Quote:
Originally Posted by mcaj22
I think many people forget this but Melo has been to the WC Finals with the Nuggets and it was a year that Melo, JR Smith, Chauncy Billups, Nene and Kenyon Martin all had 1000+ points for the season.
Billups had 17, Nene had 14, JR Smith had 15, Kenyon had 11, and Melo had 22 points per game.
4 guys had DOUBLE DIGITS in scoring averages for that season with "ball hog" Melo on the team.
Do you know how many 1000+ point scorers were on the Knicks last year besides Melo? One. And it was JR Smith.
That team had nobody and you can call Melo a possession eater all you want, but when he has some sort of semblance of NBA talent around him and not bum knees Amare and Andreas Bargnani and Fat Ray Felton, he can do more as a teammate.
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When you're in the league for 9 years and are considered one of the game's elite, you have to do better than just 2 years out of 9 where you make it out of the first round. That was one of two playoff years where Melo had a respectable assist %.
I just think the 2011 season said a lot about Melo. When he was on the bench, the team played great team basketball. Guys like Tyson Chandler, JR Smith, Novak, Stoudemire, Lin… these guys started to play terrific. When Melo came back, it went back to one-on-one basketball and he was a little bit pouty about the success the team was having. That's the big difference. KD and Kobe are ball hogs, but they make much faster decisions and are looking to pass. More importantly, you just don't sense that Anthony believes he can win through his team. Regardless of who you put around him, he's probably always going to believe that the game is one with him controlling the possession.