Carmelo "Che Guevara" Anthony?
Carmelo Anthony refuses to come out of the March 1, 2009 Nuggets at Pacers game. Has Carmelo Anthony suddenly become a revolutionary? Will he help us get an economy back? It’s very doubtful. This was a very interesting event, but nothing all that surprising if you know the background.
Carmelo Anthony, apparently realizing he is in a George Karl box as described extensively in the Quest report titled "Carmelo Anthony is now Downsized Thanks to George Karl", and getting very tired of and frustrated with that box, decides to become a little bit of a rebel.
During the first three quarters, it’s Melo in the box as usual: he gets fewer shots than he used to get, and he makes a lower percentage of them. It’s business as usual at the George Karl Center for Downsized but Well Rounded Basketball Stars. Then late in the 3rd, he makes two jump shots. He helps the Nuggets take a small but important lead.
He flashes back to the past, which nowadays seems kind of magical. He flashes back to high school games in Towson, Maryland and in Virginia for Oak Hill Academy. He flashes back to college games for Syracuse University and to games in his early Denver years. He flashes back to times when, for all practical purposes, he won games for his team, and to quarters when he could not miss a shot. He flashes back to Coach Jim Boeheim, who was a positive Coach, one who usually focuses on good things. Positive is good, it might even win you a NCAA College basketball Championship. Coaching that often focuses on negative things, such as criticism of styles and personalities, leads to a lot of first round exits in the NBA playoffs.
Those were the good old days. The days before Denver could not win a playoff series for half a decade, the days before George Karl became everyone’s parole officer, the days before the economy went to hell in a hand basket. He wants those times again, he wants those wins again, he wants out of the box. So suddenly, Melo changes his “I will do whatever Mr. Karl tells me and just be a good little kid with a good personality, while I make millions” policy. With a minute and change left in the 3rd, he refuses to come out of the game.
He refuses to come out for: Linas Kleiza! Yes, Linas Kleiza! Kleiza is in a Karl box of his own, is defensively porous, and is offensively inconsistent. The Nuggets are winning by 6 points, and a player such as Linas Kleiza is one of the worst players to insert into a game you are winning by a small margin, but have not yet closed down. Especially since, in case no one has noticed, Kleiza’s relatively inept defending has stood out like a sore thumb on this year’s Nuggets, who have been swarming like locusts on defense. It’s a good thing for him that his personality is solid, or else Kleiza would not be playing at all by now. Not to mention that Kleiza, who was denied a contract extension going in to this season, is almost certain to be going to another team this summer..
A full scale Melo rebellion would be very dangerous to the Nuggets, because they already have one black sheep on their squad, J.R. Smith, and they most likely consider one black sheep to be enough. I, on the other hand, recently pointed out that normal, quality basketball franchises make sure they don’t have any black sheep on their teams at all. On big time teams, a player such as J.R. Smith is either converted into being a normal sheep or, if he actually really and truly is a bad sheep, is sent packing to another team.
But I need to get back to the Carmelo Anthony has a flashback and momentarily becomes a rebel story.
So where were we? Oh yes, he decides to refuse to come out of the game late in the 3rd quarter,
Unfortunately, what Melo forgot, or doesn’t know in the first place, is that as a major basketball star, he could have largely ignored George Karl when Karl told him to rebound and pass more, and to not worry so much about scoring. Instead of that, he could have tried to bring the good old days into the present and the future. Make some minor adjustments, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Why would you not want the good old days to come into the future? It’s not as if the Nuggets are stuck on the LOST island, unable to control what time they are living in. Or actually, maybe that is their problem, metaphorically speaking of course.
Had he remained a “power scorer,” Carmelo could have escaped any punishment as long as he remained secretive (or on the down low, to the hip hop crowd) and respectful about not complying. But having decided to obey like a little kid, he now decides to stick up for himself as a man, and to stick up for the good old days, by refusing to come out of a game.
Wrong move! Or maybe, right move, but wrong time; you might get away with it in the playoffs if you are Carmelo Anthony. But in Mr. Karl’s precious regular season, refusing to come out of a game is a major violation of the ethics, morality, and honor of basketball. Plus, refusing to come out is expressly forbidden by the George Karl Style Manual. The Personality Judge, George Karl, is definitely going to throw the book at you for that, and then Colorado fans will be twittering about how bad your personality appears to be.
So Melo is suspended for the Pistons game, loses a game’s pay (and don’t think that owner Stan Kroenke won’t be happy about that in this economy) and gets treated like a little kid all the more after getting very tired with being treated like a little kid.
