You seem to have missed my point. Saying a Melo-led team is playoff bound ignores the fact that it's actually bound for a 1st round exit. When the going gets tough, Melo comes up empty, time and again.
No. You keep ignoring the fact that I understand that (I make that argument a lot in the NBA forum) and think Leonard is not even that good. That's the whole point. Melo gets his teams to the playoffs even though I believe strongly that he's holding them back. I don't think Leonard could even do that as the best player on his team.
First of all I rarely if ever go downstairs. Second, that's not Leonard's role and that doesn't mean he isn't better for the Spurs. The Spurs will have a lot more success with Leonard at the 3 than they would ever have had with Melo. So it doesn't matter if Melo is supposed to be better in a vacuum. Put Melo on last year's Spurs and we don't even sniff the Finals.
People said the same thing about Lebron before he joined the superteam, Melo is leading a team of scrubs and TOSBs tbh...
Lebron brought a team of nobodies to the Finals. I don't even know how you can compare Lebron with Melo with a straight face. And Melo had talent with him at times: it didn't change one thing because he was still taking contesting shots instead of passing to the open man, and he was still being a black hole on D. If Melo was playing for OKC he'd be taking 3x as many shots as Durant.
when you have tony, manu and timmy is hard for leonard to show his offense. last year pop gave the big three the night off against chicago and loenard carried the team by himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=SXemx5E9t20
this is the game i was saying when pop gave the big three the night off last year
All else being equal and assuming there are no offensive pieces around them, you're 100% right. Kawhi has room to develop whereas Melo is who he is. But let's also not forget that Melo wasn't alone in any of those situations. We see how he's doing now as an alpha dog without Chandler.
At this stage, you can't compare Kawhi to those star SFs. While Kawhi is a heck of rebounder and defender, his contribution on the offensive end is still minimal.
Melo
I disagree. I think the Spurs beat the Heat in the Finals easily by replacing Leonard with Melo. As much as people hype Leonard for his Game Seven, Anthony would have gone for 50 with Miller on him. And before you try to say he'd give up more on the other end, I'd recommend that you watch the Heat/Knicks games from last year. He did a fine job on both ends with a good anchor behind him and good ball-movement.
Anyway, don't move the goalposts. This thread is about who's the better SF not who fits better with the Spurs. That's like saying Green is better than Harden because Danny fits in better with the Spurs' system.
I doubt the Spurs even make it to the Finals with Melo. Who would play defense against GS? Also by Melo taking 20+ shots a game it takes everyone else out of the game, it's like TP hero mode on steroids.
I'm pretty sure Kawhi could average 20+ ppg if he took twice as many shots.
Who do you consider to be the top 5 PGs? Is Westbrook or Irving in that top 5? Why or why not.
I love Kawhi, but I think you have not watched many pacers game. You realize Paul George is not only the Pacers top scorer/ offensive threat but he also is matched up against the teams best wing night in and night out. Kawhi takes the tough defensive assignments nightly but he hardly has the pressure of being the teams No. 1. offensive option. Paul George has proven he can take the role of a superstar on both ends of the floor. Maybe Leonard can get there in the near future. However to say you would "take Kawhi's career body of work over Paul George's any day", seems very biased.
First, Anthony is ball dominating but he's not horribly inefficient. In the Spurs system and with two other stars, I doubt Melo would stall the offense as much as some think he would.
To your other question, I don't know. Probably Parker, Paul, Russ, Conley and Wall out of healthy ones.
i'd rather have kawhi on my team than Melo because Melo is going to eat about 40% of my salary cap and is going to be cancerous
You know I'm going to defend Melo here. Even if the guy played at a Lebron James level they wouldn't win anything. It is hardly his fault that Amare's decline was so sudden and steep. The Knicks invested max money in Amare and he has produced like a 7th or 8th man. Anthony is taking a lot of heat, but his play is hardly the reasons New York is in the gutter. Also why do you consider this man cancerous? I'm not a fan of his style of play, but he has hardly said or done anything which i would interpret as cancerous. He doesn't defend well and doesn't create well for others. These are inefficiencies in his game which of course it would have been nice to see him improve on over the past 10 seasons. However he is hardly cancerous, has proven to be a very dangerous player and one of the top scorers the past decade. I want to make a comparison to the Iverson led sixers team which made the finals. Iverson of course was a scorer and had inefficiencies in other aspects of his game. However the sixers surrounded him with blue collar guys, like Eric Snow, Aaron Mckie(spelling), Mutumbo, George Lynch and so on. Guys who would defend, rebound and didn't need the ball in their hands to be effective. If the Knicks truly believe Melo is their guy then build that kind of team around him, with guys who don't need the ball.
Don't even mention Lebron with Melo. Melo wishes he was as efficient on offense as Lebron is. Then you could make a solid case for Melo as a top 5 SF.
As is, Melo is an inefficient scorer, above average rebounder, awful defender, average passer.
I mean people gave Lebron throughout his career for his 3P shooting yet he has a higher career 3p% than Melo, the guy who is supposed to be a great offensive player.
this just turned into melo bashing..
Best players in NBA has always been defined as who chucks the most shots and make the most contested jumpers. Nobody cares if you score an open jump shot.
Thats why players like paul george and melo has been ranked above kawhi leonard.
I will support Kawhi to the death but it's just ridiculous to claim he is better than or quite frankly even on the same level as Paul George. Paul George has a legitimate MVP discussion right now (agree with it or not, he does) and that's something that I highly doubt Kawhi would be capable of. George has a much higher ceiling than Kawhi, but in no way should that be looked at as Kawhi bashing. It's more of a compliment to how great George's potential is tbh
Yes, this. Melo's O is so much better than Leonard's. But I agree spending the money on Melo in our system would be a huge waste. Watching him screw up defensive rotations and stop ball rotations on O, he'd actually be a terrible Spurs player. Leonard is what we want, and even on his next contract, he'll be close to half the price. But on teams with the "just get out of the way and let the best offensive player shoot" Melo would be a better fit than Kawhi. He's more comfortable with the ball in his hands.
The team system matters a lot in comparing the two. Imagine Leonard on a D'Antoni team. "Hey Coach Mike where do you want me to rotate on this defensive set?" Mike: "Um, somewhere, you know wherever you want. It's cool."
But Anthony would be down with that, more energy for his offense, and look how well that worked when D'Antoni coached Melo in New York.
Two games later since my last post.
Leonard has breaking a tie and climbing two more spots to 7th in Hollinger's more offense based VA, passing Batum, Gay and Turner.
James
Durant
George
Anthony
Parsons
Iguodala
Leonard
By my preferred WS, Leonard in 5th, passing Deng and Parsons.
James
George
Durant
Iguodala
Leonard
When did you have PG?Still can't believe we traded Paul George for him though...
That's a funny story. Read this thread for details: http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...ht=paul+george
Deng & Batum?
Deng's a remarkably consistent player who is somewhat better than stats say because of the plus defense he provides. But he's still just a 15.8 career PER.
Compare that to Kawhi - 16.8 both of his first two seasons and he'll be over 20 this year if/when his 3 point shot regresses to the mean (right now it's only 28% vs. 37% the past two years). And Leonard provides elite level defense.
While I'd take Batum on my team any day, he really shouldn't even be in this conversation. Long on athletic ability and flashes of s om, short on actual top level production (despite playing for a team that needed him to play like a star in recent seasons).
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