Wednesday, August 27, 2014

I'm sorry I've said many times that Bill knows the NBA, I was completely wrong (part 4 of 4 OH MY GOD IT'S FINALLY DONE)


We're on the homestretch.  We're gonna make it.  Keep that head down and power through.  Next time, I'll cover whatever article I'm going after in less than two months.  By the way, anyone have any requests/recommendations?  Leave them in the comments.

So where were we?  Ah, yes, FACTS.  Indisputable FACTS about Carmelo's career, such as "He looked cooler with the cornrows" and "He is the 47th best player of all time."

9. Carmelo is averaging 25.3 points for his entire career. Only 13 players averaged at least 25 points, and only 10 have a higher average than Melo: Jordan (30.1), Wilt (30.1), LeBron (27.5), Durant (27.4), Elgin (27.4), West (27.0), Iverson (26.7), Pettit (26.4), Oscar (25.7) and Kobe (25.5). Yes, that’s a list with six Hall of Famers and four future Hall of Famers.

He is a great scorer, no doubt about it, although he was buoyed somewhat by playing on a lot of high-flying fast-breaking Denver teams.  Then again, he has kept his scoring up on some shitty Knicks teams.  While being unable to get them to the playoffs in a terrible division in a terrible conference.  Still, he is a great scorer.  He's a virtual lock to be a HOFer one day, and I'm fine with that.  What I'm not fine with is Bill's insistence that this clown could ever be the best player on a championship team.

10. He averaged 20 points or more for each of his first 11 seasons. Only 11 other players accomplished that: Jordan, Wilt, Kareem, LeBron, Shaq, Hakeem, Ewing, Iverson, Pettit, Barry and Erving. Nine Hall of Famers, three future Hall of Famers.

Yep.  He's a great scorer.  Perhaps even elite.  ONE OF THE MOST DYNAMIC SCORERS IN THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION.  A FACTOR FORWARD.  Joe Flacco : QBs :: Carmelo : scorers.

11. He’s one of 10 players to score 62 points or more in an NBA game.

OK, how many different ways are you going to say he's a great scorer?  We fucking get it.  Also, nice cutoff at 62 there, so as to not include Agent Zero and Tom Chambers (both of whom have scored 60 but not 62).  Since July 2nd, 2006...

12. If you’re thinking about him historically, he’s never getting to the Bird-LeBron-Barry level for small forwards. All three were true superstars. But he’s right up there with anyone else. Check out the first 11 seasons of five superb small forwards: Dominique Wilkins, Adrian Dantley, Melo, Paul Pierce and Bernard King.

Hey, glad you brought this up!  You know what Melo has in common with all those guys?  You couldn't win a championship with any of them as your best player.

[Big list of stats showing how Melo is basically in the neighborhood with all those guys, both in the regular season and in the playoffs]

You couldn’t have pulled a 2011 Mavs with ’Nique (the most exciting of the group), 

Made it out of the first round three times in his career, and never further.

Pierce (the most durable and the best two-way player) 

In seven seasons before teaming up with KG and Allen, missed the playoffs three times, was bounced in the first round twice, the second round once, and made one conference finals while playing alongside Antoine Walker.  Actually a pretty good track record, when compared against the rest of these guys.

or Dantley (the most unconventional); 

Had a pretty terrible record of reaching/winning in the playoffs throughout his career, with the exception of his two full seasons in Detroit, when the Pistons lost in the conference finals in seven and then the NBA Finals in seven.  But of course, those were Isiah Thomas's teams, so the "as your best player" argument clearly does not apply.

none of those three was quite overpowering enough, even if each could have been an overqualified second banana on a title team. (And in 2008, Pierce was.) 

They needed seven games in each of the first three rounds and six in the Finals.  I know Bill loves Pierce more than he loves anything in the world besides Larry Bird and Tom Brady, but I wouldn't exactly call Pierce "overqualified" to be the second best player on that team.  If he even was the second best player on that team.

Bernard doubled as the most frightening non-Jordan scorer I’ve ever seen in my life —

Bill has been singing the praises of King for years, always using him as his main Carmelo comparison (which is not unfair or anything--it's just a little old at this point).  Ever wondered why he keeps honing in on King?  If so, you haven't been reading Simmons for very long.  Here it is:

he took the 1984 Celts to a Game 7 by himself, for God’s sake.