Naturally, the Nuggets lost the Pacers game. And for good measure they lost the game that Melo was suspended for, the Pistons game. This story would not have been as much fun had the Nuggets won either. More importantly, some of my points might be wrong had the Nuggets won. In the Pacers loss, Melo played 8 of 12 minutes in the fourth, still in the box of course. You can not quickly break out of a basketball box you have allowed yourself to go into and that you have been in awhile. Also contributing to that Nuggets’ loss was that Karl had to make sure that obscure players with sparse crunch time track records, such as Linas Kleiza and Chris Andersen, played almost the whole 4th quarter. And perennial Karl favorite Anthony Carter had to be given plenty of crunch time burn also.
Try to think of this the way Mr. Karl does: Carmelo Anthony is just one of the bunch. He's too young to be "special." Who needs Carmelo Anthony as a power scorer in crunch time? What do you think this is, a full scale pro basketball franchise?
Carmelo, how can you be so naïve? I wonder all the time, is Carmelo Anthony really as naïve as he sometimes seems to be, or does he actually fake it for ulterior motives? If it were me refusing to come out, I would have a sneaky ulterior motive up my sleeve. With Melo, I don't know for sure, but I doubt he had any ulterior motive.
Anthony needs to think long and hard before he makes any major changes in the way he plays basketball that are requested or demanded by George Karl. Karl apparently thinks that the NCAA is child's play, so he doesn't respect Anthony's NCAA Championship the way many other coaches do. Has he ever said one word about trying to transfer what Anthony did in the NCAA to the NBA? Not one that I know of. Karl is an establishment type coach, and all such coaches look at the NCAA as being just about meaningless compared with the glorious, mighty NBA.
But the NCAA does matter, and Anthony winning it was truly a great and notable accomplishment.
Many statements Karl has made over the years about Anthony not being a complete player, and about how he has to be changed, or reformed, show that he does not think that Anthony is all that great and that he doubts that Anthony will ever be all that great. He has repeatedly spoken about how Anthony is not a "well rounded player".
Moreover, Karl wanted to trade Carmelo Anthony in the early summer 2008 time period, when teams such as the Nets and the Pistons came calling. Were Karl in charge of trades, Anthony would not even be playing for Karl and the Nuggets right now!
Executives with other teams say Denver's management group is divided over Anthony's place with the team. They say Karl wants to trade him, but that general manager Mark Warkentien and club advisor Bret Bearup are against the move.
Source Here
Carmelo Anthony: your instructions are to stop making changes for a Coach who has a lower opinion of you than many other coaches do, and who would trade you if he had the power. Reverse the changes you have made to the extent possible.
The bottom line is that Karl is creating a self fulfulling prophesy with respect to Carmelo Anthony: he is having him make changes under the false premises that Anthony is not qualified to be a power scorer, and is never going to be great unless big changes are made, and probably will never be great even if big changes are made. But the truth is essentially the reverse: if Anthony makes the changes, which he has been doing, it will no longer be possible for him to be considered a great player.
When all is said and done this is not at all complicated: the only way Carmelo Anthony will ever be considered an historically great player is if he is a power scorer. This is what he most wants to do and what he has been capable of doing in the past.
Seriously Carmelo Anthony, you need to start acting like many successful (and relatively unsuccessful but rebel) men do, which means you ignore instructions from on high that you are sure are bad. Stop passing and rebounding so much and start making more moves that will get you the ball more. And start taking and making more jumpers, layups, and dunks. Nene and Chauncey are fine players, but Nene is basically a playoff rookie, and Chauncey can not run the offense and be a power scorer at the same time.
To be crystal clear, without Carmelo Anthony as a power scorer in the playoffs, the Nuggets are most likely going to lose their series, even if they have home court advantage, which, however, seems increasingly unlikely.
Oh well, for every Carmelo Anthony in this World there is an Anthony McDyess, someone for whom being treated like a little kid is out of the question. McDyess wanted no part of Denver and it’s obsessions with personalities, styles, and treating players like they are little kids. He refused to play for the Nuggets after he was traded along with Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson this season.
Recently, John Hollinger at ESPN claimed that McDyess must be upset that he refused to play for the Denver Nuggets, seeing how the Nuggets have been so wonderful and how the Pistons have stunk. Oh ye of little faith.
Mr. Hollinger had better check himself on that particular claim. Anthony McDyess, who has been a major leader for the Pistons this season, is no one’s fool. The Nuggets are skidding now, while the Pistons have just defeated the Magic, the Celtics, and the Nuggets themselves in the last three games. The Pistons sweep the Nuggets this season 2 games to none. The Pistons know very, very well that it is not over until the fat lady sings, and she doesn’t sing until May or even June for playoff teams.
The Pistons can all of a sudden taste emerging from the dozens of rotation experiments that made everyone’s head spin. The Pistons can now taste a late season surge and a sweet redemption. They can taste winning a playoff series while Chauncey Billups and the Nuggets lose yet another series. The Pistons have only begun to fight, while the Nuggets’ act is becoming very old very fast.
But what about Carmelo Anthony? Has he only begun to fight, or will he go back to being a nice little kid again?
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