Knicks · So we are okay with trading Melo for Love or JJ F...N Redick? (page 5)
smackeddog wrote:I don't hate Melo, but he needs to go for his own sake (why waste the end of your career here losing) and our sake- we can't build a contender in the time frame he has before he gets too old.The damage is done at this point now the trade talks are out there- it's just creating a horrific atmosphere around the team.
Am I okay with Redick (he would have to be traded because he doesn't want to be here), Crawford (lord no) and Rivers? It's a huge anti climax. I could get to feeling better about it depending on whether you can get a nice pick for Redick and if you can get rid of crawford. Likely we also include Lee.
Lee and Melo for a possible late first and Rivers sounds like a joke (especially when you look at what Boston could have given us if they'd wanted Melo), but if it's the only deal on the table then what choice do you have? Take comfort in losing so badly we get a top pick in the draft.
The guy I badly want rid of is Rose- I can't stand him and I think he's a huge part of the poisoning of the team. Get him out of here.
Papabear Says
We haven't had a contender in years so what make you think we will get one now? We chase players away.
smackeddog wrote:I don't hate Melo, but he needs to go for his own sake (why waste the end of your career here losing) and our sake- we can't build a contender in the time frame he has before he gets too old.The damage is done at this point now the trade talks are out there- it's just creating a horrific atmosphere around the team.
Am I okay with Redick (he would have to be traded because he doesn't want to be here), Crawford (lord no) and Rivers? It's a huge anti climax. I could get to feeling better about it depending on whether you can get a nice pick for Redick and if you can get rid of crawford. Likely we also include Lee.
Lee and Melo for a possible late first and Rivers sounds like a joke (especially when you look at what Boston could have given us if they'd wanted Melo), but if it's the only deal on the table then what choice do you have? Take comfort in losing so badly we get a top pick in the draft.
The guy I badly want rid of is Rose- I can't stand him and I think he's a huge part of the poisoning of the team. Get him out of here.
Papabear Says
We haven't had a contender in years so what make you think we will get one now? We chase players away.
Bonn1997 wrote:Does anyone here have ESPN Insider? Could you post the article analyzing a Melo-Love trade?
The article says the trade will benefit the Cavs in the short-term, but doesn't make sense if the Cavs are thinking. It also notes that Love is a slightly better defender at his position. Pelting notes that Melo's shooting percentages would likely increase if given the same opportunities Love gets. I'll post when I have more time.
ekstarks94 wrote:Whatever we get now if we wait until the summer...discount it by 75%. Melo will be 33 and unlike Bron he not an all world franchise changing talent. Not saying we take pennies on the dollar...but like Tony Montana told Sosa in Scarface....."Forget bout 13.5"....i.e. Forget about a boatload of talent and picks
I agree. This is prime time.
From an economic perspective there is a scarcity of opportunity for the Clips and the Cavs. CP3 is getting older. LeBron is getting older. Each one in theory should be declining. Waiting a year for those guys is not good. Same true for melo.
Contrast that to GS which is young and (scary to say) could be getting better, still reaching their prime. SAS same to a degree with Kwahi. Same too for Celt. These teams are in a better position to be patient and wait.
The key to negotiating is not focusing on your own issues, but predicting what the other team's issues are and leveraging that. With Clips and Cavs the issue is a closing window of opportunity. With the Celts it's that they have more picks and young players than they can responsibly use at this point, and a scarcity of big impact players.
