Melo and how his offense can make the Rockets defense better.

I agree. Let's trade him for defensive stalwart Kevin Love.

 

Dwayne Wade disagrees.

And if you actually bothered about to look into our defense you would see what is keeping our defensive rating down is rebounding and forcing turnovers.

 

Yeah, 3 time All-Defensive Second Team Dwayne Wade disagrees.

 

The name "BOOZER" sounds tough. Especially in all caps. Good enough for me.

 

I'd rather have Love with his superior defensive rebounding and he can similarly stretch the floor and is younger than Melo.

But yes, your main point is spot on. Unlike baseball and football, offense/defense are very much related in basketball.

 

Obviously you don't watch the NBA.

Wade has been downright terrible defensively in these finals.

Zero effort and yet they are a contender.

 

The problem with your theory is that the Spurs run not only on turnovers, but made and missed shots. They push the ball all the time to see if they can get an easy bucket. If not they still have enough time to run their set offense.

I would like to see some data on how quickly the Spurs get the ball across half court compared to the Rockets. Seemed to me Dwight would take his sweet time getting the ball to the guards because he didn't want to run a fast paced offense.

Even if your crazy theory was true our top #3(of 16) rated playoff offense wont make our #16 rated playoff defense good enough to get us into the conference finals. The Heats #2 playoff offense couldn't beat the Spurs #2(Wizzards D ranted#1 because they played poor offensive teams Bulls and Pacers) playoff defense.

 

Yes I know we have been #28 in live ball TOVs. The problem is that Harden would still be a wing defender who when he doesn't have the ball in his hands has to get back 1st or 2nd on D. We all know Harden is terrible at transition D. That's why they tried to separate Lin and Harden. If Lin had a live ball TOV it usually meant 2pts for the other team because Harden was horrible at getting back. I wrote about this in the 2012-2013 season after a Denver game when it was close until Harden let guys get by him on 3 transition(one was on a made basket) plays.

Beverley could be much better at it too, but he's usually in the corners looking for 3PA and then around the rim ball hawking for OREBs. I think Lin and Parsons are the best at getting back on transition D, but this is only part of our overall defensive weakness.

This is why I don't understand why people want to bring in Melo, Rondo and Lowry to mask or change Harden's game. The one thing that makes him an all NBA 1st team player is his ability to attack the basket/draw fouls and transition(pace) offense. If you do that(change his game) then he becomes OKC 6th man Harden and not worth the max.

I'll be honest when I first read that Kevin Love wanted out of Minny I thought to myself Love for Harden because I know Harden is a liability even with his great offensive game. As you(or someone else) said, in the playoffs his attack the basket to draw fouls tactic doesn't work like it does in regular season. I just didn't have the balls like Carl has to start a trade Harden tread. :grin:

 

Although most is looking at Melo as a stretch 4. I'm looking him as a direct replacement for Parsons. He gives everything that Parsons is capable of and more.

 

1st quarter: Howard Iso, 2nd quarter: Melo Iso, 3rd quarter Harden Iso, 4th quarter alternate Harden and Melo iso.

 

Well, it's true that I'm partly basing my emotional statement here on a memory of Morey talking about the relative unimportance of coaching at some point -- I don't remember the context, I may even have incorrectly understood what he was trying to say... so I'm going to spend some time trying to look into what he's said in the past... does anyone have any of that?

Maybe you can quantify the results of certain systems for certain combinations of players with certain skillsets... maybe you can't. Maybe Morey's team tries to do that, maybe not... just thought that at one point he basically had said that the data showed that coaching really didn't matter much... ??? It does seem to me that the best coaches are imaginative in adapting their systems to match skillsets of players, maximizing the players' potential within the system. And that imaginative analysis could begin to model that to some extent?

 

It's probably because Melo has played the 4 the last 2 years

 

You can argue that a great offense is the best defense... Or you can actually play better defense. Just sayin.
There are times when your offense will not flow. In that case, you have to be able to rely on your defense to get crucial stops.
We didn't lose to Portland cuz of offensive ineptitude, we lost because we could not stop Aldridge and Lillard on key possessions.
True contenders are top 10 in offense and defense. No way around it.

 

Wouldnt CP25 be playing the wing? I dont understand this side of the debate. You are talking about a back to CP25 so that player will be playing, what, 14 minutes? Is that enough????

All Melo would do is make us the funnest team to watching during the regular season but once the playoffs start, it will be the same story!

 

Thanks, meh, that's helpful. I can see how elite players move the needle the most; I would like to think that more can be done through combining analytics with coaching than we have witnessed yet... thanks again for the perspective.

 

I wanted to bring up other advantages that haven't been brought up yet.

Melo matches up very well with Kevin Durant and OKC.

Carmelo Anthony Vs Kevin Durant


http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=anthoca01&p2=duranke01


Even using recent games, the average has favored Carmelo. And if you factor in Anthony playing for less talented Knick teams he still usually wins, 11-2 for their careers.

Against the Spurs he scores less but scores on the same efficiency vs Kawhi Leonard. They likely deny him the ball or lessen his shots, but Howard is a mismatch against Duncan and Splitter, they can't stop him. Harden plays well against Green and Manu. With Melo on the Rockets they can't deny him the ball or double team him as much.