[IndianaBasketballParticipant]

Just read an article on ESPN about Carmelo Anthony feeling “disrespected” being ranked 15th in Slam Magazine’s top 50 rankings.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/17786978/new-york-knicks-star-carmelo-anthony-says-slam-magazine-nba-rankings-disrespectful

http://www.slamonline.com/nba/slam-top-50/

Do you think Anthony is a top 15 player? Who are your top 15 players in the NBA?

[Dazzling Dunks and Basketball BloopersParticipant]

 I’m gonna say no. Lebron, kd, curry, Westbrook, cp3, kawhi, harden, ad, pg 13, Blake, cousins, wall, green, butler, klay, Aldridge, lillard, kyrie all go before Anthony imo. Not in order btw. 

Anthony is in that range with guys like Gordon Hayward, kyle Lowry, derozan, Marc gasol, Paul Millsap right now. He is basically a superstar in name only at this stage of his career. I think 15 was actually very generous. I’d put him more in the 20-25 range.

 

[Hype Machine]

 Im ready to add D’Angelo Russell to that list.

[Magic JordanParticipant]

 Welcome aboard!!  I knew you’d come around.

How could you not root for Aussie Sensation Ben Simmons former high school team mate?

He’s Aussie by connection!

 

 

[OhCanada-Participant]

 Ive gotta disagree. Griffin,  Butler,  Aldridge,  Thompson,  Green and Irving are not better players than Anthony.

An arguement could be made for each of them but in most situations I would rather have Melo.

Cousins professional career has been a circus although I do think hes a better player he is nowhere near the leader.

 I also think Anthony hasnt been disrespected and 15th is a perfectly reasonable spot to rank him although I havent seen the list yet. He does get disrespected in this forum though.  Him and Harden get tons of disrespect. 

 

 

 

 

[xJumpManxParticipant]

I would take Irving Over Curry in a 7 game series every time. He outplayed him in the one game before he got hurt in 2015 series and he definitly outplayed him in this years series. 

[SeattleSuperChronicsParticipant]

 Top 10 no..top 15 yes

[Magic JordanParticipant]

 Every 4 years for a brief stretch in the summer yes.  

During the NBA season, no.  And he hasn’t been for a few years.

 

[JordoParticipant]

Melo is in between 5-8 at his own position if he’s healthy, so top 15 overall in the entire league to me is generous. LBJ, KD, Kahwi, PG, then you can argue where melo falls. Jimmy Butler is likely playing mostly SF this year, so he drops to 6 for me. And it comes down to defense, Melo is better offensively but those other guys work their as off defensively to get their team in positions to win games.

[holefillers1Participant]

 Not just regular season games but playoff wins. That is something Melo could never do. Not even with Iverson.  He is a great scorer, beyond that…he won a title at Syracuse.

[ThenilonatorParticipant]

 Did anyone see the king douche Stephen a smith absolutely hammer Max Kellerman for saying he didn’t think melo was top 10? Kellerman then when on to name 12 players better and make smith look like the grub he is! He probably is top 10 – 15 but he is certainly no top 10 lock anymore 

[LA12Participant]

First Take is getting out of hand. Every episode is Max Kellerman destroying Stephen A Smith and Stephen A just yelling at him cause he knows he lost.

[rongataParticipant]

When I initially read it I thought " of course he is ranked 15, he’s lucky to be ranked that high ". Then I thought about who’s above him and thought maybe he has a point. Hear me out before you scold me please, We have the obvious list of superstars ( lebron, steph, durant, kawhi, russ and paul) but after this group we start talking about stars and I feel this is where melo sits with this group. Guys like anthony davis, harden, cousins, kyrie, lillard, etc and I had to ask myself, am I really ready to say harden is better than melo? am I really ready to say cousins is better than melo? They are young and we are looking at it from a standpoint of they are just as good as melo now and they could get better and melo has reached his peak with no rings, mvps, etc. But we cannot disregard the fact that these guys could be at their peak also, case in point anthony davis, most people expected him to take this huge leap and I personally just havent seen it, same with paul george, I think hes gotten better defensively but hes just as good as he was before, someone who has gotten better is steph, he was a star at one point, he kept getting better and better and played himself into superstar territory. For me after looking at the top players, I think there is a legit argument for him to be a top ten player. Guys if you disagree, could you please reply so I can see your point of view.

[piratejpParticipant]

I mostly agree with you. I would add Lilliard and Harden to that list that is clearly above him, but then he’s in the scrum for #9. I’d def. take him over Cousins & Kyrie.

I think at this moment in time I’d put Anthony Davis at #9, Klay at #10, Melo at #11, Kyrie at #12, Draymond at #13, Griffin at #14 and Cousins at #15

So 15 isn’t really direspectful; certainly within a reasonable range of difference of opinion. This said, he’s the one guy on the list not moving forward or standing still at least, and there are several youngsters who are going to be crashing this list withing a year or three.

Nice post & thread!

 

 

[rongataParticipant]

 Thanks pirate I appreciate you responding, I would even go a bit further and say we put these guys in front of melo because he doesn’t win, but who honestly can see Paul George winning in Indiana? Or harden winning in Houston? Or lilliard or cousins for that matter.

[DolanCareParticipant]

 It’s difficult to gauge Melo’s ability. He’s showed solid defensive ability in the past once he applies himself, same with rebounding, but usually he slacks in those departments. Now that he’s on the wrong side of 30, its hard to tell if his skills are declining or he’s just not going 100%. 

 

[TarHeelRavenParticipant]

Melo has no reason to feel disrespected.  I think 15 is generous for him.  He doesn’t win.  He has been an elite offesnive talent his entire career but has never made any of his teammates better and I believe he has been out of the first round of the playoffs once in his entire career.  He’s an elite international player with 3 gold medals, but in terms of the NBA, he’s not.  

