ESPN Remains Confused About Carmelo Anthony

When you read the first paragraph of Hollinger's ESPN Melo evaluation, you start to think you are wasting your time, because it doesn't make much sense. Hollinger makes it seem like Melo's game fell apart just because Iverson was on the team when he came back from the long suspension. Melo lost "4 points a game and 1/3 of his assists". Well, when you are scoring 30 plus points a game, dropping 4 a game is hardly anything to hit the panic button about, or anything to base a sarcastic paragraph on. A small forward dropping 1/3 of his assists depends on the circumstances. Allen Iverson, the ultimate combo guard, is just the circumstance where you would expect the front court to ramp up it's rebounding and post play, and to ramp down the assisting some.

Worse then this, Hollinger, who, translated, calls Melo a pathetic bitch for the near brawl at the Garden last December, reveals his real feelings about the young Team USA superstar, that he is lacking everything it takes to be a true, complete athlete. Or, in a word, Hollinger, like so many other experienced basketball analysts, is hostile toward the Nugget's star. Unfortunately for Hollinger and others who would pick on Melo for his role in the near brawl, they are using the wrong evidence to advance their near or actual hostility and their doubts. Melo ran away after the punch so that he would not be suspended for the entire remainder of the 2006-07 season. Had Melo not run away, but continued to fight the Knicks, who, let's face it, knew full well at the time that they were also rans for the season as a whole, and had almost nothing to lose by provoking the upstart Nuggets, Hollinger would not have been able to make his other incorrect criticism of Melo, the one regarding the fall-off, because Melo simply would not have played at all.

Let me give an inside word of advice to those who think Melo is never going to be a true superstar. Try going after him for being too uncritical of his coaches and his teammates or, in other words, for exhibiting no coaching potential whatsoever for a team whose coaching is suspect to say the very least.

It's no secret that Melo had long jumper problems in February and March last year. Hollinger's knee-jerk recommendation is that Melo should stop attempting so many long jumpers and 3-pointers. If this recommendation were put into effect, it would be the Nuggets raising the white flag on the battle to win the West, because without their star offensive player having a long shot dimension to his game, so that he becomes a complete star offensive player, the Nugget's chances to win the West are slim to none. Were Melo to give up on the 3-pointer and the long 2, the only way the Nuggets would have a good chance would be to get a veteran 3-pointer and defensive specialist, which is just about the only rabbit the Denver front office has not been able to pull out of the hat since they set about trying to emerge from the 44-120 record of 2001-03. The most notable still remaining foul legacy from all the bags over the heads in the stands years of massive losing in Denver is the uncompetitive 3-point shooting.

Good or excellent 3-point shooting has been a prerequisite to be competitive to win the West for at least a decade if not longer. Melo's efforts to get his long shooting squared away is absolutely necessary for both the Nuggets and for Melo's ultimate career evolution. In the Spurs series, the effort finally started to pay off, as Melo hit on 9 of 18 threes. In the FIBA Olympics qualifier tournament for Team USA, Melo made an amazing 26 of 45 threes, and tied with Michael Redd for the most number of sunk threes per game. So much for Hollinger's theory that Melo should ramp down his three-point shooting.

I don't have any other major criticisms of the evaluation. I have a minor criticism: Hollinger's sarcasm on the Melo defensive game is at least a little over the top.

In the last part of the evaluation, Hollinger, if anything, heaps too much praise on Melo, virtually saying that it is inevitable that Melo will be a superstar in the mode of Kobe Bryant before long. But what about the bitch slap? What about the inability to hit anything longer than a midrange? What about the ineptness on defense? What about the carrying, and the laziness in distributing the ball? What the hell happened to your argument, Mr. Hollinger? I'll be damned if you didn't shoot down your own grossly exaggerated criticisms of Melo at the end of the same writing in which you made them. Me thinks an NBA analyst may be a little overworked.

As for us here at Nuggets 1, we will continue to bring you a balanced and carefully considered analysis of the progress of Melo toward superstar status, and of the progress of the Nuggets towards being able to mount a real challenge in the West. We will be optimistic wherever possible, but always realistic. We will definitely avoid wildly swinging from being too negative to being too positive.