Yes, that's right.  King had a great series against the LEGENDARY BASKETBALL RED SAWX.  That's it.  That's why Bill's casual readers who don't really care about the NBA still know about this great-but-not-legendary guy from the 80s who was felled by an untimely injury and traded three times.  If that series never happens, if King has the same career but never crosses paths with the Celtics in the playoffs, Bill writes a quick couple of paragraphs about him in The Book of Basketball as a "Level 1 guy," somewhere in the top 80 all time or so, and that's the extent of Bill's analysis.  Instead he's ranked in the 50s and he SHOWED INCREDIBLE FORTITUDE IN BOWING BEFORE LARRY LEGEND AND HIS TEAM OF DEMIGODS.

My team threw Kevin McHale (the NBA’s best defender at the time) and Cedric Maxwell at him, with Bird helping and Robert Parish protecting the rim, and it just didn’t matter. 1984 Playoff Bernard ascended into that Bird-Elgin-Barry group, then remained there until he blew out his knee 10 months later.

I can see Bill reading that after writing it, and trying to figure out how to use it as an excuse to bring up Len Bias.

Carmelo? He’s 92 percent as frightening as 1984 Playoff Bernard was. 

EXACTLY 92 PERCENT

He’s just playing in a more difficult league — better scouting, better game planning, better defenses, better athletes, better everything.

This line of argument is usually pretty dumb when applied to any professional sport, with the exception of cases when we're talking about pre- and post- racial integration.  It assumes that Carmelo himself would be exactly the same player he is now if he played in the days of worse scouting, game planning, defenses, athletes, everything, rather than being dragged down with his competition due to the different environment of the day.  Also, there are more teams now, which dilutes the overall talent across the league.

In 1984, Carmelo would have been single-teamed by the likes of Dantley and Kelly Tripucka and Mark Aguirre, night after night after night, and would have torched absolutely everybody. He would have averaged 34 per game like Bernard did during the 1984-85 season. 

I doubt it.

By the way, this is coming from someone who REVERED Bernard.

WE GOT IT, THANKS.

13. Just for fun, the best two-year regular-season runs for Bernard, ‘Nique Wilkins, Dirk and Carmelo:

• King (1984-85): 29.1 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 2.8 apg, 55-07-78%, 23.8 PER, 35.8 mpg, 31.5 usage
• ’Nique (1986-87): 29.7 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 3.0 apg, 47-25-82%, 23.4 PER, 38.3 mpg, 32.6 usage
• Dirk (2006-07): 25.6 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 3.1 apg, 49-41-90%, 27.8 PER, 37.2 mpg, 29.5 usage
• Melo (2013-14): 28.0 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 2.9 apg, 45-39-84%, 24.6 PER, 37.9 mpg, 33.9 usage

That's a good little list supporting the idea that you can win a title with Dirk as your best player, but not with King, Wilkins or Melo as your best player.  Thanks Bill.

14. You realize that Carmelo is better right now than he’s ever been, right?

• Years 1-2: 20.9 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 43-30-79%, 17.2 PER, 35.7 mpg, 28.8 usage, .094 WS/48
• Years 3-9: 25.9 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 46-33-81%, 21.4 PER, 36.3 mpg, 32.0 usage, .140 WS/48
• Years 10-11: 28.0 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 45-39-84%, 24.6 PER, 37.9 mpg, 33.9 usage, .177 WS/48

No argument with that.  But he's still not getting you a title without a teammate who's better than he is.

As his offensive workload has increased, he’s figured out how to become even MORE efficient by expanding his shooting range to 25 feet … only he’s never stopped getting to the free throw line, either.

• Years 1-2 (attempts): 14.8 2s (44.9%), 2.4 3s (29.9%) and 7.0 FT’s (78.7%)
• Years 3-9 (attempts): 17.3 2s (48.5%), 2.6 3s (32.9%) and 8.0 FT’s (81.1%)
• Years 10-11 (attempts): 16.0 2s (47.2%), 5.8 3s (39.1%) and 7.3 FT’s (84.0%)

I'm turning into a broken record here, but I'm still feeling great about my overall argument, which is nice.

