2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Carmelo Anthony

Credit:  Rich Barnes/Getty Images

What position is Carmelo Anthony?  Is he more suited to the small forward position or the small ball four?  Is there even a difference?  Carmelo may have been one of the most dissected players of his generation.  His timing was poor.  Not only did he come into the NBA at a time when ‘sports writing’ was under a major metamorphosis, he did so in the same draft class as the greatest player of our generation.  He’s come to represent the anti-superstar to a new wave of basketball fans (and media, the line is blurred sometimes) informed by efficiency and versatility as Paul Flannery so eloquently stated.  In a way, Carmelo is right, he is underrated.

Joe Johnson experienced this as well.  He was knocked for only being a scorer and getting that huge contract from Atlanta.  The contract was a joke for years, and yet when you watched him in the playoff series against Toronto last season you could see how valuable a scorer of that level really is.  There are few players in the NBA that you can go to time after time in the intensity of a playoff game.  

So Carmelo has this stigma (and now the contract) that he is too one-dimensional.  He doesn’t play defense.  He doesn’t pass the ball enough.  His shot selection is questionable.  Sure those things are true, but Carmelo also does one thing better than maybe everyone else in the world (sans maybe Kevin Durant), and that is score the basketball.

There have been two times in his life when Carmelo has gained the support of the crowd that fetishizes him.  The first was in 2012 when Carmelo played for Team USA on an historic team. On a team that combined the powers of NBA icons like Kobe, LeBron, Durant, and Kevin Love,   Carmelo came off the bench and led the team in scoring.  It was widely reported how impressive Carmelo was in fitting his game within the rest of the team while still being able to ‘shine’ so to speak.  It was no more apparent than his 37-point performance against Nigeria where Carmelo shot 10 of 12 from 2 point range.  In less than 15 minutes of playing time.  How’s that for efficiency?

That’s what led Fran Fraschilla this offseason to say Carmelo was the greatest international power forward he’s ever seen in a podcast with Zach Lowe earlier this fall.  And that’s what inspired me to decide to write about Carmelo as a part of our big man week.  

That international experience was a small sample though.  It was the following 2012-13 season when Carmelo really got recognition.  It was no coincidence that his team was winning.  That season the Knicks rode the third best league-wide offense (in offensive efficiency) to the second seed in the East.  In that season, Carmelo was really forced to play the power forward position.  He had done that before at different times in his career in Denver, but this happened to be the perfect time in his basketball development to do so.  Without a healthy Amare for this season (he came back late for 29 games but never started) and paired with a motivated Tyson Chandler (Defensive Player of the Year that season), Carmelo was forced into the perfect role for him:  a scoring small-ball four paired with a rim protector.  Carmelo was third in the MVP voting that year.  He led the league in scoring (28.7 points per game) and Usage Rate (an astounding 35.6%).  He shot 38% from 3-point range and got to the line 7.6 times a game.

The numbers didn’t matter though.  The only reason Carmelo received so much love was because the Knicks were winning.  They were shooting three pointers at an insane rate and had smart veterans like Jason Kidd and Tyson Chandler.  Carmelo was lauded for his scoring ability, except, he may have had a better season last year, and he didn’t even make an All-NBA Team.

Carmelo shot over 40% from 3 last season and the increase in efficiency was not due to a lack of volume (he shot 414 and 415 three’s the past two seasons).  People criticized Carmelo over the course of his career for his inefficiency/shot selection and his lack of contribution in other areas. Until 2012-13 he never made 100 three’s in a season and has made 157 and 167 the last two.  He also averaged a career high in rebounds at 7.5 per game.  He’s improved his efficiency and contributions in other areas and yet he may be as criticized as ever.  That’s what led him to make those statements about being underrated.  

Of course, once again, wins are all that matter.  That doesn’t bode well for Carmelo this season. The Knicks are in transition.  With Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher coming in, there should be much more faith in management and coaching than ever before during Carmelo’s time in New York.  I do think the Triangle will be good for Carmelo.  I don’t truly believe that Carmelo is opposed to ball movement.  I think certain circumstances have forced Carmelo to be a gunner at times in his career (and trust me I know he didn't put up a fight), but I don’t think he’s incapable of passing the ball at all.  And besides that, although the Triangle does require ball movement, it still creates many shots for your best scorers.  Kobe had no trouble getting shots up within that offense.  It should create easier situations for Carmelo to score.  

With the transition though, will come some struggles.  Roster inflexibility has slowed Phil’s ability to shape the roster, and the players are going to struggle to adjust to the Triangle offense, undoubtedly more complicated than anything they ran under Mike Woodson.  Only time will help resolve those issues though (and they are getting there with more promising young players than I can remember on that team in a long time).  The other glaring weakness screams for a resolution that Fisher hasn’t come to yet though.

This roster is bereft of competent front court players.  Amare can talk all he wants about being healthy, but I think we all agree we’ll never see the real Amare again.  The Bargs experiment went poorly last season.  Dalembert is a shell of himself and at his heights he was a shell of the departed Tyson Chandler.  Jason Smith is competent in limited time only.  Quincy Acy is now the favorite to start.  The answer is simple Derek Fisher.  You have the greatest international power forward of all time on your roster, and you are stubbornly playing him at small forward.