Melo's Journey

One of the more fascinating stats in the NBA is the clutch shooter stat they have over at 82games.com. In 2008-2009, somewhat surprisingly, the highest percentage of shots made in the last 5 minutes of either the 4th quarter or overtime, neither team leading by more than 5 points, belonged to Carmelo Anthony (among players with more than 25 shot attempts in those moments). He didn't just lead the league in the category, but he shot an astonishing %56 from the field during those times. That's actually a measure better than his OVERALL field goal percentage. Nipping at his heels was Lebron James, at %55.

But for a real shocker, look at the list of best last second shot-makers...the data sample is from 2003-2006, including postseason, so not real recent. But Carmelo leads there too, in shots made (11) and his shot percentage goes up by another factor, to %65! Now wrap your head around that, the man wins games more the 2/3 of the times he tries. The next guy on the list, Ray Allen, made 8 such shots, but at only a %44 clip. %20 lower than Carmelo! Here's another stunner, Kobe Bryant? They guy everyone fears at the ends of games? He made %22 of those shots! Big Shot Billups? %19!

Ok, enough with the exclamation points.

My "point", however, is that Carmelo Anthony is a lot of things, sweet-faced, powerful, a born scorer...but he never gets mentioned in those converstations about clutch players, great winners. Why is that? He's never won a title, so maybe he hasn't done it on the very biggest stage. Kobe misses way more than he does, but perhaps he made one shot that the entire world saw, and now we fear him. But there's also something personally about Carmelo that doesn't claim that space. With Lebron and Wade and Kobe sucking up so much of the airspace these days, it's helpful to remember, as Carmelo's own melodrama starts to unfold (with the same posse of hangers on whispering in his ear), that he's in the same echelon, and in important ways, actually better than those guys. Maybe he doesn't have the fire to win a championship (though he won the NCAA championship as a fresman!), or is not a great defender, but maybe that's also why he's the guy you want with the ball in his hands at the end of a game. He cares, but not enough to cloud his mind with shadows of former greats and histories and legacies and shoe sales and everything else. It's just him, ball and basket.

The only trade I've read about I wouldn't do is the Bulls trading Noah for him. Guys like Noah are just too few, and the chemistry they have on that team is too rare. Melo needs to come to a place where he can warp the fabric, and that's a good thing. I hope he ends up in the right situation, as it'll be fascinating to see what emerges.