All Signs Point To Carmelo Anthony Coming Off The Bench in Houston
So today is the day Melo finally signs his contract to join the Houston Rockets in their effort to make up for last year’s disappointing ending and reach the NBA Finals for the first time since the mid 90s. While this certainly isn’t ground breaking news, we’ve all know Melo was going to end up in Houston for what seems like months, there was one little tidbit that stood out to me from Woj’s story today
The Rockets are expected to bring Anthony off the bench this season, signing him after winning an NBA-best 65 regular season games and pushing the Golden State Warriors to a seven-game series in the Western Conference finals.
Yes, the Carmelo Anthony that gave us this gem of a press conference
has accepted his new reality and is going to come off the bench for his new team. It’s interesting considering the fact that the Rockets lost their starting SF from last year, but it appears they’re deciding to ride with PJ Tucker instead of Melo for that starting wing spot. Now I totally understand why at that point in this career Melo laughed at the thought of him coming off the bench. Did you know he’s the active leader in games played while never coming off the bench? He has started every single one of his 1,054 NBA appearances. That’s pretty wild. To not ever have just 1 game where you come off the bench to ease back into things after an injury or anything like that is impressive as hell. But like we saw in this OKC tenure, he’s clearly closer to being washed up than not. Now that he’s joining a HOU team that already has their shit together, he’s there to be a role player, not the main focus.
If you look at their current second unit, you’ll see guys like Gerald Green, Eric Gordon, and like Nene. That unit needs more scoring help which is why Melo makes more sense coming off the bench. The Rockets starters are going to need all their best defenders in my opinion, and while he may not be the same offensive player as Melo, PJ Tucker has shown HOU enough to warrant the nod. People may forget what a monster he was during their playoff run last year. While he may have been skeptical of the decision initially, I’m pretty sure Morey and D’Antoni met with Melo in Vegas and told him he can have like 15-18 FGA a night if he comes off the bench and seeing as how D’Antoni will only take you out if you STOP shooting, it’s probably for the best. That unit isn’t going to be required to play much defense, so the Rockets will be doing their best to hide what is clearly Melo’s one big glaring weakness.
And look just because he’s not starting doesn’t mean he won’t finish games. If he is feeling it one night and things are going well, I’m sure they’ll ride him until he gasses out. It also wouldn’t shock me if at some point in the year we see Melo maybe play a little small ball four and be the starting power forward given a particular matchup. It’s not as if Ryan Anderson is all that good defensively, so I wouldn’t completely rule out that possibility either.
It’ll be a little crazy to see Melo on the Rockets, and even crazier to see him actually come off the bench for the first time in his career. I think we’re all anxiously waiting to see what the Rockets look like after the summer they just had, because the pressure is on them to repeat their 65 win season from a year ago. With all the personalities on this team, the smallest thing could ultimately make them crack. It’s going to be fantastic theatre.