Portland Trail Blazers: Carmelo Anthony has to take a smaller role to return

Carmelo Anthony was a key part of the Portland Trail Blazers in 2020. This year though, he needs to take a smaller role for the good of the team if he is to return.

When the Portland Trail Blazers were in deep trouble with injuries at the start of the 2019/20 season, Neil Olshey picked up the phone and called Carmelo Anthony. After being on the couch for a year, Melo was back in the NBA, and he did exactly what the Blazers needed.

He gave size, shot creation, and production. Melo was exactly what the Blazers needed at that time. Zach Collins and Rodney Hood were out for the season, and Kent Bazemore was struggling. There wasn’t one competent forward on the Blazers roster, so Melo fit perfectly when he was signed.

He averaged 15 points with 6 rebounds and shot an excellent 38 percent from three. He was clutch in the NBA bubble, and overall he had a good year from a production standpoint.

On multiple occasions, he has said that he had found a home in Portland; but my concern is that he thinks he is still a starter on a good team. Melo is 36 and will be 37 when the next NBA season starts, and the facts are that he struggles to complete the duties required of a power forward in the NBA.

Melo is still a good NBA three-point shooter, but this is his only plus NBA skill now.

This article isn’t about hating on Melo, but highlighting that he isn’t a starter on a playoff team anymore. Here are the issues.

At his peak, Melo was only ever an average finisher at the rim. But, what made him so good in the restricted area, was his ability to draw fouls at some of the highest rates in the league. Unfortunately, this trend stopped in 2016/17. Since then, he has really struggled to get to the line, and his finishing at the rim has regressed significantly.

Last season, he only shot 52 percent at the rim. This isn’t bad; it’s abysmal. This ranks Melo in the bottom 5 percent of the league for his position.

We shouldn’t use Melo’s Hall of Fame career to gloss over his obvious flaws.

As a shooter, yes, he can still hit three-pointers, but his volume isn’t that great  Melo’s main issue with his offensive game is that most of his shots are from the mid-range. In the 2019/20 season , he took 49 and then 57 percent of his shots from the midrange, making just 40 percent of them.

In the analytics age, 40 percent from midrange is acceptable for the odd player who doesn’t take many. But Melo taking over six shots a game from the mid-range and only hitting 40 percent of them, hurts the offense.

If Melo was willing to take more threes, he could be more of a positive part of an NBA offense, but he only took 3.9 a game last season.

As a rebounder and passer, Melo, unfortunately, hasn’t been able to add value since 2015/16. Melo rebounds like a guard now, grabbing just six boards a night.

As a passer, Melo used to move the ball well out of double teams or find cutters from the post. But over the last three regular seasons he has played in, he has finished in the bottom five percent of bigs when it came to setting up teammates. Maybe when you watch a game of his, you will see him make the odd pass, but because he uses so much ball, these are very few and far between.

Defensively he wasn’t awful this past season, but he wasn’t good either. He did ok as a man defender but made some egregious mistakes in some big moments, IE, helping off Jaylen Brown in the clutch of the crucial Boston Celtics matchup in the bubble. Melo isn’t a terrible defender, but he provides very little rim protection in help and doesn’t force many turnovers.

All of the above factors mean that Melo needs to accept a lesser role to better the team in the 2021 season if he wants to return. He is 36, and though he can still add value to an NBA team, he shouldn’t be playing 33 minutes a night on the Blazers.

This may seem like a controversial opinion, but the only plus NBA skill that Melo has now is that he can create his own shot at around league-average efficiency.

If he wants to come back to the Blazers, then I’d be happy with a role between 15 and 21 minutes a night. He still has enough juice in the tank to hurt some bench units and spot up in the corners.

Also, from a salary perspective, if Melo wants more than the minimum, then he is eating into valuable money that Neil Olshey needs to spend on defensive upgrades. He is probably worth more than the minimum to some teams, but it would be a poor decision if the Blazers spent more than the minimum on him.

If Melo wants what best for the Blazers, he should take a smaller role.