NBA Daily: This is Carmelo’s Last Chance

When Carmelo Anthony was traded to Oklahoma City last summer, we all knew that he wasn’t the elite scorer he once was. What we didn’t know was just how far he had fallen from his prime.

Even with a considerably lower bar set for him this past season, Carmelo couldn’t live up to being the third banana to Russell Westbrook and Paul George. The ten-time all-star averaged career lows in nearly every category. Averaging 16.2 points is not too shabby for a 34-year-old, but averaging that on 40 percent shooting on 15 attempts a game from the field is pretty disappointing for a player as talented and accomplished as Anthony.

It only got worse in the playoffs. With the same number of minutes he played in the regular season, ‘Melo’s numbers took an even bigger nosedive, as he averaged just 11.8 points on 37 percent shooting from the field including 21 percent from three as the Thunder got bounced by the upstart Utah Jazz in six games.

Carmelo’s subpar playoff performance, combined with both his refusal to come off the bench and his very expensive contract, made him all the easier for the Thunder to get rid of this summer. They happily traded Anthony to Atlanta for Dennis Schroder, saving the team millions and acquiring a younger player who could potentially do more for the Thunder than Anthony did for them last season.

That, of course, leaves Anthony where he is now. Once Anthony clears waivers, it is widely believed that he will head to Houston to aid them in their quest for their next championship. In the past, adding someone like Carmelo Anthony to a contender for cheap would be exciting to fans everywhere. This time, however, Carmelo’s move to Houston has fans rolling their eyes.

This isn’t just about his lackluster performance from this season. This is about the situation he’s getting himself into. Carmelo will be joining a team who was within inches of the NBA Finals. While James Harden and Chris Paul are the alpha dogs of the team, the edge the Rockets had this past season was their defense. Houston had a defensive rating last year of 103.8, which was good for sixth best in the league. After what they lost this summer, that edge might be gone.

Last season, opponents only shot 35 percent from three – good for seventh in the league – but now that Trevor Ariza took the J.J. Redick route to Phoenix and Luc Mbah a Moute opted to return to the Clippers this summer, Houston’s once-vaunted perimeter defense has a sizable hole to fill. Asking Carmelo Anthony to fill that hole is laughable given his not-so-stellar defensive reputation and his age.

It doesn’t help that Carmelo has a bad history with Head Coach Mike D’Antoni. The two of them had a very tense relationship during their time in New York. D’Antoni even admitted that Carmelo was basically the reason he lost his job with the Knicks. Reports say that D’Antoni will let bygones be bygones when and if ‘Melo comes to Houston, but the fact still remains that the two have not worked well together in the past.

It is for these reasons that Carmelo has been given one final chance to further his legacy. At 34 years old, Rocket fans cannot reasonably expect Anthony to be the scoring machine he once was, nor can they expect him to provide the stingy perimeter defense that Ariza and Mbah a Moute did.But what he can do is show that he can still contribute for a contender in his own way.

To be fair, Anthony was given this opportunity last season with the Thunder. The experiment was definitely a failure, but some metrics show that Anthony was still an overall positive for OKC. The Thunder’s offensive rating was +5.7 points per 100 possessions with Anthony on the court, which made his overall net rating +3.0 overall, indicating that Carmelo can still help on offense.

This situation in Houston will be different. With all due respect to the Thunder, Houston has proven recently that they have more of a winning product on their team than Oklahoma City does. Their offensive scheme revolves around more spacing and has elite distributors in Harden and Paul, the latter of whom courted Anthony to join the Rockets.

Also, among all that went wrong for Carmelo last season, his three-point percentage still held up in the regular season. Anthony still shot a solid 36 percent from three-point range on six attempts per game. Now that he’s playing for a team that values three-point shooting, he should be able to fit right in.

The key difference between Oklahoma City and Houston is that expectations should be lower. Carmelo Anthony still is a feared scorer in this league, capable of putting up 20+ points on any given night, but in Houston, he won’t have to be the man. Carmeo just has to fit his game in a way that will give Houston another asset to their offense. All he has to do is concede control to Paul and Harden, and they will find Carmelo the shots he wants to take.

That is only if Carmelo Anthony is willing to do that.

This season will be the determinant as to whether or not Carmelo will make the necessary sacrifices for his team. History has shown that Anthony won’t make the necessary adjustments to help his team win because things have had to be done his way. In New York, Carmelo refused to play power forward even though he was most effective as a small-ball 4. In Oklahoma City, Carmelo laughed off coming off the bench even though it was quite obvious the Thunder needed scoring in the second unit.

Now, he will be in the best winning situation he’s ever been in as a pro. It’s the perfect opportunity for him to show that he can adjust his game for what’s best for the team while he still can. Houston signing him shows that they are optimistic that he will despite the red flags. They should because there have been Hall of Fame players who made the proper adjustments for a winning team even on the downslope of their respective careers.

After being one of the more prolific scorers in the league that never achieved much in his prime, Bob McAdoo became a vital cog of the Showtime Lakers in the early-to-mid 80’s. After his Hall of Fame career was ruined by chronic injuries, Bill Walton became arguably the best backup big of all time when he played for the Celtics in 1986. After being one of the best point guards of his generation in the 90’s, Gary Payton helped the HEAT win a few crucial games during their title run in 2006.

Of course, those are the best-case scenarios.

Houston has proven that they can make things work. There was much doubt that James Harden and Chris Paul would work well together, but they made all their skeptics eat their words. Carmelo has the opportunity to do the same, even if he’s not on the same level as them.

The days of Carmelo Anthony being among the league’s elite are very much over, but whether it’s too late for him to be a vital cog on a championship team will be completely up to him this season.