherto. Don't feel I can add onto what was said from guys like Doc and tsherk...

[Moonbeam]

underperforming himself into first ballot hof tho.

Is he? Reggie Miller didn't make first ballot and he's had more playoff success than Anthony.

2 gold medals, ncaa champion, scoring title.

yeah, first ballot.

Does being first ballot mean anything? There are better players than Melo who didn't get in on their first ballot. It seems like a silly thing to use to prop up a player.