According to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated – Rod Thorn (the president of the Sixers) – is optimistic about the upcoming season. Thorn also would very much like to add Carmelo Anthony to the Sixers roster (at the cost of Andre Iguodala).
Lance Epstein – of Philadunkia – argues that such a trade would vault the Sixers from a fringe playoff team (where Epstein currently thinks they are at) to the 4th seed in the Eastern Conference.
For the opposing view we turn to Tom Sunnergren – who also writes for Philadunkia. Sunnergren argues that the following would happen if Melo came to the Sixers:
Expectations would be high. Through the roof. They would literally explode through the roof. After enough roofs were destroyed, people would learn not to keep these expectations indoors. They’d be left outside to soar, to be free. And why not? Carmelo Anthony is the single best player in basketball not named Kobe, Lebron or Durant! We know that because he scores the most. You can’t win without scoring points, anybody knows that. And the guy he’s replacing? Iguodala? More like “ugly(jumper)odala!” That guy sucks. Look at his scoring for crying out loud. Carmelo scores waaaaaaay more than him. Carmelo, points, Carmelo, twenty-eight a game, Carmelo, scorer, Carmellllllllloooooo! That’s how the conventional wisdom would go. And who could argue with it. Carmelo does score a lot of points. And everybody knows the best player is the guy who scores the most. Period.
Pretty soon though the Sixers would have to start playing games, would lose these games, and this unexpected losing would cause the hype train –fuelled by a month of irrational exuberance– to tragically derail, possibly killing Phil Jasner. After Jasner was mourned, people would return to puzzling over why the Sixers, the purportedly reborn Sixers, were losing games at such a break-neck pace. It’s the chemistry, Jrue Holliday hasn’t developed, Carmelo isn’t comfortable under the harsh Philly-spotlight, Doug Collins is the culprit, Lou Williams isn’t driving enough, Phil Collins is the culprit (The PA had played too much Genesis in pregame), Evan Turner hasn’t warranted his high pick, the papers would loudly speculate, throwing darts at the mounting losses. The question that would be on the tip of everyone’s tongue (or the tongues of the few who were still paying attention to an NBA team with a .250 winning percentage) would be an understandable one: What the hell happened?
This, dear reader, is what the hell happened. The reason the Sixers, despite swapping a scrub like Iguodala for a top player like Melo, would still suck is because Carmelo Anthony – all-star, 2ndteam all-NBA, Olympic gold medalist, NCAA national-champion, Carmelo Anthony– sucks. And Andre Iguodala is a star. Yeah, I went there.
The Sunnergren argument is primarily based on Wins Produced. And the views of Thorn and Epstein… well, they reflect the general belief that scorers are great players.
Obviously I tend to believe the Wins Produced story (okay, that was really obvious). And I will add more observations to the Melo story:
If Melo is trades in the next few days (or weeks), the Melo’s new coach can expect the following to happen:
- Expectations – as Sunnergren argues – will be sky high.
- The team will fail to meet these expectations (because Melo is really not that productive).
- The coach will get fired (quicker than he would otherwise be fired).
In sum, any head coach who gets Anthony should be dismayed. Chances are he won’t be (because I expect most coaches buy the conventional wisdom on scorers like Anthony). But nevertheless, he should be.
– DJ
Wages of Wins Journal 
entityabyss
September 30, 2010
Damn, that would suck. I made a bet that the wizards would be the worst team. If they trade igoudala (and most likely someone else) for carmelo anthony, they’re gonna be really terrible. Smh.
dm
September 30, 2010
Andre must wetting his pants. I hope this happens too, it’d be a great case study. I wonder what the phily sports writers and fans will say when the carmelo lead sixers turn out to be one of the worst teams in the nba.
“Collins is out of touch”
“Collins is too old”
“Collins has been out of coaching to long”
Or simply….
“COLLINS IS A BUM!!!!”
“BOOOOO!!!!”
And of course there will be plenty pundits waxing on about “poor chemistry”.
Oh well at least he’ll draw sell out crowds…..right? I mean what phily fan wouldn’t be on the edge of their seat each night wondering just how many balls they’ll end up with in the lottery.
Italian Stallion
September 30, 2010
Deal for Melo to Knicks may go down as early as tonight.
http://www.knicksvision.com/2010/09/sources-melo-deal-could-go-down-as-early-as-tonight-to-knicks/
If this goes down and you don’t see me around here for awhile, say a prayer for my soul because I may be hanging from a chandelier somewhere. ;-)
Seriously, I can’t see this happening tonight because the Knicks are in Milan and Gallinari is HOME. They can’t trade him before Sunday’s game is over, but this is really starting to scare me because multiple sources say that the Knicks have deals in place to get a #1 pick they could use the in the Melo deal (probably for Chandler).
some dude
September 30, 2010
Why would a Knick fan hang themselves over acquiring Melo in that trade?
I mean, if you haven’t hanged yourself in the last decade, what’s the point now? This would only be like the 12th worst movie of the past 10 years for the franchise.