/Larry B pushes glasses further up on nose while blogging in parents' basement

And you know what else? Carmelo never received enough credit for playing efficiently as a hybrid small forward/stretch 4, especially last season, when he was saddled with the NBA’s worst starting point guard (Felton, a complete zero on both ends); J.R. Smith’s abominable start (first 29 games: 11.3 PPG, 35% FG); Chandler’s lousy-for-him season (he quietly mailed in more games than anybody); the washed-up trifecta of Amar’e, K-Mart and Metta World Peace; some unforgettably awful coaching from Mike Woodson; and nothing from Andrea Bargnani other than this hysterical YouTube clip.

I'll agree that he deserved more credit last year than finishing outside the top 10 in MVP voting.  I won't agree with Bill's implication, or the implication of some of you commenters (with whom I must respectfully disagree) that he's some kind of underrated player overall at this point.  I don't care how bad the Knicks were last year--the whole Eastern conference outside of Indiana and Miami was an orphanage fire.  A Wizards team that won 29 games in 2012-2013 did nothing but add Marcin Gortat and suddenly won 44 and became a conference semifinalist.  A Hawks team that won 38 games and gave 70+ starts and 30+ MPG to both Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll made the fucking playoffs.  I don't care if Carmelo was playing with nothing but D-League teammates.  If he was really as good an overall player as Bill/the commenters are making him out to be, the Knicks would have made the playoffs.

That pathetic Knicks team didn’t employ a single creator who could get Melo wide-open jumpers off slash-and-kick drives.

The Nuggets employed creators who could do that for nearly his entire career in Denver.  Didn't make much of a difference in terms of overall results.

They couldn’t get him any fast-break points because nobody on the team could run a freaking fast break. So what’s left? Just a slew of possessions, one after the other, with everyone standing around waiting for Carmelo to do something. They were like the pickup team from hell, only Carmelo couldn’t just throw the game and hop on someone else’s team.

They were pretty bad.  But the only meaningful difference in personnel between this team and the one that won 54 games in 2012-2013 was the departure of old-as-shit Jason Kidd.  At what point does their 17 game falloff start to become the fault of the best player on the team?  "Just a slew of possessions, one after the other, with everyone standing around waiting for Carmelo to do something."  Hmmm.  Which came first, the teammates standing around doing nothing, or the shoot-first ballstopper holding the ball for extended periods of time and not even thinking about creating any offense other than that which ends with him taking a shot?  Smith, Andrea Bargnani and Stoudemire are pretty crappy, but they at least all are guys who can still score at a respectable rate.  Maybe, just maybe, the fact that this team was terrible in part comes back to the guy with the 30% usage rate, no?

Everyone bitched about his “ball-stopping” — 

I sure did!

something of which he’s definitely been guilty, from time to time, over the past few years — 

He's been guilty of it most of the time he's been in the NBA, except when Chauncey Billups grabbed him by the ear during timeouts and made him stop for subsequent short periods of time.

but when your coach is in a basketball coma and your entire offense has degenerated into “throw the ball to Melo and he’ll have to create a shot,” what do you expect? 

Mike Woodson is a doofus.  Doesn't change my argument or my chicken/egg argument.  Still feeling good about all of this.

Every opponent went into every Knicks game saying, “As long as we don’t let Carmelo kill us, we’re winning tonight.” And he still threw up 28 a night and played the most efficient basketball of his career. That’s a fact. It just wasn’t that much fun to watch.

He was a great, great scorer.  He wasn't a good enough player to drag his below average team to 38 wins.

15. Melo is the same person as Olympic Melo — the devastating shooter who shows up every two years for international competition and makes open 3 after open 3 like he’s playing a pop-a-shot game. I love Olympic Melo. So do you.

Sure.  No argument here.

If you think of him like a Hall of Fame wide receiver — 

Which you never should, because that's fucking dumb--

say, Larry Fitzgerald — 

OMG HE'S EXACTLY RIGHT!  HE'S ALSO JUST LIKE MICHAEL FASSBENDER!  I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT BEFORE BUT BILL IS 1000% RIGHT

Carmelo’s career makes more sense. Fitz tossed up monster stats with Kurt Warner throwing to him. Once the likes of John Skelton and Kevin Kolb started passing through his life, he wasn’t throwing up monster stats anymore. But nobody ever stopped believing Fitz was great. We made excuses for him that weren’t even excuses.

