Detroit Pistons: 3 reasons to pursue Carmelo Anthony
By Amaar Burton
2. The Pistons could use another scorer
The Pistons ranked 22nd out of 30 teams last season in offensive output (103.8 points per game), 23rd in field goal percentage (45.0 percent), and 25th in True Shooting Percentage (54.3).
First-year head coach Dwane Casey has been brought in to improve the offense — his Toronto Raptors ranked fourth in the league in scoring last season — but a system can only be as good as the talent on the floor.
Anthony is a scorer. At one point in his career, he was arguably the best pure scorer on the planet.
Even as he struggled while adjusting to being the No. 3 offensive option versus being the No. 1 guy with the Nuggets and Knicks, he still showed flashes of the ability that made him one of the elite scorers of this generation.
Anthony scored 20-plus points in his first six games for the Thunder. He dropped 22 on Golden State in a win, he scored 20 and 22 in victories over Houston, and he put up 29 points in a win over Cleveland. Anthony also hit a few clutch shots for OKC.
Anthony has lost a step in terms of speed and quickness, but he never relied too much on those traits. If he joined the Pistons, he could conjure memories of Adrian Dantley or Mark Aguirre — two former scoring machines in the 1980s who still had enough game by the time they got to Detroit to be impact players on some great Pistons teams.