Yeah, I do and I’ve thought this from very early on in this season seeing Carmelo on a nightly basis. I think he’s kind of selfish in his steadfast view of himself as a player who at this point in his career is a star caliber player even though he’s obviously not a top tier player anymore.
Now–this doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a valuable piece for the Thunder becoming the Sixth Man and playing alongside Raymond Felton coming off the bench. Obviously—Sam Presti is grotesquely overpaying Carmelo Anthony, but you have to take a pragmatic overview of where he’s at currently in his career.
This is stupid. Jerami Grant is young and on the rise and can easily handle 28-30 minutes a game whereas Carmelo cannot. Their minutes should be inverted and if Carmelo were truly a team guy he’d be the one making the suggestion to Billy Donovan.
I’d say 20-22 minutes a game for Carmelo would be about right. If he’s making shots on a particular night—then you feed him some more minutes on those nights. This is part of coaching. You at times have to make tough decisions. I’m sorry, but Billy Donovan is going to have to grow as an NBA coach if the Thunder are to be taken seriously without Kevin Durant.
I love the fact he views himself as a player’s coach who has his players’ back, but there’s a line between that and delusion.
Truth be known, I’d even start Patterson in front of Carmelo if Donovan wants Jerami Grant staying paired with Raymond Felton.
These are the type of decisions championship coaches and GMs have to be able to navigate in the NBA if you want to win a championship.
There are precedents for this with Hall of Fame players. Bill Walton embraced this role in the latter years of his career with the Boston Celtics. Bill Walton won one of the greatest NBA championships in history with the ’76-’77 Portland team. Then his career became injury laden until the Celtics took a chance on him in 1985. You what happened–Bill Walton eagerly accepted the role of coming off the bench and played 19.1 minutes a game on that loaded championship Celtic team. That Celtic team became regarded as one of the best teams of all-time and Bill Walton with a new role became a valuable piece coming off the bench.
Same thing happened with Ray Allen when he joined LeBron in Miami assuming a reduced role coming off the bench.
So… what would LeBron say to Carmelo right now in Cleveland? My guess is — he’d say in private, “Carmelo—come off the bench.” What would Carmelo’s buddy in Houston–Chris Paul say to Carmelo Anthony? I’m guessing he’d say, “Dude—you need to come off the bench and contribute.”
I guess what I’m saying here is that Sam Presti, Billy Donovan, and Russell Westbrook need to decide if they’re content being a sixth place level type of team or if they aspire to be taken seriously at this point with Kevin Durant no longer here.