[KO.com] Will Carmelo Anthony still be a Knick on opening night?

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Will Carmelo Anthony still be a Knick on opening night?

It?s October 19th, almost 8 pm EST, in Oklahoma City as the Thunder get ready to take on the New York Knicks. The stadium is buzzing as the starting lineup takes the floor. Kristaps Porzingis, Tim Hardaway Jr, Willy Hernangomez walk on. However, is Carmelo Anthony walking onto the court of Chesapeake Energy Arena floor in a Knicks jersey approximately 60 days from now? Let?s take a look and see if he most likely will or will not be a Knick when the season starts.

Full story: https://www.knicksonline.com/columns/will-carmelo-anthony-still-be-a-knick-on-opening-night.html

Another question is if Melo is here opening day, does Hornacek play him or does he pull a D'Antoni and bench him like D'Ants did to Starbury. If that's the Knicks intention to bench him to give playing time to others I think they should be up front with Melo that they intend to cut his playing time this season, maybe he'll be more flexible in accepting a trade to POR.

I don't think Melo will be shut down but I could definitely see a decrease in his minutes, which could be given to Lance Thomas or Michael Beasley. Realistically, in my opinion, he will remain a starter with good minutes.

If Melo is still a Knick on opening night .. I want head coach Hornacek to put a effort into winning by changing the players in the starter lineup to a 2-way starter-lineup by adding offense/defense/and strong rebounding on both ends, plus add 5 to 6 bench-players to our game rotation the first 35 games of the season so the roster stay prepared to perform every game.

Starters .. PG-Session, SG-Lee, SF-Melo, PF-Quinn, C-Noah
Bench .. PG-Frank, SG-THJr, SF-Kuz, PF-Willy, C-KP

Kiyaman said:

If Melo is still a Knick on opening night .. I want head coach Hornacek to put a effort into winning by changing the players in the starter lineup to a 2-way starter-lineup by adding offense/defense/and strong rebounding on both ends, plus add 5 to 6 bench-players to our game rotation the first 35 games of the season so the roster stay prepared to perform every game.

Starters .. PG-Session, SG-Lee, SF-Melo, PF-Quinn, C-Noah
Bench .. PG-Frank, SG-THJr, SF-Kuz, PF-Willy, C-KP

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I'm going to go ahead and say it now, KP will never play a game in a Knicks uniform where he is not a starter.

cgeelan said:

I don't think Melo will be shut down but I could definitely see a decrease in his minutes, which could be given to Lance Thomas or Michael Beasley. Realistically, in my opinion, he will remain a starter with good minutes.

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Having bum n bummer (Lance Thomas and Michael Beasley) on the Knicks make me want to give Melo 48 minutes of playing time in every game this season ....

htr10 said:

I'm going to go ahead and say it now, KP will never play a game in a Knicks uniform where he is not a starter.

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Then the Knicks need to get KP a personal season trainer to be at every game asap

The past two season KP proved his talent is only worth a 30 win season as a starter .. I watched all of KP offseason Euro-games .. KP defense sucks, KP decision-making, movements, and passing skills are poor, the Euro opponents were scoring on KP down low with ease.
As long as the Knicks have a puppet head coach who put no-defensive-effort stars like KP, Melo, Rose, and THJr in the starter lineup .. ESPN will always predict the Knicks having a 30 win season during the offseason.

Melo stating involved.... practicing with teammates and sending his Euro teammates encouraging texts. Pretty professional from Melo.

mafra said:

Melo stating involved.... practicing with teammates and sending his Euro teammates encouraging texts. Pretty professional from Melo.

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Yeah, this situation is nowhere as ugly as it could be given the circumstances.

I'm looking forward to the Knicks this coming season even more now that things don't seem toxic. It's probably going to be a lot less toxic anyway (it's still the Dolan era, so we'll see).

I always thought Melo was overrated, especially when it came round to player rankings but even I find this be an incredibly low ranking. I may have had him in the lower 20s right at 30 maybe

What this is more evident of, his time is dwindling fast. He needs to start preparing mentally what retirement will be like because in about 4yrs he's more than likely done. Take notes from T-Mac...recently inducted into the HOF, a talent IMO he wasn't better than

Broadway said:

I always thought Melo was overrated, especially when it came round to player rankings but even I find this be an incredibly low ranking. I may have had him in the lower 20s right at 30 maybe

What this is more evident of, his time is dwindling fast. He needs to start preparing mentally what retirement will be like because in about 4yrs he's more than likely done. Take notes from T-Mac...recently inducted into the HOF, a talent IMO he wasn't better than

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Most ridiculous ranking is Lonzo at 64 ahead of Melo at 65. The kid played a few summer league games and they have him ranked ahead of a 1st ballot HOF.

Looking less likely that a Melo to Houston trade is happening, the Rox need to move Ryno and I think there are no takers w/o the Knicks moving their 2018 1st rounder to expedite this trade. Melo falling out of the top 50 ranked players is probably accurate which is going to make it harder for the Knicks to trade him.

What are they basing this on? In terms of "most prolithic scorers" ... Melo is still a top 25 talent.

If Melo joined GSW last year, not KD, then the perception would be totally different, right?

