On Carmelo Anthony's final act in New York, and why the Blazers should be his next team

There are so many holes in your faulty theory, where to begin?

First, Melo is on the downhill side of his career. All of his stats this season are below his career average, and heading down. His peak was 2-3 seasons ago.

To imagine trading all of AC and Aminu’s shots to Melo, he would need to come off of the bench. Your analogy is very faulty since you have him starting and probably the third option.

In reality, if he starts for us, almost all of his 15-18 SPG will be taking shots away from Dame, CJ and Nurkic and Harkless. All four of these starters shoot a better FG % than Melo. Melo taking those shots will equal fewer points. This means we lose more games, not win more. There are only so many shots to go around for the starters.

Starting Melo also means we are weaker defensively than if Harkless starts, which will result in more loses.

Melo was a great individual offensive player, but, he does not make the rest of the team better the way great players do.

I do believe Melo would make a great bench player for us, a spark off of the bench. Even though Crabbe is a far more efficient shooter than Melo, Melo can create his own shot when the bench players bog down. We do not need Melo creating shots as a starter, we have one of the best offensive starting 5 in the game. But he could help our bench. I doubt he would come here to be a bench player. Plus Melo makes too much to be a bench player.

 

I would possibly take Carmelo if he was very cheap and would "buy in" to being the fourth option, but I can't help but feel like he's a Gerald Wallace waiting to happen, like the bottom is about ready to fall out with him.

 

Old fish is right.

Melo would be in a great niche if he accepted a bench role, scorer, offensive rebounder, energy guy.

Would he? No fucking way. He's a big ego and I don't think he's grown up much.
Some guys are just starfucked.

 

I'd take him for some of our garbage and one of the lesser first rounders, I'm sure they'd be all over that.

 

No thanks. They could pay Portland to take him and I still wouldn't be down.

 

and he costs something like 27-28 mil a yr and we already have a huge cap dilemma and hes headin downhill at 32

 

The first team that comes to mind are the Clippers. There's going to be a major shakeup and I wouldn't be surprised if they went after Melo as some kind of consolation prize.

 

Whoa, he's gonna be like 33 next season, good point. Didn't realize he was quite that old, he's definitely ready for a Gerald Wallace type drop off soon.

 

I would consider this:

Blazers get Melo and his $26.5M salary.
Knicks get Crabbe ($19.3), Leonard ($9.9) and also include MEM and CLE picks.

Reason I do this is to improve BENCH scoring (I would not start Melo but have him play the Crabbe role), and give us some salary relief (it does).

DL - CJ - Hark - Vonleh - Nurk
Napier - Turner - Melo - Davis - #16 pick (big)
Pat - Jake - Tim (the closers)

Reason Knicks do it is desperation! They get a couple picks and a good scorer for their system.

 

Eh, Wallace was a physical freak. He was always going to suffer a HUGE dropoff when that athleticism left him.

Melo was never really built around athleticism. He's a scorer, and I'm sure some of that production will drop off, but he's totally a dude that will have an old man game in his 30s.

 

Clippers are likely option A but I wouldn't be surprised to see CP3 bounce this summer if the Jazz or Warriors/we bounce them early, again. That would change the NBA landscape majorly.

The other team is Boston, I could see them throwing Brown/Smart/Brooklyn pick at New York for Melo, it would be the biggest win now move.

 

Boston won't do that. Won't risk the assets for Melo and a 2-3 year run. Silly thoughts.

Boston will go for Hayward IMO. Youngish, played previously for coach Stevens, near perfect fit.

 

Well, if Boston strikes out in FA they still have that option.

 

I could get behind that trade (I prefer not giving up both picks, but eh), although I think there's no way in hell he accepts coming off the bench.

Even still, though, you start him at power forward and it'll be fine.

It shaves a year off the net contracts, and it instantly makes us a lot more experienced, talented and diverse in scoring. We'd have elite level scoring at 4 of 5 positions. Defense would suffer, but eh, it'd be fun to watch.

 

There's no chance in hell Melo comes off the bench. The guy has a no-trade-clause. That's just not happening.

 

If we did trade for Melo, I think I'd go with a lineup that included Aminu.

Dame
CJ
Aminu
Melo
Nurk

 

That's what I was saying. First they will lose Griffin and then to try and keep CP3 they will bring in melo and if they lose CP3 they will spin melo as a consolation prize to try and keep their fans.

 

If Melo was willing to come to Portland(and commit to team ball) and all we had to give up was something like any three of Meyers/Harkless/Aminu/Davis/Turnerand draft picks, I'd be down.