I hate to do this but I'm doing it. Melo is more talented than T-Mac now for sure. (Duh!) If you were to compare each in their prime they may be close in some areas but passing isn't one of them. Mac is one of the most talented players the NBA has ever seen (we just didn't have him in his most explosive years). I hope other Rockets fans can get over this post-Mac hater nonsense.

I would like to see Birdman in Houston but I just don't see it happening. He went to Blinn near H-Town and bringing him back to a place where some of his old drug habits may have started is probably a bad idea but it's hard to project how that would all pan out seeing as it's all off the court stuff.

But looking up basic stats I found one pretty troubling set of numbers.
65,77,66,69. Number of games Anthony has played past 4 seasons. Gulp!

For giggles contrast prob pairing career(and last yrs) rebounds and assists:
Anthony 6.2(6.6) rebounds,3.1(3.2) assists
Lee 2.9(3.5) ” ,1.4(1.9) “
Combined 9.1(10.1) ” ,4.5(5.1) “
Martin 3.6(2.9 Hou only) ,1.9(2.3 Hou only)
Battier 4.7(4.7) rebounds ,1.9(2.4)
Combined 8.3(7.6) ” ,3.8(4.7)
Slight edge to Anthony/Lee vs Battier/Martin(w/caveat Martin is a horrible rebounder,twice w/Rockets he had 30min+ games and ZERO rebounds).
But the likely bench w/Anthony would be Battier/Bud vs Bud/Lee and I like Battier's experience anchoring the young bench,but Bud?lee gives more fast break explosiveness.

On the whole I'd rather have Anthony as he is the better player to give the ball and say get 4Q crunch time points and swapping him for Martin would better balance the roster. But it's a close call and I won't be disappointed if Anthony doesn't become a Rocket.

Last little tidbit.
Not counting Martin's rookie season,martin has ave'd 7.22 FTs a game. Anthony has ave'd 7.87 FTs a game for his career.
Martin has ave'd 19.5ppg on 15.9 shot attempts(again excluding rookie season and shot attempts is FGAs plus .4 times FTAs). Anthony has ave'd 24.7ppg on 22.4 attempts.

In other words, has Melo come to realize that individual stardom without a totally satisfying team experience (as in championship) is ok? Only he knows, but a couple of observations (thoughts).

When Melo lost his dreds, I sensed a change in his attitude. Even AI cut the hair, maybe the image without success isn't enough. Melo's statements that he wants to join other stars with a chance to make a superior team may be a good indicator that he has matured. If so, he could make for one hell of an acquisition for Houston. I am satisfied that he can be as good on defense as he decides he wants to be. The real question is does he have the motivation to finally be part of a real team with great chemistry? If so, Houston should be his destination.

I would favor using our MLE to acquire Birdman along with Melo if a trade goes down. His potential contributions as an energy guy who defends the rim has no comparison with our current team. I could see Houston as a serious title contender if we didn't have to grossly overpay with players traded to make this happen. Even if it took Kevin Martin to make this fly, I'd still be happy with the resulting lineup. The only condition I'd have to see would be signing an extension to protect us from a one-season rental of Melo…. He wouldn't be worth that gamble to me…

We would have contented if we had a duration of 5 or 6 years of Mcgrady and Yao in their prime, without injury. When Mcgrady first came over, he was in his prim but Yao still needed more maturing and the supporting cast was not good enough. By the time Yao became more dominate, they both started breaking down.

you just gave the #1 reason melo is a bad choice. melo is a ball hog just like mcgrady. when you have a team with great chemistry like the rockets, a ballhog superstar is detrimental to the team. sure, he'd be the most talented player on the team, but that doesn't mean they'd win as many games. is melo better than the rest of the rockets team combined? i dont think so. and if hes not, then your chance of scoring with him on the court goes down from the status quo. i like the knicks picks. i say keep em for now and either wait for an offer we cant refuse, or roll the dice with the draft. the rockets have had a nice recent history on draft day.

