’94 Toons: The Case Against Carmelo

so whats Moreys sabermetics justification for building around Yao? I wonder how many possessions per game Yao loses us? And does missing a game(or in Yaos case seasons on end) count as like 20-30 possessions lost?

I discussed this before on a previous entry but I don't think it went through.

Three main points:

#1 - Scoring

The thing with Carmelo is that he is an ELITE scorer. He is one of the best scorers in the game. You can give the ball to him at the end of games and he will get you a basket. A championship team MUST have someone like that and we right now we don't.

If I remember correctly, in the lead up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he was often the best scorer on the USA basketball team. He was even named USA basketball's male athlete of the year in 2006 when he helped the US beat Italy behind his 35 points. And this was on a team with Lebron, Wade, Chris Paul, and more.

See these links:
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/wbc2006/news/story?i...
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/wbc2006/news/story?i...
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/10193/c...

And how scary would the team be offensively with Carmelo as the 1st scoring option, Yao as the 2nd, Kevin Martin as the 3rd, Brooks as the 4th, and Scola as the 5th? On any given night, ANY one of those guys could get you 20 or even 30 points.

#2 - Efficiency

Yes, he's not the most efficient, but that is also partly due to him being always double covered or facing the opposing team's best defender. You can't necessarily compare his stats to someone who isn't facing those same defenses.

Also, efficiency is based on two separate factors: 1) your shooting percentages, and 2) the distribution of shots that you're taking. The formula for True Shooting Percentage is PTS / (2 * (FGA + 0.44 * FTA)).

Carmelo actually shoots a pretty good FG% (45.9% career vs 44.8% for Kevin Martin) and FT% (80.1% career vs 85.6% for Kevin Martin). His main weakness is his 3p% (30.8% career vs 38.0% for Kevin Martin), but even then in 2008-09 he shot a respectable 37.1% on 3 pointers.

The main problem is his distribution of shots. In their careers:

Kevin Martin was 17.4 PTS, 11.7 FGA (3.6 3PA), and 6.5 FTA giving a TS% of 59.75%.

Carmelo Anthony was 24.7 PTS, 19.3 FGA (2.3 3PA), and 7.9 FTA giving a TS% of 54.22%.

If you set up the offense to have Carmelo go for more free throws instead of 2 pointers, and to take only higher percentage 3 pointers, you could improve his efficiently quite dramatically. In his case, it's much more an issue with the distribution of his shots rather than him being a poor shooter.

I'd much rather have him than someone that shot the "correct" distribution of shots but was a terrible shooter.

#3 - Defense

Lastly, defense is based a lot on the TEAM philosophy. You could put almost any player on the Suns, Knicks, or Warriors and they would seem average defenders at best. Similarly, put a poor defender in a great defensive system and they'll probably seem alright.

For example, Ray Allen was never considered a great defender by any means, but the Celtics have been one of the best defensive teams in the league ever since he joined.

I hope we stand pat with the team we have now. As attractive as the prospect of getting Melo is, we are just not going to win with him. I'd trade for Iggy over Melo any day. There's no doubt we can score with the team we have now, but if we were to acquire Iggy with the assumption we'd be getting Battier back, it'd give us the defense we need to compete in the West. That's what is going to come down to is defense, and Melo has none of it.