Nets Are Scorching

@JDoc-- I see your point: sign Melo now, then when Brook, TWill, and Favors have to get paid, we can keep them but have to pay a luxury tax. If we try to get someone after we pay the youngsters, we face a hard cap.
But we've got at least 2 years to figure this out. There's no reason to jump on the first available star-type: they become available with fairly frequently and they don't all command $20 million plus. Hell, Gerald Wallace makes $12 million, and he's much better than Melo.

...I really can't see Melo not helping us tremendously.

Harris/Farmar
T-Will/Morrow
Melo/Outlaw/James
Favors/Next Draft Pick
Lopez/Petro

For the next 5 years. What's wrong with this picture?

Maybe I'm not a basketball intellectual, but I think Melo, is a pretty solid player, who can score on anybody in the league. If we have Melo as a go to guy in crunch time, with the inside game of Favors and Lopez, and the playmaking ability of Harris and T-Will, and Morrow bombing 3's. We'll be really tough to stop offensively.

Defensively. Avery Johnson philosophy, baby! I'm buying in.

It all depends on what we trade to get Melo versus what we can sign him for.

Go, Knicks, go!

just saw on espn that melo is willing to sign an extension with the knicks, nets, or rockets if he was traded to them. so melo coming to the nets is a real possibility...

Sigh.

give them murphy williams and 2 1st round picks. But if a deal includes lopez or favors dont do it

@Devin-- see? RC's link is an example of how Hollinger's PER sucks badly.
"Hollinger argues that each two point field goal made is worth about 1.65 points. A three point field goal made is worth 2.65 points. A missed field goal, though, costs a team 0.72 points.
"Given these values, with a bit of math we can show that a player will break even on his two point field goal attempts if he hits on 30.4% of these shots. On three pointers the break-even point is 21.4%. If a player exceeds these thresholds, and virtually every NBA played does so with respect to two-point shots, the more he shoots the higher his value in PERs. So a player can be an inefficient scorer and simply inflate his value by taking a large number of shots."
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/part-two-of-a-qa-at-valley-of-the-suns-and-a-discussion-of-conventional-wisdom-and-advanced-statistics/
Well, that's Melo in a nutshell-- he shoots better than ridiculously awful, and shoots all the time. Hollinger's bizarre formula has us "winning" a trade (moving up 7 wins) if we give up Devin and Murphy for Melo and Luke Walton. Using a real metric, we're likely to move down 7 wins if we do it.

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=26y5u59

i just hope we are not suckered into giving up half the team for melo. i really hope he doesnt want to come here...

@Patrick-- because another team might trade for him first. It only takes one team to be a sucker.

@Devin-- Glad to hear you're on the side of the angels in this.
I basically agree with you that Oliver (and Kevin Pelton) have more sophisticated approaches than Berri. Hollinger, not so much (PER isn't even empirical). That's why I generally use both WP and WARP when considering a player, and they generally run pretty much in parallel. They also have different theories of to whom a player should be compared, which will never be resolvable. But I will say this for Berri: he puts his predictions and analysis right out on his blog and invites criticism. He also is a great advocate for the SABRmetric way, going back to his prediction that Iverson would not help the Nuggets. So I'm going to keep reading him.

Why would the Knicks and Nets offer Denver anything for Melo, when they could sign him a few months later and give up nothing?
We all know he's leaving....

@CAT I 100% agree with you that Carmelo is overrated. No question there - he's definitely a cut below where people normally rate him since he usually gets lumped in as one of the superstars of the 2003 draft. But the only guy I'd say is more overrated than him is Dave Berri.
http://mgoblog.com/content/sports-economists-always-wrong-about-everything?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mgoblog+%28mgoblog%29
http://freedarko.blogspot.com/2007/01/dave-berris-dismal-science.html
The guy's wins produced method is highly flawed (doesn't pass the sniff test on many occasions) and many other statisticians have criticized him soundly (Oliver, Hollinger, etc.) I'd try not to put too much stock in his methods.

@hbj-- but Melo IS a max guy, in the world of the NBA. I guarantee he'll be paid the max for the length of his next contract. Given that he will be overpaid, shouldn't the Nuggets throw something in with him, rather than the other team giving something up? But other teams WILL give players (and not overpaid ones) up, as well as picks. The Knicks are already offering Gallo, Curry, and a 1st rounder. And Isiah is puffing out his chest about how he can get Melo there. Well, Melo is the ultimate Isiah player :( There is a nearly zero chance that the team acquiring Melo will be helping itself.
Really, I would rather read about our chances of re-acquiring Chris Quinn. At least there's nothing that can go too badly wrong there.

@ toasters- i will agree that billups is the man on the nuggets. but carmelo is definitely #2. nene is more efficient because he takes open shots around the basket. and he gets those open shots because of billups and melo.
i dont want anyone to get me wrong. melo is no bum. melo can play his ass off. but he is not the type of player u mortgage a team for. and i definitely dont think he is a ma contract guy. in my opinion the only players worth ma deals are: kobe, lebron, wade, and durant. melo is not in a class with those guys. he is a level lower.

@hbj-- how can he be the #2 player on a championship team when he's the #3 player (not in celebrity, of course, but Nene and Billups are more productive)on the Nuggets, who were eliminated in the first round 6 of his 7 years there?

@ calling all toasters- i agree with u (ecept for calling travis outlaw below average. he is a good role player). but as far as melo goes, he is not worth giving several good players for. He is the type of player that is a #2 man on a team. he cannot lead a team to a championship as the #1 guy. If we can get melo for favors a damion james, then i would say do it. althought they are good potential rookies, they are not proven. or even if u said t will and favors, i could go for that. but we cant give up a lot for melo. i like melo. but he is not a leader.

I think this is a teachable moment:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-berri/is-melo-max_b_676473.html
Berri is one of the best around at analyzing how what shows up in the individual stats ends up turning into a W or an L. Here he uses Melo as a prime example of how ppg is not that important (but is highly valued by fans and bad GMs). The ultimate skinny: among small forwards, you can expect LeBron to add 17 wins when replacing an average player, Durant to add 10, and Melo to add 1.4.
Now, Travis Outlaw is somewhat below average, so Melo would probably improve us by 3 games. By the same method, Troy Murphy replacing Hump (and this is assuming Hump would keep up his production if he were full-time) improves us by 4 games.

Melo is a rip-off waiting to happen.

Mike, I agree. But, if we get Melo, I'm excited as hell.

It's all about what are you giving up. Any article that includes the words "Mortgage their future", I'm not interested in.

Yeah, we get Melo but then we will have to go get his pal Chris Paul. Amare will then request a deal to the Nets and we will be Miami North. I rather go with the team we have now and build ourselves into a contender in the next few years. This instant gratification road to a NBA title is getting boring and tiresome.

Wow, that link was really fascinating reading. Maybe we could trade Favors or Brook for Top Five Melo... or would we have to throw in picks? No matter how you do it, it's a really good deal.