This is a PG league.... yet Paul has never navigated his team to a Conf Final.

Lonzo Ball? Really?

mafra said:

What are they basing this on? In terms of "most prolithic scorers" ... Melo is still a top 25 talent.

If Melo joined GSW last year, not KD, then the perception would be totally different, right?

This is a PG league.... yet Paul has never navigated his team to a Conf Final.

Lonzo Ball? Really?

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I think they used the ESPN computer ranking system to come up with this. Took into account players ability on both sides of the ball since they used both RPM and defensive RPM. Melo is 64 and Ball is 63 now in the rankings.

tiger0330 said:

I think they used the ESPN computer ranking system to come up with this. Took into account players ability on both sides of the ball since they used both RPM and defensive RPM. Melo is 64 and Ball is 63 now in the rankings.

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They are taking a few things into account, including some advanced metrics coupled with player value and projecting outcome/impact on game going forward. Melo is a Dinosaur of sorts

Carmelo unhappy after ESPN ranks him behind Lonzo Ball .. LMAO

Im the Knick Fan that told you so back on the 2011 Melo trade-deadline .. Dolan's a fool when it comes to winning B.ball in the NBA .. Gallinari ranks #54
Melo's last 3 NBA seasons has proved ESPN ranked genuine toward him ..
2017=31 wins, 2016=32 wins, 2015=17 wins.
How many wins will Lonzo Ball give the Lakers in his rookie season? more or less than 32 wins?
.....

ESPN released some of their NBA rankings on Tuesday, and many noticed one particularly strange detail: Carmelo Anthony was ranked at No. 64, one place below Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball.
Anthony was ranked below a 19-year-old who has yet to play in a regular season game, and as ESPN's Chris Herring noted, "That represents a steep fall for a player who was ranked in the top 10 as recently as 2013 (in the April edition) and in the top 30 two seasons ago."
As he did when he felt that SLAM Magazine wrongfully ranked him at No. 15 in October, Anthony responded, this time with the following message that he shared on both Twitter and Instagram:
Can't Make Sense Out Of Non Sense!
Though, Anthony's Instagram caption has an extra line:

And, LeBron James and Matt Barnes were among players who liked that IG from Anthony - so he has the support of his peers.
But before everyone starts screaming at everyone at ESPN who voted, I found this on Twitter and thought it was an interesting look at the whole process of how these rankings are decided:
https://t.co/fZW3H7K506
pic.twitter.com/Nex6AAvP6R
Anthony might find that … interesting.

He may not be the Carmelo Anthony from his prime, but Warriors F Draymond Green doesn't believe Melo should have been ranked the 64th best player in the NBA.

ESPN released their latest Top 100 rankings of players in the NBA, and Anthony fell drastically to No. 64. Green admits Melo's play isn't the same as it was years before, but his drop in the rankings is not right.

"I think when you look at Melo, Melo has been a great player in this league for some time now," Green told ESPN.com. "Obviously I think no one thinks that he's the Melo he was five years ago, and that happens to everyone. That's just the nature of the career that we've all chosen."

"At some point, you start to slow down and you're not who you once were. So, I'm not going to sit here and lie and act like he is the Melo he was five years ago, but the 64th-best player in the NBA? All right, five years ago he was maybe sixth. He ain't f-ing 64 [now]."

Ahead of Melo by one spot was Lakers rookie PG Lonzo Ball, the second overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. Greens views it as straight disrespect.

"I'm a firm believer in guys earning what they get, and I know he's earned more than a 64. And when you see rookies coming in who haven't played a game, that's just clear-cut disrespect," Green said. "You've got guys who have given everything they had into this game and has proved s-- year in and year out and then people just walk in and are ranked higher than someone? Let them get out there and prove something first."

"And like I said to start it off, I know Melo isn't the Melo he was five or seven years ago, but he's for damn sure not the 64th-best player in the league. I know that. There aren't 63 players better than Carmelo Anthony."

Green was ranked 10th overall while fellow Knick Kristaps Porzingis was ranked

Kiya I clicked that Twitter link and it didn't lead me to an explanation of how ESPN came up with their player rankings. I thought they used a computer model and not a voting system but some of the results are bizarre like Melo, Ball and KP more in line with a voting system with a few ESPN writers. I'm generally positive about computer models because they're based on algorithms and in theory should be impartial ranking players on facts not opinions. Just how were these rankings done?

tiger0330 said:

Kiya I clicked that Twitter link and it didn't lead me to an explanation of how ESPN came up with their player rankings. I thought they used a computer model and not a voting system but some of the results are bizarre like Melo, Ball and KP more in line with a voting system with a few ESPN writers. I'm generally positive about computer models because they're based on algorithms and in theory should be impartial ranking players on facts not opinions. Just how were these rankings done?

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Wsup Tiger .. Truth be said .. ESPN player-ranking looks more based on fans n sport-writers likes n dislikes of a player after the first 20 players. You right the ranking are not based by a computer categorize players-stats n wins. ESPN are going for the small or large popularity of a player in its rankings.

To me .. after the Knicks/Nets/76ers/Lakers/Suns/Kings past 3 seasons none of those teams players belong in the player-ranking under 100 .. LMAO

we'll see.