It’s been pretty clear so far this year that Carmelo Anthony doesn’t have to have the ball all the time for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
When the Oklahoma City Thunder traded for Carmelo Anthony this past offseason, there were a lot of questions. The main one seemed to be, “How is he going to fit in?”
It was a fair question to ask. For pretty much all of Carmelo’s career, he was the primary scoring option on his team. Even going back to his time at Syracuse, everyone knew that Anthony could put the ball in the hole.
So what happens when you put a generational/ball-dominant scorer on the same court with Russell Westbrook and Paul George? Something has to give, right?
There was no way that Westbrook, George, and Anthony could put up the same numbers they had in years past while all playing with each other. As a result, at least one of the three would have to see significant decline in their counting stats. It seems that this player is Carmelo Anthony.
Melo is currently having career-lows in points, field goal attempts and assists per game. Last season when he was one of two stars with the New York Knicks, he was posting 22.4 points, 18.8 field goal attempts and 2.9 assists per game.
This season, Anthony is scoring 17.1 points, dishing out 1.4 assists, and taking 15.6 field goal attempts per game. If you looked at these stats without any context, you would think that something is wrong.
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That’s why knowing the context here is important. Russell Westbrook is still basically averaging a triple-double (which is incredible) and Paul George is putting up very similar numbers to the ones he put up with the Indiana Pacers.
Something that shouldn’t be taken for granted is the fact that Carmelo is getting older (in terms of NBA years).
He’s 33 years old and will turn 34 this upcoming May. You may be thinking, “That’s not that old,” While I will give you that there have been a lot of guys who are productive into their late 30s, Melo has a lot of miles on the odometer.
He has been playing in this league since he was 19 years old, which means he’s been through 16 grueling NBA seasons.
Just to give you an idea, he’s currently eighth in terms of active players in career minutes played. The guys who are in front of him: Dirk Nowitzki, Vince Carter, Joe Johnson, LeBron James, Jason Terry, Pau Gasol and Jamal Crawford.
Carmelo is the second-youngest next to LeBron on that list. While I think age is a reason why his numbers are down, the main reason is his new teammates.
One final thing that I want to bring up is the fact that Carmelo has greatly changed his game since joining the Thunder. He’s become much more of a 3-point shooter, averaging 5.9 attempts from deep — far more than his career 3.6 attempts per game.
Since he’s shooting more 3s, that means he’s getting to the line less. His career average of free throws per game is 7.0, but this year he only takes 2.8 attempts per game.
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I don’t know if this is a huge cause for concern, but generally, you want to go to the line as much as possible. Other than that, I think Carmelo is fitting in quite well. Let’s see how it works around playoff time.