In case you needed further proof that Bill knows exactly jack diddley fuckall about sports, there you go.

Poor Fitz. We need to find him a QB. What a shame. What a waste of a great talent. He’s losing his prime and he’s never gonna get it back.

Small forward : wide receiver :: monster truck : hula hoop

Why didn’t we ever feel sorry for Carmelo? It’s simple — he placed himself in this situation. 

I'm not sure people didn't feel sorry for him last year.  Still, to the extent they didn't, at least Bill is right about this.

He could have waited until the summer of 2011, opted out of his first Nuggets extension and signed with New York as a free agent. Instead, his agents forced a midseason trade that kept his previous contract in place (more money, more leverage). 

Well, he and his agents were also too dumb to play happy in Denver for the whole 2010-2011 season and then get out when the getting was good.  He pouted through that season and wasn't able to properly lie to the media about the situation (something any superstar athlete should be able to do), which turned into a feedback loop of pouting and unhappiness and caused the Nuggets to ship him out before he could opt out.  It's his agents' "fault," but it's his too, for not playing the situation correctly.

Here’s what that extra money effectively cost them (and Carmelo): Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, their 2014 first-round pick (turned out to be 11th overall), and a first-round pick swap in 2016. Four super-tradable assets … out the window.

Yep, the Nuggets won that trade.  At least I don't have to be bitter about that while I'm busy being bitter about Carmelo generally.

A few other players were involved, including Felton and Timofey Mozgov (sent to Denver) 

Perhaps not a great asset at the time, but has turned into a very decent player.

and Billups (sent to New York). 

That was the sad part.  Leave it to Carmelo to ruin the end of the Denver professional career of the only notable NBA player to ever either grow up in Denver or play his college ball at Colorado.  Thanks, Melo.

And that’s where this deal gets darker. After the 2011 lockout ended, the Knicks used their amnesty on Billups solely to create cap room to sign Tyson Chandler. When Amar’e degenerated into The Artist Formerly Known As Amar’e two seasons ago, they didn’t have an amnesty left to snuff out his remaining $40 million. Whoops. Unable to improve their roster last summer, they stumbled into the comically bad Bargnani trade. This summer, they couldn’t sign any impact players.

All of this is true.  And as Bill already said, Carmelo is a proximate cause of it, with his inability to wait until the summer of 2011 to get to NYC.  At least LaLa was probably happy about the timing of the move.

All in all, that was a catastrophic trade considering Denver didn’t have any leverage whatsoever. 

Smiley emoticon

And it happened because Carmelo wanted more money — the same choice he made last weekend, again, and the same choice you and I would probably make too. 

Perhaps--there's no way of knowing how I would respond to the chance at winning a title while making a gajillion dollars versus being on a shit team while making a gajillion dollars plus fifteen percent more.  But the least he could do is not say dumb horseshit like "I'm all about championships" or whatever that dumb sound bite he gave back in June was.  What a dolt.

Carmelo inadvertently created the narrative that threatens to defines him. 

Oh no, his actions were quite deliberate.  Let's not think of him as a victim here.

There’s a good chance he will play his entire career, then retire, without ever finding the right team. Unless the Knicks miraculously strike oil next summer, his own version of the 2011 Mavericks can’t happen. 

It already did, in 2009, and he couldn't get past a very good Lakers team.  Dirk got past a Heat team that was almost certainly better than that Lakers team.  QED.

His prime will come and go, and that will be that.

It's more or less on his way out--he's 30.  UNLESS HE GOES TO GERMANY AND SPENDS SOME TIME WITH THE SAME STEROID PEDDLERS KOBE PAID TO GIVE HIM ROBOT LEGS.

There was an alternate universe here — Chicago, for less money, for a chance to become Olympic Melo for nine months per year. He would have been flanked by Joakim Noah, Derrick Rose, Jimmy Butler, Doug McDermott, Nikola Mirotic, Kirk Hinrich and a top-five coach (Tom Thibodeau). He would have found his 2011 Mavs. 

