OT - Carmelo's much maligned playoff record

[OttoinGrotto]

Putting aside that Carmelo was undefeated in the NCAA tournament, Melo is often knocked for his NBA playoff record. No sugar coating it - it's bad by win percentage. That percentage strips out all of the context though. Let's break it down.

Rookie season - Lead the Nugs to a 43-39 record, winning 26 more wins than the team had the previous season. They grabbed the 8 seed and lost in 5 games to the #1 seed Timberwolves. That's respectable. Keep in mind, that same season Lebron's Cavs failed to make the playoffs in a much weaker Eastern conference.

04-05 season - The Nugs grabbed the 7 seed and lost to the eventual champs the Spurs in 5 games. Seems respectable.

05-06 season - The Nuggets were the 3rd seed by virtue of winning the Northwest division, but in an odd circumstance did not enjoy home court advantage due to the 6 seed Clippers finishing the season with more total wins. The Nuggets lost this series. I think you can argue this is one the Nuggets could have won, so it's fair to count it as a disappointment.

06-07 season - Lost in the first round as a 6 seed to the 3 seed San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs went on to win the title. Seems respectable.

07-08 season - Despite winning 50 games the Nugs only claim the 8th seed and fall to the 1 seed LA Lakers. Who, by the way, go to the NBA finals. Seems respectable.

08-09 season - The Nugs end the season with the #2 seed, and beat the Hornets and Mavericks in playoff series, as expected. They then lose to the eventual NBA champions the LA Lakers. Seems respectable.

09-10 season - The Nugs lose to the lower seeded Jazz in the first round. This is a clear cut disappointment.

10-11 season - The Knicks lose to the Celtics as the lower seeded team. Seems expected.

10-12 season - The Knicks lose to the eventual champions the Miami Heat as the lower seeded team. Seems respectable.

So, add it all up, and you get 2 disappointments (losses to the Clippers and Jazz), 1 good run where he lost to the eventual champs, and 5 other exits that shouldn't have been surprising.

He's not the playoff loser he's made out to be, he just hasn't upset anyone and he's run into a bunch of eventual championship teams.

 

[quentin cassidy]

in 09-10, i believe denver had like 1 more win than Utah, and they were being coached by Michael Cooper, who was an interim coach while George Karl was recovering from cancer treatment. Jerry Sloan >>> Michael Cooper, and that's why Utah won that series in 6. so essentially, melo has never led his team to an upset win, and he's never lost as a favorite. he was stuck in the tougher conference for 7 years, and after he was traded to a very flawed Knicks team, it took them a year to assemble a roster that complimented his game well.

if he leads to the knicks to the conference finals a couple times in the next few years, and they play reasonably well against the Heat, no one will care about all of the first round exits early in his career. KG never made it out of the 1st round until '04, and i believe that was the only year he ever won a playoff series until he went to boston.

 

[Knicks411]

I'd think the first couple of years you can throw out. No one should kill a guy if he isn't winning playoff series at 20 or 21. Especially when he comes to a terrible team.

There have definitely been some disappointments recently, as you point out. And I don't think you can just look at the playoff result; you are definitely right the Knicks should've been expected to lose to Miami in 2012, but if they won a 2 more games in the regular season than they aren't the 7 and they draw Indy in round 1 instead of Miami. I'm obviously not putting all of that on Melo or anything; I'm just saying that ending the season as the 7 seed isn't that impressive. 2011 you can throw out, since he came to the team late in the season, though I believe the team didn't play much better, if at all better, after the deal in 2011.

So if my math is right, Melo's teams have had only HCA in the first round in 2009, 2010, and now in 2013. So you are right they shouldn't have been expected to do a whole lot in the playoffs, but I'm not sure that is much of a defense of Melo. Though I am giddy since they won today and I was there, so conference finals or bust!

Edit: I was looking at KG, it really is amazing how little help he had in Minnesota. 2004 was the year they got some players and made the West finals, but those guys were a 34 year old Sam Cassell (who was really good that year) and a 33 year old Latrell Sprewell who was ok. They beat a Kings team who had a ton of talent; Webber, Bibby, Vlade, Doug Christie, Bobby Jackson had a 19 PER that year, Peja, Brad Miller. Sacto probably had 7 of the 10 best players in that series.) And they pushed the Lakers to 6 games without Cassell for much of that series. So yeah, KG was amazing

 

[DeGrozz]

I'll play Devil's advocate here:

So, he's under-achieved a few times; met expectations a few times; but never exceeded expected results?