One thing Phil would be wise to consider (and I'm sure he is) is where interests are aligned and unaligned. There is some alignment in that both Melo and the Knicks may see the benefit of Melo leaving: Knicks get younger, Melo makes championship run. They are unaligned in that Knicks want a big haul, but Melo will not want the target team to be weakened. Why would he want to go to a weaker team? (indeed he should've learned his lesson from Denver trade)
One other thing: Given the lack of total alignment of interests, the end game will be tricky. If the knicks lay their cards on the table with melo and say here are three potential deals, for example, there is a huge bias towards Melo choosing the situation best for him, and least good for the Knicks. Again he wants to go to strongest contender. He doesn't want to go to a gutted team (this even extends to future assets like draft picks because those can be traded to better the championship run via other trades) In other words, Melo has a strong bias towards selecting the option least good for Knicks (not to be a dick to the franchise but just to better his odds of championship run). This will take time to play out; and it serves the Knicks best (not same for other teams)to play things quiet and find the potential deals
There are only a few ways to deal with that conundrum. One is to provide Melo, one and only one opportunity to choose and make that clear to him -- take it or leave it; i.e., the Knicks decide (by themselves) which option is best for them (and that they believe Melo may be inclined to accept) and present only that option to him. Anything else, and Melo's counselors may be inclined to reject the first offer, feeling there are better offers available, from Melo's perspective (i.e., better suited to his championship run, and less good for Knicks)
The more I think of this, the more I'm convinced we're looking at a three team deal in which the Knicks get Celts assets, Clips or Cavs get Melo, and Celts get Clips or Cav assets
Also, whatever you think of Melo, we should all keep in mind that other teams may "leak stories", e.g., not giving up Love etc, because it is in their best interest to do so. Lowballing publicly may influence other teams into lowering their own bids, just for the first team to come back and sweaten things. Not saying this is going on, but we should all be very skeptical of the reports because there is an incentive to send disinformation
BigDaddyG wrote:Bonn1997 wrote:Does anyone here have ESPN Insider? Could you post the article analyzing a Melo-Love trade?The article says the trade will benefit the Cavs in the short-term, but doesn't make sense if the Cavs are thinking. It also notes that Love is a slightly better defender at his position. Pelting notes that Melo's shooting percentages would likely increase if given the same opportunities Love gets. I'll post when I have more time.
http://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/...
Kevin Pelton.
ESPN Staff Writer
At first glance, the idea of the Cleveland Cavaliers trading Kevin Love to the New York Knicks for Carmelo Anthony -- a swap the Cavaliers recently rebuffed, according to reporting by ESPN's Chris Haynes and Marc Stein -- seems like a nonstarter.Love is enjoying the best of his three seasons in Cleveland after helping the Cavaliers win their first championship. He was an easy choice as an Eastern Conference All-Star reserve, while Anthony didn't make the All-Star roster for the first time in a decade and wasn't even one of the top omissions.
Nonetheless, considering how Anthony might be used in Cleveland -- particularly in a possible third consecutive meeting with the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals -- suggests Melo might make sense for the Cavaliers. So should they revisit the Love for Anthony deal?
Spot-up shootingLet's take a look at how Anthony might fit into the role Love plays in Cleveland. His primary responsibility is spacing the floor. This figures to be an easy win for Love. He's a career 36.5 percent 3-point shooter who's making 37.9 percent from beyond the arc this season. Anthony has made 34.6 percent of his career 3-pointers, though he's at 36.6 percent so far this season.
Remember, however, that not all 3-pointers are created equal. Many of Anthony's have been difficult, off-the-dribble attempts with a defender nearby. Love gets the luxury of open catch-and-shoot 3s often created by LeBron James. (Per SportVU tracking on NBA.com/Stats, 102 of his 277 3-point attempts have come after a pass from James.)
Again using SportVU data, let's compare the distribution of 3-point attempts for the two players this season by the location of the nearest defender.
Who Shoots More Open 3s?
NEAREST DEFENDER ANTHONY (%) LOVE (%)
0-2 Feet (Very tight) 5 (1.9) 5 (1.8)
2-4 Feet (Tight) 86 (32.5) 32 (11.6)
4-6 Feet (Open) 111 (41.9) 108 (39.0)
6-plus Feet (Wide-open) 63 (23.8) 132 (47.7)
Total 3PA 265 277
Source: NBA.com/Stats
The two players shoot what NBA.com defines as "open" 3-pointers at similar rates of frequency. But Love shoots "wide-open" 3s twice as often.If defenses treated Anthony the same way they treat Love, that would essentially mean turning 55 "tightly guarded" attempts into "wide-open" 3s. And Anthony shoots far better on "wide-open" attempts (42.9 percent this season) than "tightly guarded" ones (33.7 percent).
So if Anthony kept making shots at the same rate based on the location of the nearest defender with Love's distribution of shots, we'd expect Anthony to shoot 38.7 percent from 3-point range -- better than Love.
Post-up play
Besides spotting up, post-ups are the other primary source of Love's shot attempts. According to Synergy Sports tracking, 156 of his 610 shots this season have come on spot-ups and another 125 on post-ups. No other Synergy play type accounts for more than 100 shots.
Yet Love hasn't been particularly effective as a post-up scorer this season. Of the 21 players Synergy has as attempting at least 100 shots out of post-ups, Love's 39.7 percent shooting ranks dead last. Anthony's 41.9 percent shooting has been slightly better -- he ranks 18th among this group.
This might not be a fair comparison because Anthony's post-ups come primarily against smaller wing defenders who have to check him on the perimeter. Still, it doesn't appear to be a part of Love's game the Cavaliers would particularly miss.