Sort of, except that he wouldn't have been the 2011 Dirk on that team, because Rose would be the best player (or so we would have thought when Melo signed; obviously that is in doubt now) and Noah has suddenly turned into a force of nature, like Chandler was for the 2011 Mavs, but way better.

He would have played on a 60-win team, been the crunch-time guy on a title favorite, reminded everyone how terrific he was over and over again. Thirty years from now, long after he has retired and hopefully spent his more than $300 million nest egg wisely, Carmelo will be sitting on the porch of one of his nine houses, nursing a drink, staring out at an ocean and thinking about the unknown. Should he have picked Chicago? How much money is enough money? What’s the price of peace? What would it have been worth to know — to really, truly know? Was he good enough? Could he have gotten there? Did he have it in him?

Hopefully Bill does the same thing, and spends four seconds thinking about it before coming to the conclusion that he was really just one lucky son of a bitch with great timing and an appreciation for low culture that most of America's college students and stupid middle managers share with him.

Instead, he’ll have to settle for people like me: the ones maintaining that he WAS good enough, only it’s an opinion and not a fact. 

Noooo!  Don't give up the "my opinions are actually facts" fight!  It's all you've got!

In A Bronx Tale, 

Finally, the reference to a twenty year old movie you've all been waiting for.

Sonny famously tells Calogero that “the saddest thing in life is wasted talent.” Well, what happens if you didn’t waste your talent, but it kind of got wasted anyway? Welcome to Carmelo Anthony’s world. What if, what if, what if.

What if Bill didn't shoehorn movie quotes into his verbose, shitty writing?  What if?  Oh that's right.  It would still be verbose and shitty.  What an asshole.

We made it!  High five your computer screen!  Yeah!  Teamwork!

Monday, August 18, 2014

I'm sorry I've said many times that Bill knows the NBA, I was completely wrong (part 3)


I blacked out for a minute there.  What happened?  Did I miss anything?  Better get back to it, because this is one of Bill's worst articles since Grantland started.

So could Carmelo morph into 2011 Dirk if you gave him the right situation? We don’t know because he’s never been in the right situation

Emphasis Bill's.  Holy shit, this man has the logical powers of a goldfish.  Having done an absolutely piss poor job of convincing anyone with a brain that the 2011 Mavericks had a way better supporting cast than the 2009 Nuggets, and conveniently ignoring Melo's many many playoff failures, he is doubling down.  Why wouldn't he?  He gets six emails a day from people in Wisconsin who want him to GM their team!

Why do you think his agents frantically tried to shoehorn him into Chicago’s cap these last few weeks? 

Because people in New York are starting to realize he's a ball stopping shoot first do nothing else later volume scorer, and you're not going to sniff a championship while he's your best player?

The money couldn’t work unless the Knicks agreed to a sign-and-trade with Carlos Boozer’s expiring deal (no thanks!) and some future picks (thanks anyway!). As a last gasp, they used the Lakers as negotiating leverage (you better sign-and-trade Melo to Chicago or you’ll lose him for nothing!), only Jackson smartly sniffed it out. That left Carmelo with three choices:

THREE AND ONLY THREE CHOICES.  IF YOU THINK THERE WERE TWO OR FOUR YOU PROBABLY KEEP PLAYING BLACKJACK WHEN THE TABLE IS HOT AND THEN THE STUPID PIT BOSS CALLS IN A SCARY ASIAN DEALER.

Choice No. 1: Grab $122 million over five years from New York, play with another inferior team, miss the Finals for his 12th straight season, 

Excellent framing there--Bill may be auditioning to be Melo's agent/spokesman.  Miss the Finals for the 12th straight season?  Oh, that's a given.  The real question is if he'll miss the second round for the tenth time in twelve seasons, or if he'll miss the playoffs in a pathetically terrible conference for the second straight season?

and pin the rest of his prime — which he’s never getting back, by the way — 

Wait, you're telling me there's no way to reverse the aging process?  How smugly witty of you.  

on Jackson’s promise that “We’ll Have Gobs of Cap Space in the Summer of 2015!!!”

Which they will.  And they probably won't be able to spend it on anyone better than Rajon Rondo or Al Jefferson.  But still.