I think you should consider that a disappointing play-off record (so far), especially because so many times when he was an under-dog, his team didn't really challenge or put fear into his opponent. Just look at the last two years. The Knicks were good enough to compete with Boston and Miami -- they weren't a better team in either year -- but they should have won more than 1 out of 9 games. That's kinda been the story of Melo's playoff career, his teams have really folded too easily when they were the under-dogs and have gone through a lot of 4-0 and 4-1 series.

Granted, I don't think think his record stays bad for too long. The Knicks are going to be contenders for a while and when their run is up I would expect him to be well out of this conversation.

 

[Knicks411]

I'll play Devil's advocate here:

So, he's under-achieved a few times; met expectations a few times; but never exceeded expected results?

I think you should consider that a disappointing play-off record (so far), especially because so many times when he was an under-dog, his team didn't really challenge or put fear into his opponent. Just look at the last two years. The Knicks were good enough to compete with Boston and Miami -- they weren't a better team in either year -- but they should have won more than 1 out of 9 games. That's kinda been the story of Melo's playoff career, his teams have really folded too easily when they were the under-dogs and have gone through a lot of 4-0 and 4-1 series.

Granted, I don't think think his record stays bad for too long. The Knicks are going to be contenders for a while and when their run is up I would expect him to be well out of this conversation.

I'll defend Melo a bit the last 2 years. Both years by playoff time the Knicks were ravaged by injuries. The Knicks lost Game 2 of the Celtics series by 3 in 2011. http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201104190BOS.html Here's the box. Bill Walker played 32 minutes in that game. Toney Douglas played 34. Roger Mason played 17 minutes! Jared Jefferies played 25 minutes and he got the ball on a last second possession. On offense!!The Knicks had no business being close in that game. And then they went home and got smacked around, but really, you should expect that.

Last year Miami was clearly a better team, Chandler was sick and wasn't himself. Shumpert blew out his ACL in the first half of the first game. And Amare cut his hand. Their starting backcourt was Baron Davis (until he got hurt) and Landry Fields. Mike Bibby was playing serious minutes. They never had a chance; I'm surprised they won a game

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I'll play Devil's advocate here:

So, he's under-achieved a few times; met expectations a few times; but never exceeded expected results?

I think you should consider that a disappointing play-off record (so far), especially because so many times when he was an under-dog, his team didn't really challenge or put fear into his opponent. Just look at the last two years. The Knicks were good enough to compete with Boston and Miami -- they weren't a better team in either year -- but they should have won more than 1 out of 9 games. That's kinda been the story of Melo's playoff career, his teams have really folded too easily when they were the under-dogs and have gone through a lot of 4-0 and 4-1 series.

Granted, I don't think think his record stays bad for too long. The Knicks are going to be contenders for a while and when their run is up I would expect him to be well out of this conversation.

Yeah, agree with a lot of that. I'm not making the argument that the results are good. I just keep hearing how Melo always flames out, decided to look it up and realized if you put the context around it the lack of team playoff success makes a lot more sense.

Nobody talks about that though.

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[DeGrozz]

I'll defend Melo a bit the last 2 years. Both years by playoff time the Knicks were ravaged by injuries. The Knicks lost Game 2 of the Celtics series by 3 in 2011. http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201104190BOS.html Here's the box. Bill Walker played 32 minutes in that game. Toney Douglas played 34. Roger Mason played 17 minutes! Jared Jefferies played 25 minutes and he got the ball on a last second possession. On offense!!The Knicks had no business being close in that game. And then they went home and got smacked around, but really, you should expect that.

Last year Miami was clearly a better team, Chandler was sick and wasn't himself. Shumpert blew out his ACL in the first half of the first game. And Amare cut his hand. Their starting backcourt was Baron Davis (until he got hurt) and Landry Fields. Mike Bibby was playing serious minutes. They never had a chance; I'm surprised they won a game

One of the reasons the Knicks got killed after two close games in 2011 though was Melo had his worst game of the season in Game 3. He really did kill them that game they came back to NY. You can't do that at home in the Play-offs against one of your biggest rivals.

Like I said, the Knicks obviously didn't have teams that were as good as Miami and Boston the last two years, but I don't think they should have lost 8 of 9.

But again, it's more of this being a theme rather than the exception. You can say he was too young some years, injuries plagued him others, he had crap teammates, or whatever else, but if he wants to be an all-timer you can't live on excuses forever. He's been blown-out so many times, that it's getting hard to over-look. Let's face it, this is the NBA, he's not South Dakota State playing Kansas every year in the first round where blow-outs should happen. He should be winning more games, especially when he was in an arena that has one of the best home court advantages in the NBA.