Italian Stallion
September 30, 2010
Some Dude,
The Knicks have reasonably productive players like Amare and Felton, high level 21-22 year old prospects like Gallo and Randolph, solid versatile young role players like Chandler, unproven but very legitmate prospects like Fields and Douglas, and a bunch of other sharp shooters and role players.
IMO, they are a .500 club as constructed right now and still have upside.
Throw in Eddy Curry’s 11.3 million dollar expiring contract that could be used to add a FA next year or as part of deal this year now and they could easily be 50 win team with upside as early as next year. Then some of the less required role players come off the cap and they can tweak some more.
I’m not sure I agreed with Walsh’s move to trade Jordan Hill + Jeffries + picks just to get Jeffries off the cap a year earlier, but he has turned Isiah’s disaster into a young and improving team with amazing cap flexibility going forward.
If he were to blow all that now with a trade of Gallo or Randolph (God forbid both) + Curry’s expiring contract + another young player to get a #1 pick, he would effectively destroy 2 years of great work to pull off an Isiah type deal that would set the team back another 5 or more years.
I’m not as negative on Melo as some people here, but IMO it would make way more sense to use Curry’s expiring contract + an expendable player like Chandler (Fields is probably the better prospect) to add a high quality player at SG or elsewhere.
dberri
September 30, 2010
Although I don’t recommend a drastic response to a sports story… I can see why a Knicks fan would be unhappy with a Melo trade. The Knicks may be a plus 0.500 team this year (I think Arturo said this). To come this far just to trade for Melo would be depressing.
some dude
September 30, 2010
IS, That was a really long reply to what was a joke about the Knicks Franchise.
Italian Stallion
September 30, 2010
Some Dude,
After all my suffering with the Knicks, I can’t handle any more jokes. :-)
arturogalletti
September 30, 2010
entityabyss,
What could possibly have inspired that?:-)
If this trade goes through, Philly will have done a fantastic job of trading their two best player ( Iggy and Dalambert about 25 Wins produced last season) for Nocioni,Hawes and Melo (about three wins). So that’s a net of -22 Wins for a 27 win team. Good god!I may have to apologize to Ted Leonsis.
Chicago Tim
September 30, 2010
It’s funny that all of us are watching the Anthony trade talk with horror (the talk of trading him to the Bulls hasn’t died yet) while so many others are watching it with anticipation. But I am heartened by the number of people who know nothing about Wages of Wins and still raise questions about Anthony.
arturogalletti
September 30, 2010
You know, we’ve danced this dance before. I’ll leave this here:
https://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/better-experts-needed-more-on-an-article-in-the-philadelphia-city-paper/
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it- George_Santayana
Owen
September 30, 2010
I am with Some Dude. No reason to hang yourself over Melo becoming a Knick. Of course, not much reason to watch either. Either way there should be some good WOW case studies coming out of this.
arturogalletti
September 30, 2010
The first Philadunkia piece calls for Philly to throw in Turner if they need to. So Iggy-Turner for Melo.
I really can’t make this stuff up.
tsunnergren
October 1, 2010
What kills me is that we’re the ones pushing the deal. I say we throw in Lou Williams too and make a run at 8 wins. Yes We Can!
some dude
October 1, 2010
the one thing about this place is that y’all take trade rumors too seriously. 90% of them are put out there by agents and GMs on purpose. Philly is not trading AI + Turner for Melo and Melo is not signing an extension to play in Philly.
Ever notice how the majority of actual trades tend to not have been previously rumored (not counting FA sign + trades)?
nerdnumbers
October 1, 2010
Dm,
I mentioned on the podcast this week that if Iguodala signs with the Nuggets I’ll take it as the internet saying I was right in a forum fight :) Philly would be a terrible place for Melo as it could drop his value as his intangibles would be shown to be meaningless. If he does end up there the best advice is similar of DJ’s to T-Mac in Detroit. Score a lot and blame the rest of the team and then try and end up on a winner.
Some dude,
Excellent point. For the record in terms of trade rumors I treat it similar to a Christmas gift, until it happens I can imagine it will be whatever I want :) In terms of being a casual fan though there is way too much noise to know the exact situation. You are right too as I’ve heard agents try and spur rumors to raise a player’s value. Vandeweghe was claiming RJ for Melo in NJ a few years ago I recall (in an attempt to raise RJ’s status). However, no one really took it seriously but it was still reported on.
Italian Stallion
October 1, 2010
Owen,
I think you are underestimating the negative implications of giving up Gallo or Randolph, + and an 11.3M expiring contract, + a young piece to get a #1 draft pick for Melo.
Aside from the fact that I think Randolph is going to be a more productive player than Melo this year with the best ahead of him, I suspect there won’t be much of a difference between Gallo and Melo either with Gallo having upside.
Giving up the large expiring contract and another young piece to go sideways or backwards is a fairly bad move on it’s own. Worse is having Melo and Amare tied up for 5-6 years. IMO, a team cannot win a championship with two max players like that. There isn’t enough room to build a winning team.
Maybe hanging oneself was a bit of an extreme way to indicate my potential disgust, but I am in panic mode because I see 5-6 years of mediocre basketball in our future if we go down this road.