Choice No. 2: Grab $97 million over four years from the Lakers, become the new face of the second-greatest NBA franchise ever, 

FACK YOU LAWS ANGELUS!  WE AHHHHHH BETTAH!  THIS IS AN IMPORTANT DEBATE IF YOU ARE 9 YEARS OLD AND LIKE ONE OF THESE TEAMS, OR NAMED BILL SIMMONS!  6 FOR 24!

move to Southern California, dabble in the whole Hollywood thing (yes, his wife is an actress), 

"Actress."  Not the most robust resume.

pick his own head coach, convince Pau Gasol to re-sign there, 

ANTHONY WOULD HAVE MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!  KOBE WASN'T ABLE TO DO IT, BUT GASOL DEFINITELY WOULD HAVE WANTED TO STAY AND PLAY FOR A TEAM FEATURING TWO BALL STOPPING SHOOT FIRST GUYS INSTEAD OF JUST ONE!

hope Kobe spent the summer training with Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong and A-Rod, 

Nice setup here.  If Kobe is bad in 2014-15, HAW HAW FACK YOU KOBE.  If he's good, AWBVIOUSLY STAHHHHROIDS!  BOOOOO!

hope they can flip Nash’s expiring contract into one more asset, make some noise next spring and hope the Kevins join him in 2015 and 2016. That’s a lot of hoping, by the way.

Just like the Knicks are doing a lot of hoping that they can build a championship team around Melo.

Choice No. 3: Sign a four-year deal in Chicago for less money (starting around $14-15 million), become the crunch-time guy for an absolutely loaded Bulls team, and answer every question anyone ever asked about him.

Except for the one about whether he can win a title on his own, which is still asked by dunces like Bill Simmons.  However, I do agree with what Bill is about to say--it would have been fun to have Melo go to Chicago, have Rose get hurt again, then watch the Bulls limp to the 8th seed as Melo scores 27 a game on 25 FG attempts.

I wanted him to sign with Chicago for less money — a wildly unrealistic outcome that was never going to happen. 


Even typing the sentence “For God’s sake, Carmelo, you’ve made over $135 million in salary already, not counting endorsements and whatever this next deal pays you, so it’s not like you’re a candidate for Broke II — 

Awesome reference!  If you're a fucking loser who thinks bad movies are good!

why wasn’t it worth giving up some dough to play for the right team???” looks dumb and naive. I don’t blame him for grabbing the money. He can always force a trade if he’s not happy, right?

Oh, indeed he can.  Indeed he can.  He can do it if his wife is unhappy too.

At the same time, I wanted to know once and for all. I wanted to know how good Carmelo Anthony is. Because, right now, I believe the following things:
1. He’s one of the best natural scorers I’ve ever seen.

And Bill has seen every natural scorer who's ever played for the Celtics!

2. He’s one of the NBA’s eight or nine best players and has been for some time.

LeBron Durant Davis Aldridge Dirk Westbrook Cousins Noah Griffin Curry.  Nope.

3. He could win you a title on his version of the 2011 Mavs.

Good try.

Again, those are just opinions. But what am I about to present to you? All facts.

You only have to wait until fact #1 to find something that's not a fact.

1. His best team ever was the 2009 Nuggets. (Covered above.)

Perhaps true, but I like that this college-educated man does not know what a fact is.  Anyways, I'll stop splitting hairs on this since most of the rest of these are also not actual facts.  What's important is that the 2009 Nuggets minus Melo are more or less equal to the 2011 Mavs without Dirk, and meanwhile, let's not forget that the 2010 Nuggets were essentially the same team as the 2009 Nuggets, and that 2010 version didn't get out of the first round.

2. His best teammates ever: Chauncey Billups (post-Detroit version), Allen Iverson (post-Philly version), Andre Miller, Marcus Camby, Amar’e Stoudemire (post-Phoenix version, right as his knees were going), Tyson Chandler (post-Dallas version), Kenyon Martin (post-Nets version), Nene (never an All-Star — not once) and the one and only J.R. Smith.

Love the recognition for Camby here (assuming these are in order), who was always underrated.  Anyways, this is true, so good for Bill.  Doesn't change Melo's career long string of playoff failures, or his inexcusable failure to get the Knicks into the playoffs last season.

