Changing Carmelo Anthony's Shot Selection for the Rockets offense

If Carmelo rebounds in Houston, I want a website to start analyzing the sinkhole effect that playing next to Russell Westbrook does for other players' stats, efficiencies, and moods.

 

It’s funny how fast the goalposts have moved and we barely acknowledge it anymore. Ppl just like I always knew that.

 

Ay P, they want me to shoot more three pointers!

 

Great find, Deuce. The analysis was very encouraging, but what was really a trip for me was looking at the pie charts. While they all differed in one degree or another, Harden's really stood out with his percentage of shots above the break and in the restricted area. It's pretty striking. I would enjoy seeing a similar analysis after the end of the season to see the shots James, Chris, and Melo took. It would give some indication of the impact of MDA's system and playing with 2 all world point guards on Melo, and Melo's impact on them. It would also be cool to see Gordon replacing Ariza next time.

 

Melo will be our Igoudala but offensive minded and better

 

Oh I know, don't worry.
Can you name 5 better Midrange scorers than him?

 

So who did have this sinkhole effect in his New York time when he was the first option? Who was the scapegoat?

 

I'm not telling you what I read or you read. I saw the games. I"m telling you what I saw. He shot about 44% on 2 point shots which isn't great but a much high percentage than what he shot on 3's. He's not a 3 point shooter really. It's a testament to how good he is that he could hit almost 36% of his shoots from that range.

 

CP and JH control the team, I'd rather they can maintain their shot selection. The focus should be on those 2 guys first and foremost.

This Melo thing is overblown, yes, he is a household name, and could be useful. But let's not make him the 3rd most important guy out there, that should still be Capela and his performance going forward.

 

So 24.7 pts , 7reb , 3.2 ast , 1.0 stl , 2.4 tov is that bad? Keep hating...

 

We were talking about efficiency, keep hating on CF posters though.

Yeah right, just because Russ has a bad reputation, Melo's whole questionable shot selection in NY is his fault too.

 

This is a great article @Deuce. I think we'll see a completely different Melo next year.

In terms of his shot selection, I think it would be good to see Melo in a few sets in the post. I believe he can be very efficient in spurts with his back to the basket and that the floor would open up for the Rockets with an occasional post up. I don't think he was able to do this at all in OKC with their personnel.

Melo is more than a space the court player and our coaches should give him the freedom to take advantage of switches.

 

Oh, efficiency... Last time that i checked he had lower eFG% in Denver days than in NY.

He has a career .482% eFG, and last time i checked Kobe Bryant, who btw has 5 rings, is at the exact same number for his career. So efficiency didn't stop that guy from winning. Maybe 1-2-3 % difference in efficiency doesn't even mean that much if you are actually surrounded by quality NBA players, who are able to compete with the best and win it all... who knows.

It would be great if you could tell me one time Melo's team underperformed, and by that I mean when they were favorites in a playoff series but ended up loosing, or when they didn't make the playoffs at all but they were supposed to by looking at their roster?

 

How dare you?! Apologize to Clutch Fans!

JK, thanks for pointing that out, since some of these guys here lived in caves for the last 15 years

 

Being as efficient as Kobe isn’t really a compliment.

 

Absolutely agree, I was just saying that you can win with that type of efficiency and shot selection, it's just a thing of having a team around you along with good coaching staff.

 

It's not a testament to how good he is that he can shoot 36%, there's at least one person who can do it on every team in the league. That's a mediocre 3p%.

Also, what you saw is wrong. He took 39% of his shots from midrange, and he was not good at them. Statistically. Meaning, him compared to everyone else in the NBA taking those same shots.

44% on 2pt shots is not 44% on midrange. It includes layups. Even ignoring that, 44% on 2pt shots is not a great scorer. It's especially not a great scorer when you take into account he barely got fouled. When you are judging a player's scoring efficiency, 44% is only great if you're going to the line too. Just shooting 44% from 2's is the equivalent of shooting 30% of your 3's. So if you're not getting fouled, you might as well be taking 3pt shots which eat up less clock and spreads the floor for your teammates.

You're talking about a Carmelo Anthony that hasn't existed for 4 years now. Whether or not team situation contributed to his inefficiency, that was 4 years ago. The only time Carmelo can play his mediocre mid range iso game and benefit us is against 2nd units of non-elite teams. Which is fine, but he should not make a habit of taking a particular shot just because "that's my game" over a shot that he's literally better at taking.

If you're a Rockets fan, we've been through this before. That's how the Dwight Howard situation worked out. He wanted to play his game from when he was in his early 20's, and it was anchoring down the team. We are trying to win a championship. If you let Steve Kerr bribe MDA, he would instruct him to let Melo keep taking mid range shots. Melo needs to take more 3's and attack the basket a lot more, and dramatically reduce his mid range shots, and give effort on defense. That's how he can be more valuable than a minimum signing. If he doesn't do that, then we treat him like a minimum signing: do what coach says or enjoy the bench.

 

WOW.

Never heard of non-existent guys playing All Star game.

 

Good article but stopped reading at "Houston might have enough to overtake the Warriors and reach the NBA Finals"

 

Nice work @Deuce.

The info and stats reinforces much what I’ve been saying since before we (Rockets) brought in Melo.
Rockets/CP3 can show Melo where he is best at, while avoiding the areas where he is not (least efficient).

I’ve projected Melo at 18.3 pts a game, which is about 2 po8nts more per game than with OLC. With Houston
Melo can get to 18-20 points with less shots than he did in NY or OKC. Helps that Harden and CP3 will get so
much attention.......allowing Melo to get momentum moving towards the rim. Finding creases in the defense.