He won the 2012-2013 scoring title. He is a six-time All-Star. He has been named to the All-NBA team five times. He has averaged 25 points per game over his 10-year career. He is undoubtedly one of the most talented players in the NBA.But Carmelo Anthony is a flawed superstar.
First, let’s define a superstar. A superstar is a player who is extremely talented, has great public appeal and can adapt his game to help his team win.
Is Carmelo an extremely talented player? 100-percent without a doubt, yes. Does he have a great public appeal? He hasn’t had any run-ins with the law and Knicks fans love him, so yes, he has a very good public appeal. Does he play how his team needs him to play in order to be successful? No, and that is what is keeping Anthony out of the true superstar category.
Anthony has now been in the league for 10 seasons. His team had made the postseason in each of his 10 seasons, but Melo and company have only gotten out of the first round of the playoffs twice. Is that all Carmelo’s fault?
No, but he doesn’t have particularly great playoff numbers. For his playoff career, Anthony is averaging 26 points per game, but is only shooting 42-percent from the floor and 32-percent from the three-point line.
Now, no one can argue Carmelo’s ability to score the basketball, but it’s the way that he scores his points that people question. Anthony loves the isolation play. Give him the ball on the elbow and run back on defense because there is no chance you are getting the ball back on that possession.
Does he score a lot on these iso plays? Yes, but he takes a lot of shots, and more importantly, a lot of tough, contested shots. For someone as big as Carmelo is (6-8, 230 pounds), you’d like to see him get easier looks rather than taking so many fadeaway jump shots and leaners.
Listen to Carmelo’s post game interview after the Knicks Game 6 loss to Indiana. Does that sound like superstar to you?
So where is Carmelo’s career now? He has just finished his 10th NBA season and has yet to play in the NBA Finals. He has only made it out of the first round of the playoffs twice, and has only made it to the Conference Finals once.
While he’s had a lot of personal success in the league, he hasn’t had much team success. You’d have to imagine that at some point, he’d change the way he plays to help his team win like he did in his one year of college basketball.
When Carmelo won the NCAA Championship at Syracuse, Jim Boeheim put Melo on the post and let him do his scoring there. Anthony was coachable back then, but rumors have it now that he won’t accept any coaching.
Would the Knicks have been better this season if Anthony had passed the ball a little more and been a little less selfish? Who knows for sure, but the Knicks had their most assists of the playoffs in Game 2 against the Indiana Pacers, and that was arguably their best game of the postseason.
We’ve seen that Carmelo Anthony-led teams haven’t had much success. This should scream to Carmelo that he needs to change something about his game. Whether he starts going down to the post more often or whether he starts passing the ball more often, something needs to change.
Superstars maximize their teams’ full potential. Carmelo Anthony hasn’t shown the ability to do that in 10 NBA seasons, and for that reason, Carmelo Anthony is a superstar*.