right now you've got a team with great chemistry – one whose players synergize to make a team in which the sum is greater than its parts. add melo in and you throw everything off by giving up a part of the puzzle for a piece that just doesnt fit.

i understand morey wants a superstar, but melo is an obvious bad choice. in order to get him we'd have to give up too much – not worth the risk. i say hold onto the knicks picks and just try to bank another star from the pool of fresh fish. they've got two shots at it, they're likely to land at least one star… plus the recent history of the draft has been good to the rockets. budinger, landry, brooks…

the rockets are not likely to win a championship this year even with melo, so holding onto their assets is the best thing they can do right now. and the closer to next season and the season after we come, the more value the knicks picks will hold. patience is a virtue.

So all you jockstrap holders, please exit the locker room, and get a breathe of fresh air for once. Is the state of the team more important of is having a superstar more important Your decision. I know what its like to go have your homeboys who are Lakers fans, thorow rings in your face like they were on the team. You are they are not . so in hopes of having so called superstar quality players on the team, it don't bode well with me. I have bigger responsibility to believe that any one can win it with there current team. Especially the Rockets. Yoo haven't even given tham a chance and already giving up on there cohesiveness. Morey makes move but they are sporadic and unpredictable, sometimes uncanny , too.

Just let stick to what we know grind it out blue collar basketball. Offense sells tickets, defense wins championships.
If you want Melo, just so you can buy a ticket, please stay at home it's cheaper. You have no morals if you do. I'm a fan I go to one game a year and root for my team all 82 and then some. If we make this trade and lose Brooks in the process its a bust. If we don't make this trade, we win. Regardless if it goes through or not I'll be satisfied because what can you do. You don't like the way the boss run things but you not going to quit your job. I chose to be a Rockets fan, so my job is to be a fan. Why desert what I like doing. Rooting for the home squad. One monkey don't run no show.

With the addition of Billups, Carmelo's efficiency has gone done, but the team's overall efficiency has improved. It makes me wonder who the real MVP of Denver's offense has been.

The other thing it has shown us is that teams with more than an 8 man rotation will struggle due to players needing playing time. At the moment, the Rockets are looking at a very solid 10-man rotation, although there are some very savy veterans on this team (Miller, Battier and Hayes) this could be a situation where there are just too many quality guys on the Rockets team.

For me this Rockets team looks more like the Detroit team of 2004 than any of the other championship teams mentioned without an elite player like Melo. Before fans start the high fives, we need to remember that the Detriot championship was a one time only thing and Yao hasn't played in over a year.

Morey gets an awful lot of hype for his management of an ultimately mediocre team. I think this is the season that he needs to step up and do something dramatic. To borrow from baseball, we have a lot of players that can field pretty well and hit singles, but we don't have that home-run hitter. We need that slugger who can make pitchers nervous and be relied on in the bottom of the ninth.

And what about the likely scenario of another Yao injury and the spectre of his retirement? Do you like the idea of going into the 2011-12 season with basically this roster and no Yao? Is it not easier to build around an elite scoring wing like Carmelo rather than an injury-prone, above-average wing in Kevin Martin?

During the dogged days for the Lakers after Shaq left, Kobe often seemed to take offense into his own hands and not trust his teammates. At the time, I thought he would never change. But with with a masterful coach, assembly of better cast, and probably some aging/maturing, he changed quite a bit.

There is chance that Carmelo doesn't take that step; but there is also a good chance that he does. That risk is something worth taking. It's kinda like the original T-Mac trade from Orlando; it was a risk that we (correctly) took; it didn't pan out … but it could have worked out if we just had a couple breaks along the way (fewer injuries, better moves by CD in front office). For that chance to be a contender, it was worth it. Heck, we probably would be branding Kobe a selfish player if the Gasol trade did not happen.

