Carmelo does one thing, which he does quite well. But all he does is score! He doesnt defend and he rebounds poorly. He's a great scorer. That doesnt make him a top 5 talent.
He's not a top 5 player. Top five players dont make it out of the first round once in 7 years.
Lets see what Bill Simmons, The Sports Guy from ESPN, major column writer and author of The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy which spent 5 weeks on the New York Times best seller list thinks, as he grades the nba trades post deadline.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/110225/part1&sportCat=nbaPEOPLE WHO DON'T REALIZE THAT CARMELO IS A LEGITIMATE SUPERSTAR: F-minus-minus
One of the strangest subplots this week: Everyone rushing to pick Carmelo's game apart, especially people who rely on advanced metrics and ended up getting caught up in small-picture stuff. Carmelo has one elite skill (he rebounds extremely well for a small forward) and one transcendent skill (he's as good as anyone in the league at scoring and/or getting to the line, especially in crunch time). You can absolutely, positively, unquestionably win a championship if Carmelo Anthony is your creator at the end of a basketball game. The Knicks didn't have anyone like that. Few teams do.
Now throw this in: He's only 26.
Now throw this in: Ten guys started the 2011 All-Star Game. In a 30-team league, the Knicks suddenly have two of them.
Now throw this in: The other players know. They know who's good. They know who's worth a damn. They know who they'd go to war with. So you can't discount (A) how well Carmelo played on the 2008 Olympic team; (B) how much the other guys respected him; and (C) how the key guys on that team were Kobe, LeBron, Wade and Carmelo. It can't be forgotten. It just can't. Neither can the fact that he nearly carried a limited Nuggets team to the Finals two years ago.
Now throw this in: If there was ever a player who could be ignited by a great basketball city and a consistently fantastic crowd, it's Carmelo Anthony. He's been stuck in a relatively icy cruise control for two solid years, playing in a city he didn't totally love, being professional about it, trying hard every game ... and yet, there was something detached about him. No longer. I hate how he weaseled his way to the Knicks and pissed on Denver fans, but that's over. Let's look at this thing objectively: He's going to kill it with the Knicks. I'd bet anything. They haven't had someone like this since Bernard King, which is funny because I always thought Melo was Bernard 2.0. Playing in New York isn't for everyone, but in this case, it will be the best thing that ever happened to Carmelo Anthony.
I keep hearing that you can't win a title with Melo and Amare. Agreed. But you can win the title with Carmelo, Amare and Chris Paul (or Dwight Howard, or Deron Williams). In the short term, you can make some noise, rock the building and make Knicks fans forget about the 10 excruciating years they just endured. And you can scare the living hell out of the fans from the other Eastern contenders. Believe me, as a Celtics fan, I want no part of the Knicks this spring for one reason: You never want to play a playoff series in which the other team has the best guy. There's a decent chance Carmelo could just go off 1984 Bernard-style in Round 1 or Round 2. I'm crapping my pants just thinking about it. Over everything else, THAT is why they had to make this trade. A week ago, the Knicks were a .500 team. Now, they matter. And if you're throwing stats at me, I'll counter with this one: 15 for 15. Thank you and please drive through.
