Posted by badja on 12/16/2011 9:45:00 PM (view original):
Well, I'll disagree somewhat on Melo. Denver took the healthy Lakers super team to 6 and easily could have won the series. Chuck calls Melo the league's best pure scorer and I would have to agree having watched him a lot while living in CO.
Thing is, he is not a flashy player at all. You'll rarely find him on highlight reels, etc. But he'll get you a very quiet 30 points. Not many in the league that can do that night in, night out.
Amare really shrank last season. Put Tyson in the mix though and they could be dangerous...but who is the team leader? Can Melo be that guy?
And the Nugs got better when they dealt him and the Knicks were pretty much the same.
Melo is pretty good and all but it's not like LeBron's Cavs or Dwight's Magic, he had a pretty good cast in Denver. Chauncey shot the lights out during that playoff run, Nene is an A+ 3rd option, and the 2nd unit absolutely crushed souls. You can definitely build an offense around him and he rebounds pretty well, but he's so lazy on D that he's probably not a top 20 player in the league.
And the other thing is that him and Amar'e are somewhat redundant of each other, so they're not the best fit as centerpieces together. There's value to having 2 elite iso players, but really one is sufficient to build around and you can not lose much if you add the right role players (see: Iverson in Philly). Of course, this all makes Chandler an excellent addition because they desperately needed a defensive presence who could be efficient in a limited offensive role. But if they could have traded one of Amar'e/Melo for Chris Paul, that would have been so so so much better than what they have now, although that mostly has to do with CP3 being a way better player than either of them.