Running the offense without LeBron
Love's responsibilities change dramatically when James hits the bench to rest, as he goes back to the featured role in the offense he played with the Minnesota Timberwolves. According to NBA.com/Stats, Love has finished nearly 35 percent of the Cavaliers' plays with a shot, trip to the free throw line or turnover when James is out of the game.
In the context of that high usage rate -- which would rank fourth in the league this season behind Russell Westbrook, DeMarcus Cousins and Joel Embiid -- Love's .547 true shooting percentage without LeBron is solid. Anthony, who's using just 29.4 percent of the Knicks' plays, has a marginally worse .539 true shooting percentage. And Cleveland has outscored opponents by 7.3 points per 100 possessions when Love plays without James, so it's hard to argue Anthony would be an upgrade -- or even be able to match that success.
Given their success with Love on and James off, why have the Cavaliers had such a hard time winning when James sits out games? Well, according to NBAwowy.com, Cleveland has been outscored by 28.1 points per 100 possessions in the 98 minutes this season Kyrie Irving has been on the court but both James and Love have been on the bench.
Would a trade for Carmelo Anthony solve the playmaking issues upsetting LeBron James? Adam Hunger/USA TODAY Sports
'Playmaking'James' recent public requests to add a "playmaker" could be seen as a justification for an Anthony trade. As Brian Windhorst noted last week, the Cavaliers have just two players averaging more than two assists per game, so Anthony's 3.0 average would rank third on the team behind James and Irving.
Still, as we note how Anthony might become more efficient in the role Love plays in Cleveland, we also must consider how that might limit his opportunities to make plays for teammates. Love averaged 4.4 assists per 36 minutes in his final season in Minnesota -- better than Anthony has ever averaged. His career high is 4.3 per 36 minutes. But since joining the Cavaliers, Love has never averaged more than 2.8 assists per 36 minutes.
Moreover, Anthony wouldn't fill Cleveland's specific need at backup point guard. So I don't think playmaking belongs in the list of reasons for the Cavaliers to consider trading for Anthony.
Defense
Although Love has a reputation as a defensive liability, he's consistently rated as a better defender than Anthony in ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM). This season, Love is rated 1.8 points per 100 possessions better than an average defender, while Anthony rates 1.7 points per 100 possessions worse than average on D.
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Defensive rebounding is a major advantage for Love. He's grabbing 28.5 percent of available defensive rebounds, while Anthony is at 17.3 percent -- excellent for a small forward but below average for a power forward (as a group, NBA power forwards average 18.3 percent of available defensive rebounds).With Love on the court this season, Cleveland is pulling down 77.4 percent of opponents' misses as a team, according to NBA.com/Stats, which would rank eighth in the league. With Love on the bench, that drops to 73.5 percent, which would be the league's worst defensive rebound percentage.
Discussing defense brings up an important point: If Anthony and James were to start at forward together, one of them would have to defend power forwards, a role both have been reluctant to play because of wear and tear. On the plus side, however, Anthony's mobility would become a major strength defending 4s and would make it easier for the Cavaliers to switch pick-and-rolls involving the position -- something they often have to do against the Warriors.
Because of Anthony's defensive versatility, the Knicks have defended better with him at power forward at times over the past four seasons, which runs counter to the typical tradeoff when players slide down from small forward to power forward. This year, they have a 107.7 defensive rating in 460 minutes with Anthony at the 4, as compared to 111.1 with him at his typical 3 spot, according to NBA.com/Stats lineup data.
Anthony trade might make sense for this season, but not for the future
At this stage of his career, Anthony is better as a supporting player -- one reason the Knicks are on pace to win 36 games this season.
If he's willing to accept a smaller role on offense and defend bigger opponents, Anthony looks like he'd fit much better as a complementary piece in Cleveland than as a go-to guy in New York. As a result, despite Love's overall superiority this season, there's a case to be made that the Cavaliers might not experience much drop-off by swapping the two players and could even benefit from Anthony's superior mobility if the Cavs meet Golden State again in the NBA Finals
Chandler wrote:ekstarks94 wrote:Whatever we get now if we wait until the summer...discount it by 75%. Melo will be 33 and unlike Bron he not an all world franchise changing talent. Not saying we take pennies on the dollar...but like Tony Montana told Sosa in Scarface....."Forget bout 13.5"....i.e. Forget about a boatload of talent and picksI agree. This is prime time.
