Bye Bye, Melo

No one should feel sorry for Melo as he's paid the 7th-most cash of any NBA player ever. So, don't feel sorry for him. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about his play. 

Talking heads such as Stephen A saying Melo is being scapegoated obviously either don't watch games closely or don't care about stats (most likely both). Melo is absolutely atrocious on defense. If you ever play competitive basketball, you will understand and appreciate the importance of defense, aka not letting your opponents scoring at will. 

Melo is just really really bad on defense. He tried but he just couldn't. When James Harden is already defensively challenged, having him and Melo sharing the court is just disastrous. And when the other 3 guys have to at least think about covering their mistakes, the whole defensive scheme is compromised. Per ESPN stats, in 294 minutes with Anthony on the floor, the Rockets have been outscored by 63 points. The Rockets have outscored other teams by seven points in the 282 minutes he’s sat on the bench. That tallies up to Houston being 11.1 points per 100 possessions better without Melo on the court (1.9 on offense and a whopping 10.1 on defense.) 

As soon as word came out Anthony is out of H-town, Rockets exploded for 76 first-half points against Indiana, followed up by a convincing victory over Denver, West's 3rd-seated team. I'm by no means saying Melo is responsible for all of Houston's early struggles, and I'm not saying Melo is a lock room cancer either (I simply don't know), what I'm saying is that he's bad at playing basketball, especially on the defensive end, at this stage of his career and in this fast-paced and switching-heavy NBA environment.

Adios, Melo!