About your observation though, you could probably take it one step further and say we were destined to repeat in '95 anyway hanging on to Thorpe instead of trading for Glide. The trading for Glide was for him more than the team to come get a title in the city of his Alma Mater. The same courtesy was handed to Chuck the next year, but unfortunately for him it didn't work out. The acquisition of Malone, was a big difference maker, also Hayes coming back in the early 80's. Other than T-mac and Chuck, I can't off the top of my head think of any other stars we've traded to get. (Artest is not a star) So far the count is 3/2 in favor of acquiring established stars. I'm not sure of Lucas' status as a star back then but he was a double double averaging PG when we got him from the Spurs, that could put the tally to 4/2 in favor of established talent. Seriously, I like where this conversation is heading, what flops am I leaving out?

Melo is not in the James/Wade/Kobe strata, but he is an elite scorer in the sense that he can create against any defender all the time. His inefficiency is not a lack of ability to create offense, a la Ariza or Battier. It's a matter of shot selection, a la Kobe in his younger days. Likewise, his lackluster defense has less to do with ability than it does effort–especially in terms of how he'd fit in with a team like the Rockets who stress help defense so heavily. Being a lock-down 1on1 perimeter defender is not quite as important in our system as learning the rotations, hustling, etc.

I'm not saying Melo would suddenly change if he were on the Rockets. I think it's reasonable to believe, with a change of scenery and perhaps, initially at least, some extra motivation, he could improve his offensive efficiency & defensive effort. It's less likely that he would greatly improve both areas, because if he did, he would be a top 5 (maybe top 3? what is his true ceiling?) player in the NBA. Past history suggests he probably wouldn't change a whole ton. But the possibility exists, and if you can get a guy at a reasonable trade price with Top-5 potential, unless your team already has the building blocks of a contender, you probably have to do it.

Houston will have no cap space, because we have all of the supporting cast a title contender needs. What we lack, as has been repeated ad nauseum, is an offensive go-to guy. Is Melo as good of a player as the top “max” guys? No. But he's an elite talent, and the Rockets' youth & picks aren't going to last forever. Could Melo be the #1 guy on a title team, if the team around him was extremely talented? Maybe not, but I don't think you can rule it out. He still has alpha-dog potential. He is worth a max contract for Houston, in my opinion. They'd be overpaying a little, but sometimes it's worth it to overpay if there isn't opportunity to get anyone else comparable.

I have seen a few folks use Amare-to-the-Knicks as a similar comparison as an example of a non-max guy who gets max money in a bad deal. I don't know that the comparison is fair. For one, Amare has major injury concerns; Melo doesn't. Second, there are legitimate questions about how good Amare can be without Steve Nash, one of the best PGs of all-time, creating easy buckets for him. Melo has never had to rely on anyone else to create his offense; what you see is what you get. I don't think anyone reasonably believes he would be a worse player on a different team. And finally, the Knicks are in a much different cap situation than Houston. They don't have a great team around Amare, so effectively Amare would be asked to play like a true #1 player when it's debatable whether or not he is one, and now the Knicks don't have the picks or trade bait to significantly add talent. In Houston, Melo would have an extremely talented supporting cast ready to go with more picks & plenty of trade bait in terms of young talent & financial relief.

I'm not suggesting the pursuit of Melo is a slam-dunk, can't-miss prospect. There would be risk involved, to be sure. But the risk would be far greater if we passed up the opportunity to go after a marquee talent when there is no reason to believe anyone of equal or better talent is going to be available anytime soon. Even Chris Paul is at best a major long-shot. I think NO hangs onto him for another full season, if not longer. He isn't a free agent for another 2 years, thus they will be in no rush. And does anyone really see him coming to Houston to play with a 32-year-old Yao and the same team we have right now? Especially if Amare & Melo are in NY?

In my opinion, Carmelo Anthony represents the best shot Houston has had at getting a true star since acquiring McGrady.