From an economic perspective there is a scarcity of opportunity for the Clips and the Cavs. CP3 is getting older. LeBron is getting older. Each one in theory should be declining. Waiting a year for those guys is not good. Same true for melo.
Contrast that to GS which is young and (scary to say) could be getting better, still reaching their prime. SAS same to a degree with Kwahi. Same too for Celt. These teams are in a better position to be patient and wait.
The key to negotiating is not focusing on your own issues, but predicting what the other team's issues are and leveraging that. With Clips and Cavs the issue is a closing window of opportunity. With the Celts it's that they have more picks and young players than they can responsibly use at this point, and a scarcity of big impact players.
One thing Phil would be wise to consider (and I'm sure he is) is where interests are aligned and unaligned. There is some alignment in that both Melo and the Knicks may see the benefit of Melo leaving: Knicks get younger, Melo makes championship run. They are unaligned in that Knicks want a big haul, but Melo will not want the target team to be weakened. Why would he want to go to a weaker team? (indeed he should've learned his lesson from Denver trade)
One other thing: Given the lack of total alignment of interests, the end game will be tricky. If the knicks lay their cards on the table with melo and say here are three potential deals, for example, there is a huge bias towards Melo choosing the situation best for him, and least good for the Knicks. Again he wants to go to strongest contender. He doesn't want to go to a gutted team (this even extends to future assets like draft picks because those can be traded to better the championship run via other trades) In other words, Melo has a strong bias towards selecting the option least good for Knicks (not to be a dick to the franchise but just to better his odds of championship run). This will take time to play out; and it serves the Knicks best (not same for other teams)to play things quiet and find the potential deals
There are only a few ways to deal with that conundrum. One is to provide Melo, one and only one opportunity to choose and make that clear to him -- take it or leave it; i.e., the Knicks decide (by themselves) which option is best for them (and that they believe Melo may be inclined to accept) and present only that option to him. Anything else, and Melo's counselors may be inclined to reject the first offer, feeling there are better offers available, from Melo's perspective (i.e., better suited to his championship run, and less good for Knicks)
The more I think of this, the more I'm convinced we're looking at a three team deal in which the Knicks get Celts assets, Clips or Cavs get Melo, and Celts get Clips or Cav assets
Also, whatever you think of Melo, we should all keep in mind that other teams may "leak stories", e.g., not giving up Love etc, because it is in their best interest to do so. Lowballing publicly may influence other teams into lowering their own bids, just for the first team to come back and sweaten things. Not saying this is going on, but we should all be very skeptical of the reports because there is an incentive to send disinformation
Very good points. Also, over the summer, I think teams are optimistic that they'll make good FA signings or trades. If it's near the trade deadline this year, though, a team might think Melo is their only shot to contend. There are fewer alternative paths for them.
All of that said, there shouldn't be this exclusive focus on getting rid of Melo. He's not our worst contract. Noah is. Then I'd say Lee and Melo are about equally bad. Hopefully a year from now we won't be talking about Rose being our worst contract!
Bonn1997 wrote:Chandler wrote:ekstarks94 wrote:Whatever we get now if we wait until the summer...discount it by 75%. Melo will be 33 and unlike Bron he not an all world franchise changing talent. Not saying we take pennies on the dollar...but like Tony Montana told Sosa in Scarface....."Forget bout 13.5"....i.e. Forget about a boatload of talent and picksI agree. This is prime time.
From an economic perspective there is a scarcity of opportunity for the Clips and the Cavs. CP3 is getting older. LeBron is getting older. Each one in theory should be declining. Waiting a year for those guys is not good. Same true for melo.
Contrast that to GS which is young and (scary to say) could be getting better, still reaching their prime. SAS same to a degree with Kwahi. Same too for Celt. These teams are in a better position to be patient and wait.
The key to negotiating is not focusing on your own issues, but predicting what the other team's issues are and leveraging that. With Clips and Cavs the issue is a closing window of opportunity. With the Celts it's that they have more picks and young players than they can responsibly use at this point, and a scarcity of big impact players.