I'll say it once more though. I think his luck is about to change, and I'm already looking forward to 'Bron, Bosh, and Wade moping out of the Garden!

 

[Knicks411]

One of the reasons the Knicks got killed after two close games in 2011 though was Melo had his worst game of the season in Game 3. He really did kill them that game they came back to NY. You can't do that at home in the Play-offs against one of your biggest .

I hear that, but he nearly single handedly carried them to the finish line during game 2. He had 42-17-6 with a CBA team surrounding him, basically. (He was pretty bad in Game 1, which they also nearly stole, to be fair) He definitely wasn't good in Game 3 (4-16), but they didn't have the horses to beat Boston. When you are playing Bill Walker, Toney Douglas, Landry Fields, Jared Jefferies, Roger Mason, etc serious minutes, you can't expect to beat a team with KG, Piere, Rondo, and Allen.

 

[SWC75]

A big part of a bad playoff record is having disappointing regular seasons that give you bad seeds and tough first round opponents. One of Syracuse's problems is that they've had a lot more 3 and 4 seeds than 1 or 2 seeds, (we seem to have turned that around). Melo's pro teams have faced a lot of strong teams in the early rounds. The problem is that they just haven't been that good in the regular season- until now.

 

[jordoo]

Melo is a better jump shooter now than he has ever been. He can beat good teams shooting jumpers regularly where as before he couldn't and that is what they would leave him with so he and his teams struggled. They still try to make him shoot jumpers but its more taxing to their defense because they still need the help defender close even when he is out on the perimeter. They shouldn't have won most of the series they lost but they should have been more competitive in most of them IMO.

 

[Ghost]

A big part of a bad playoff record is having disappointing regular seasons that give you bad seeds and tough first round opponents. One of Syracuse's problems is that they've had a lot more 3 and 4 seeds than 1 or 2 seeds, (we seem to have turned that around). Melo's pro teams have faced a lot of strong teams in the early rounds. The problem is that they just haven't been that good in the regular season- until now.

Eh, don't you think you have to factor in just how good the Western conference was during the first part of Melo's career? That same Nuggets team is probably pulling 2, 3, or 4 seeds in the Eastern Conference w/ ease. Instead they're not even getting home court in the West. I don't know that they were having bad regular seasons as they were caught up in a balance of power that was mostly set up in the West.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Eh, don't you think you have to factor in just how good the Western conference was during the first part of Melo's career? That same Nuggets team is probably pulling 2, 3, or 4 seeds in the Eastern Conference w/ ease. Instead they're not even getting home court in the West. I don't know that they were having bad regular seasons as they were caught up in a balance of power that was mostly set up in the West.

I agree with all of this.

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[kirbivore]

Eh, don't you think you have to factor in just how good the Western conference was during the first part of Melo's career? That same Nuggets team is probably pulling 2, 3, or 4 seeds in the Eastern Conference w/ ease. Instead they're not even getting home court in the West. I don't know that they were having bad regular seasons as they were caught up in a balance of power that was mostly set up in the West.

One of those years the Nuggets won 50 games and were the 8 seed!

 

[Eric15]

Is it fair to say that, as of right now, Melo's place amongst the all-time greats is on par with guys like Alex English, Bernard King and Dominique Wilkins? Exceptionally talented scorers who never achieved great post-season success.

 

[Knicks411]

Is it fair to say that, as of right now, Melo's place amongst the all-time greats is on par with guys like Alex English, Bernard King and Dominique Wilkins? Exceptionally talented scorers who never achieved great post-season success.

Seems about right to me, as of now. He still has time to change it though. That's what I'm hoping for

 

[orangefog]

Seems about right to me, as of now. He still has time to change it though. That's what I'm hoping for

What does he need to accomplish to change his status? Does he HAVE to win a championship to shed that image? A finals appearance or two with a good performance?

 

[Knicks411]

What does he need to accomplish to change his status? Does he HAVE to win a championship to shed that image? A finals appearance or two with a good performance?

Well, if you look at the guys originally mentioned, I don't think any of them even made a finals appearance. (I'm pretty sure Nique and King never made the conference finals, but I could be off on that. English may have with Denver)

Guys like Barkley, Ewing, Malone are considered somewhere in what, the top 30 players or so of all time? (Give or take a few spots?) No titles among them, but they all made at least one finals appearance.

 

[RobCWhatUp]

He has time to get this label taken off him. As the great Ric Flair once said, "To be the man, you gotta beat the man. Wooooooo"