3. He never played with anyone who made an All-NBA team except for Billups (third team, 2009), Chandler (third team, 2012) and Amar’e (second team, 2011).

Hey look!  A fact fact!

4. He had only four teammates make an All-Star Game: Iverson (2007, 2008), Billups (2009, 2010), Amar’e (2011) and Chandler (2013).

Wow!

5. He had five head coaches in 11 years: Jeff Bzdelik (never coached again), Michael Cooper (became a WNBA coach), George Karl (coached 1,887 games, only won two Finals games), 

HAHAHAHAHAHA.  Go fuck yourself, you fucking asshole.  

Mike D’Antoni (sadly, he coached again) and Mike Woodson (now a career assistant). Meanwhile, Dirk had three coaches in 15 years: Don Nelson (Hall of Famer), Avery Johnson (made a Finals and also won 67 games in a season) 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Yes, that was all Avery!  Definitely not him inheriting a loaded team at just the right time!  That's why he's currently very very available to any NBA team that wants to hire him.

and Rick Carlisle (future Hall of Famer).

If Carlisle is a HOFer, so is Karl.  We covered this already.  But let me reiterate, just to be crystal clear: for saying George Karl "coached 1,887 games, only won two Finals games," he can go die in a fire.

6. Dirk has spent his entire career with the same owner — the lovable and influential Mark Cuban, who didn’t always make the right moves, but built a state-of-the-art organization and spent as much money as anyone. Carmelo spent seven years in Denver enduring multiple front-office power struggles, 

Source?  Citation?  Where is one of those cheeky little Grantland footnotes when you really need one?  The reason there isn't one here (I usually delete them, btw, but I didn't do that here) is because this is patently false.  But don't let facts get in the way of your narrative, asshole.  Full speed ahead.

then had multiple Knicks GMs in four years (not counting CAA’s brief takeover last season). Oh, and he had James Dolan calling the shots.

And he had the chance to get away from Dolan... and didn't take it.  

(The real irony here: Carmelo had only one truly competent front-office mind in 11 years. Who was it? Masai Ujiri … who traded Carmelo to New York in 2011 once Carmelo made it clear he was signing there anyway. Carmelo = not blameless. By any means.)

That's not irony.  Ujiri trading him to New York and him now playing in New York because he wanted to be traded there so he could play there is... pretty unironic.

7. He suffered bad luck two different times — when an already loaded Pistons team unbelievably picked Darko over him in 2003, 

Yeah, had he played on that 2003-2004 Pistons team that knocked off the Lakers in the Finals, the question would finally have been answered: can you win an NBA title if Carmelo Anthony is your 8th man, playing 12 minutes a game?

Yes.

Yes you can.

and when his agent didn’t follow LeBron’s and Wade’s lead by putting a three-year out into Melo’s first contract extension (with Denver). 

That's because Melo signed his extension almost a week before LeBron and Wade did, you fucking fuckhole.  Try doing some fucking research you horsefucker.

In the summer of 2010, Melo could have stolen Bosh’s spot in Miami or jumped to the up-and-coming Bulls, only he couldn’t get out of his deal for another year. Those were his two best chances to find a true contender. 0-for-2.

One inconsequential to the current argument, the other never actually existed.

8. Here’s how much Carmelo’s teams have relied on him since 2003 — right now, he owns the fifth-highest career usage rate ever (31.7 percent), 

Chicken/egg--yes, his teams have relied on him, and yes, he's a ball stopper who loves to take long twos and other ill-advised shots.

trailing only Jordan (33.2 percent), Wade (31.9 percent), Iverson (31.8 percent) and Kobe (31.8 percent). In the playoffs, he has the fourth-highest career usage rate ever (32.6 percent), trailing only Jordan (35.6 percent), Iverson 34.3 percent and T-Mac (33.5 percent). 

And nearly a .350 winning percentage!

On the other hand, he has played with only two 20-point scorers (Iverson in 2007 and 2008, Amar’e in 2011) and three guys who averaged more than 15 points (Billups in 2009 and 2010, Amar’e in 2012, and J.R. in 2013). I mean, didn’t someone have to shoot?

You know nothing about basketball.  Fucking... nothing.