[markfitz14Participant]

I think Melo sees the fact that he has been all around the league and has more experience then them other cats. The other 5 or 6 guys around 9-15 just don’t demand the same respect. So he figures until those guys turn it up in the playoffs or some other way for at least 2 years they are behind him. 

But if Melo thinks he is top 10 then he should easily lead NYK to the playoffs as a 6 seed. We will see about that. Melo better tear it up this year then, put up or shut up. Especially now that he has a top talent Porzing with him.

 

[binetParticipant]

 Many of us are overestimating Melo. Yes, some of the 15 best players in the league do not seem that great, but Carmelo is aging and not delivering. And it’s even unclear who is the franchise player in NY or was last year. To be honest it already felt like Porzingis’s team last year on multiple nights, and the guy was a rookie that did not win Rookie of the year. It’s very likely Porzingis will take over as the team franchise player and go-to-guy as soon as this year, and if not, it’s pprobably not going to be Carmelo.

15 is incredibly generous for him. Yes, most of us would take him over Cousins, but Cousins is probably even more overrated as he should never be rated higher than Aldridge, DeAndre, Drummond, or even Whiteside or Gobert (yes, Gobert is a better center than Cousins, he is the anchor of a decent team and even if he does not show as much offensively he clearly makes his team win, what Cousins does not.). Carmelo should probably be ranked in the same range as D-Wade. He did not have better year than Wade last year, and he clearly also is in the wrong side of his career while still being a terrific player. If D-Wade is 30th, then Carmelo should be in the 25-35 range as well (that’s probably also where I would rank him honestly). 

 

[Jaymes BrownParticipant]

 Porzingis is better now. Porzingis will be on these top 15 or top 20 lists next year.

[Magic JordanParticipant]

 Come on man, not saying he doesn’t have the potential to.. But do you really think with playing with the anchors of D Rose and Melo that he will get that kind of opportunity?  Those guys are too selfish for that.

[mowestenParticipant]

 The argument for Carmelo’s greatness has always been his scoring ability. The other aspects of his game, defense, intangibles, willingness and ability to play within a team concept, ability to impact winning, have always been average at best, mediocre at worst.

Just my opinion, but since he is mostly judged on his scoring ability, he was 13th in the league last year in scoring, and wasn’t very efficient at that .. so the highest he could possibly be ranked is 13th, and even that would only be possible if you thought all the other aspects of basketball were irrelevant to a players greatness.

[OaktownWarriorsParticipant]

 No…top 25, sure.  Get the Knicks into the playoffs first!

[Meditated StatesParticipant]

 Is better than him now. No doubt.

[CynthiaParticipant]

Even at 32 Melo is still one of the best and most versatile scorers I’ve seen in a long time, so if we are talking strictly offense I’d go as far as saying he’s probably close to top 5 in the league. However if we are going by overall, with defense and other attributes also being counted then it’s really hard to say he’s top 15 at this point in his career. I would say 15 was pretty generous, he’s coming off an Olympic high right now where he always plays incredibly well.

[HitsterParticipant]

 Melo’s strength in the NBA has always been his scoring so just judging him on his recent contributions he was 13th in PPG last season and looking at the guys above him, I cannot honestly say Melo is a better current NBA player than any of them. 

Leonard, Butler and CP3 are 3 prominent names below him on the scoring list. I’d certainly put Leonard as a top 10 NBA player contender so I think that around 15th was a fair rating for Melo.

 

[SubZeroParticipant]

Lebron, KD, Curry, Westbrook, Davis, Leonard, George, Harden, Cousins, Paul, Griffin, Jimmy, and maybe Klay are the only ones I’d definitely put over him. I’d consider Wall, Kyrie, Aldridge, Draymond, and (soon) Towns to be over him too, but I think he’s definitely got an argument for top 15

[Andv1 WaitingParticipant]

 Skill wise Mello is still possibly top 10-15 as he can get it done when healthy..

But the problem with Mello is: His team hasn’t won much over the last few seasons and he can’t seem to stay on the court for most of a season. Playing essentially an exhibition game Allstar game then getting shut down post allstar weekend is just not good enough if you want to be considered top 15(which I think he has done in back to back years).

If Mello gets the Knicks back into the Post season,Stays on the court for at least 80% of the season and puts up the stats of a top 15 player then he can talk/complain. Otherwise Mello needs to face the fact he is now declining/dropping out of the NBA elite…

 

  

 

[BeastMode716Participant]

 I would pick to start a Franchise he’s obviously not b/c he is older.

But anyone who thinks Porzingus is ahead of Melo did Not watch Any Knicks games last year. 

Look up one of the 10 games Melo missed – the Memphis game for example. Lopez only played 12 minutes so they had Porzingus guard Gasol & Gasol Cooked him for 1 pt shy of a career high – 37 points 

& at the Offensive end it was Worse – 58 y/o Zach Randolph got in Porzingus’ shirt & the Unicorn could not even get the ball. After the game an incredulous Porzingus – used to being Wide Open b/c Melo draws Double teams actually Complained that Randolph was guarding him too hard. I was waiting for Porzingus to say it wasn’t fair & Memphis should not have been allowed to play man to man defense.

I like Porzingus as much as the next guy but he is Very lucky he was Drafted by a team w/ an established Star like Melo

 

 

 

 

 

[Jaymes BrownParticipant]

 Porzingis was a rookie power forward when he got toasted by Gasol.

And you can’t pretend Porzingis is still a rookie when talking about how good he is now.

 

 

 

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