One thing Phil would be wise to consider (and I'm sure he is) is where interests are aligned and unaligned. There is some alignment in that both Melo and the Knicks may see the benefit of Melo leaving: Knicks get younger, Melo makes championship run. They are unaligned in that Knicks want a big haul, but Melo will not want the target team to be weakened. Why would he want to go to a weaker team? (indeed he should've learned his lesson from Denver trade)
One other thing: Given the lack of total alignment of interests, the end game will be tricky. If the knicks lay their cards on the table with melo and say here are three potential deals, for example, there is a huge bias towards Melo choosing the situation best for him, and least good for the Knicks. Again he wants to go to strongest contender. He doesn't want to go to a gutted team (this even extends to future assets like draft picks because those can be traded to better the championship run via other trades) In other words, Melo has a strong bias towards selecting the option least good for Knicks (not to be a dick to the franchise but just to better his odds of championship run). This will take time to play out; and it serves the Knicks best (not same for other teams)to play things quiet and find the potential deals
There are only a few ways to deal with that conundrum. One is to provide Melo, one and only one opportunity to choose and make that clear to him -- take it or leave it; i.e., the Knicks decide (by themselves) which option is best for them (and that they believe Melo may be inclined to accept) and present only that option to him. Anything else, and Melo's counselors may be inclined to reject the first offer, feeling there are better offers available, from Melo's perspective (i.e., better suited to his championship run, and less good for Knicks)
The more I think of this, the more I'm convinced we're looking at a three team deal in which the Knicks get Celts assets, Clips or Cavs get Melo, and Celts get Clips or Cav assets
Also, whatever you think of Melo, we should all keep in mind that other teams may "leak stories", e.g., not giving up Love etc, because it is in their best interest to do so. Lowballing publicly may influence other teams into lowering their own bids, just for the first team to come back and sweaten things. Not saying this is going on, but we should all be very skeptical of the reports because there is an incentive to send disinformation
Very good points. Also, over the summer, I think teams are optimistic that they'll make good FA signings or trades. If it's near the trade deadline this year, though, a team might think Melo is their only shot to contend. There are fewer alternative paths for them.
All of that said, there shouldn't be this exclusive focus on getting rid of Melo. He's not our worst contract. Noah is. Then I'd say Lee and Melo are about equally bad. Hopefully a year from now we won't be talking about Rose being our worst contract!
I think Melo has the biggest value as a potential game changer. For whatever his flaws, he will be a much different player on those teams, playing off of Lebron and Kyrie et al, or CP3 and Blake. He would be great additions for either team. They have what we don't; superstar players who make smart decisions with the ball -- he and they would really benefit from that arrangement
Also I agree re Melo. The biggest issue with Melo is not whether he's good -- he's damn good; it's whether he's worth his current contract and the complexities that creates in trading him because the rules require we get similar value back. If this were a free market (not distorted by CBA) we could trade him for 17 mill or so in contracts and everyone could be happy (at least in theory); can't do this in the age of matching contracts and that creates a market inefficiency.
Also, also: As good as people might think he is, he's going on 33. Unless you're talking about Lebron, I don't think anyone is going to get two 1s for someone that old -- short term value add. If Phil were reading this, I would implore him to hold fast. Both the Cavs and Clips know they need someone like Melo to fundamentally change their odds of winning this year, given GS and even SAS
My crystal ball says:
we get some combo of Celts assets, and Celts get Love or Reddick as center pieces, depending on where Melo lands.
All this is basically to make a point that trading Melo would be beneficial to both, but only for the right package, i.e. a similar superstar in return (which ain't happening), or expiring contracts+high draft picks+getting rid of our own ballast contracts (Noah). Anything else is useless, I'd rather keep Melo for another couple of years than dump him for chump change, karma counts for something after all.
Chandler wrote: For whatever his flaws, he will be a much different player on those teams, playing off of Lebron and Kyrie et al, or CP3 and Blake. He would be great additions for either team. They have what we don't; superstar players who make smart decisions with the ball -- he and they would really benefit from that arrangement
Melo will always be the exact same player.
Ball dominant ball stopper with poor shot selection who doesn't play defense and excels in 1 vs 1 isolation offense while killing any semblance of actual team basketball and the basic concept of free flowing ball movement.
He's an elite 6th man, with no real individual offensive weaknesses, who can provide volume offense as long as the other four guys can play defense 4 on 5 and do all the other things on the court besides score the basketball. He can create his own shot, most guys cannot do that, but part of the problem is he has truly horrible shot selection. He creates bad shots and doesn't make his team mates better.
Said it tons of times before, like Herschel Walker ( except Walker was a team player who worked relentlessly to get better) , Melo was a poor fit inside a poor timeline and should have been traded long ago.
You cannot have a player who chews up that much cap who simply refuses to play defense. It's impossible from a salary cap/resource management side of the equation to build an actual contending team with a player who eats up that much of the salary pie who creates more questions than answers.
He's the exact same player he always was, it's just a question if a team can provide him with the means to do what he does best ( He essentially needs an Olympic team around him to hide his deficiencies. )