Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
You know that's an awful comparison. You don't need me to tell you that.
Leaving out the fact that actually yes, I DO think Draymond would accept a bench role if necessary, comparing 33 year old Melo to any of those guys is totally dishonest.
Curry is 29 years old, 2x MVP, who was just 0.5% off yet another 50/40/90 season. 0.267 win shares per 48, 28.2 PER in his last season.
Durant is also 29 years old, also an MVP, 2x Finals MVP, who was 0.1% off his third 50/40/90 season. 0.215 win shares per 48, 26.0 PER in his last season.
Klay is 27 years old, one of the greatest shooters of all time, just finished off last season with 48/44/83 splits, 0.094 win shares per 48, 16.1 PER (as the third option)
Draymond is also only 27 years old, he's a DPOY, one of the most versatile players in the game, 0.127 win shares per 48, 16.1 PER as a guy who doesn't even score.
Compare all of those to Melo, who is 33 years old and in his last all star season posted up shooting splits of 43/35.9/83, 0.89 win shares per 48, and a 17.9 PER as the first option on his team. He is not in the same WORLD as those players, and to compare him to them at this point in his career is total false equivalence.
The problem with Melo is exactly that ''he's also not Anthony Morrow and wants to do more than just sit in the corner''. He wants to be the guy, he wants the ball in his hands, he wants his 18+ shots a game, he wants his isolation possessions, and he is just not good enough anymore to make that anything other than a stupid thing to do. Carmelo Anthony's ISO game in his last allstar season only created 0.99 points per possession. That's fine, it's not awful, but it's not even as good as Lance Stephenson in that same season. It puts him in the 78th percentile. That's not incredible.
And if you actually look at the isolations he got in OKC, was he any better? No, he wasn't. In fact he was worse, only contributing 0.89 ppp and falling to the 58th percentile. And he got 3 isolation shots per game: 18.1% of his offense was ISO ball, and he wasn't even as good as (to take a relevant player for us) Elfrid Payton! Who put up 0.90 ppp in isolation plays, and was in the 61st percentile, and he's widely regarded as a guy who isn't even a scorer.
Melo is not good. When you say the 25+ppg Melo of old, you're talking real old: he's only put up 25+ppg four times in the last 10 years, and once in the last 5. That's not bad, of course I'm not saying that, very few people average 25+ppg. But when your sole selling point is your ability to score, it gets kind of embarrassing if you're the first option on your team that whole time, and can't do it more than 20% of the time (1 out of the last 5 years).