Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
I guess that answers the question: no, you don't understand the difference between a bad streak and a multi-year downward trend.
Gordon is currently averaging 15/3/2 on 32% from the field and 23% from 3. Is that bad? Of course it is. That sucks. That is extremely bad.
Melo is currently averaging 13/5/0.5 on 40% from the field and 32% from three. Is that bad? Yeah, it is, it also sucks. It sucks less, that is, he's not as bad as Gordon right now but you're the one who was insisting earlier it had only been 10 games and so we couldn't judge Melo off it.
So let's compare their last full seasons.
Eric Gordon averaged 18/2/2, on 43/36/80 splits. His net rating was +0. He had a 0.5 VORP, a 15.2 PER, and 4.7 win shares. He did this on a 24% usage rating, 58% true Shooting.
Melo averaged 16/5/1 on 40/35/76 splits. His net rating was -5. He had a -1.1 VORP, a 12.7 PER, and 3.7 win shares. He also did this on a 24% usage rating, 50.3% true shooting.
So Melo was worse. Slightly more points and rebounds, but less accurate from the field all over, less value, less efficient, contributed less to wins, worse net rating.
The reason Gordon gets some benefit of the doubt is that his current play is unusual for him. The Rockets give him some lee-way because they saw him playing just a few months ago, and he looked nothing like this. They are willing to give him time because they have good reason to suspect this is a slump.
The reason Melo does not get this benefit of the doubt is that his current play is what is expected of him given his rate of decline over the last 5 years. We know he's got worse year on year, why would we be surprised if he got a little worse this season too? We saw him playing badly on OKC earlier this year, why would we assume he would be any different now? They aren't willing to give Melo time because Melo was already playing on borrowed time, and he's wasting it.
That's the difference.