What you guys think of him? He's been playing like a first rounder the first two games. People said he looks lighter and his J has improved over the off season. Where you think this guy is headed?

Top 20! Just because I own him in 1 league. but the other 2 leagues I'm in he was drafted in the 2nd round so I won't be upset.

I think he will finish top 12, and I do not have him in any leagues.

top 12 is tough for someone that doesn't get big D stats or 3's in large numbers but gets high TO

Yes he's a first rounder in leagues that only count FG%/ Points/ rebounds

Wont play like this all season. Nene has been slow out of the gate and JR smith has been out.......I expect last years numbers by seasons end

He was 7th pick in the 3rd round of my 14 team h2h (pick #35). I can't believe he dropped that low. His average pick is mid 20s according to Yahoo.
I kind of regret taking David Lee before him.

He won't score 40 a night, but 28 isn't out of the question. Leading the league in scoring, and shooting a good %

top 20ish isn't that crazy

He will be a beast this year. Full season with Chauncy...

I agree. Top 20 isn't out of the question as long as he contends for the scoring title.

Nene has been awful and no JR Smith. He will lose shots when they are at full strength.

either way I'm sure he will out produce his draft spot for me

He was just barely inside the top 50 last year in 8-cat per-game value, so to predict top 20 this year means he has to add something significant to his game other than a few points. But in leagues that count FGM, etc., he will be 2nd rounder material.

Not really, it just asking his FG% to go back up to where it was a year or 2 ago. When he last ranked in the top 20ish range.

It's hard to say where he's headed, I think he'll put up career years in his %'s which should be able to get him to 2nd round value. Obviously he wont continue producing his current line, but he definitely has the potential this year to improve in 3pt/stl/blk/ast/to, so it's possible he could get you 1st round value but it's far from a sure thing.

He really does look dangerous this year though, it would be nice to see him take it to the next level.

The anouncers sure were talking him up last night talking about the he spent with Lebron and how he wants to be a more well-rounded player this year. Last year in my leagues scoring format he was a top 20 player so I'm hoping for atleast that production this year.

I don't know where Melo will end up, but I am enjoying his production now!
I picked him 3rd in the 3rd round in a 14-teamer and am ecstatic that he was my third pick! He definitely complements Wade + Devin (my first two picks).

Hearing reports of Melo losing 30 pounds in the off-season is evidence that he is willing to put in the time to take it to the next level. Let's not forget that he was able to put up huge numbers earlier in his career. 26.5ppg on 48.1% his 3rd year and 28.9ppg on 47.6% his 4th year and 25.7ppg on 49.2% his 5th year. He has the capability of shooting it lights out.

The boy can score. But the dedication to lose 30 pounds shows he's willing to take it to another level. The past two games he looked faster and stronger. He also looked to be more aggressive.

Granted JR smith is not there, but JR smith will probably help Melo out by spacing the defenders out.

When all is said and done, I can easily see Melo finishing in the top-15. Not sure if he'll crack 1st round value, but he'll come close.

Still, taking him in the 3rd round of a 14-teamer makes me feel like I got a great deal!

I was really high on him coming into this year. He was taken 17th in my league (8-cat) so it was too early for my tastes.

Love him in H2H, but the TOs will get ya. He played vs two teams w/ weak defensive options at SF.

It's been 2 games. He'll come back to earth shortly - still be good, but back to earth.

Shhh, Melo = beast. Will score 33 ppg and be the new KMart for FT% boosting.

Sell high!!

Makes it hard when everyone is shooting him down, and the one league I own him in has 12 members that read this forum!!!!

I've been saying all along. Melo is going to have a career year and have top 20 value. He could even scratch the top 10 if he can keep his fg% up and a few of the other elite guys meet "misfortune"

No reason to sell IMHO.

Not saying he cant, but what indication is there that his FG will trend up to 49% again and not down closer to his first/second year averages? He abused a slow Kirilenko and a fresh fish in Webster.

I think hes going to a monster in terms of scoring and will get you around 7 boards a game. My worry is his assists and defensive catagories so I could definitely see him giving you late second round value at the best, but will probably prove to be a solid third rounder.

Carmelo Anthony is exactly the type of player I think gets overrated in 9-cat roto, and who I hate drafting: guys who score a lot, turn the ball over, and don't contribute significantly to the "difficult" categories.

That said, I drafted him this year. I crunched the numbers on the projections from ESPN (26.5/7.7/3.5, 1.1 treys, 1.2 spg, 0.4 bpg, 3.2 TO, 47.0% FG, 79.2% FT), and none of their stats seemed out of line, and he ended up producing second-round value. That ranked out such that I would much rather have him than most of the wings that were drafted ahead of him or near him at the 2nd/3rd round turn (Caron Butler, Andre Iguodala, Vince Carter, Paul Pierce, Jason Richardson), while guys like Gerald Wallace and Kevin Martin who were comparable in terms of per-game value posed serious injury risk, so I traded my 3rd pick down to and still managed to land him.

In terms of "basketball" (rather than numbers), there is no question that he'll outproduce his stats from last year. He suffered from a broken hand which affected his FG% tremendously. He also had no time to rest the previous offseason with his training for Team USA (which usually has a negative effect on the players the following regular season--see Jordan and Pippen in 1993). He was still adjusting to Chauncey Billups. So I see the baseline as his stats from two years ago, which is also second-round value.

With extra time to rest and to recover his broken hand, with extra time to adjust to Billups, who should help his overall game (as opposed to Iverson), with improved range (which he demonstrated last year even with a bad hand), not to mention the natural improvement of his overall game and purported motivation to become a more complete player (take it for what it's worth if you're skeptical), I'm very optimistic about his prospects for this season.

@sweatdog, why in the world do you think he would regress to 1st and 2nd year stats? Do you think his game has regressed so much? Every indication before the season last year had him shooting around the 48-49% range (based on the three seasons), and with all the factors I named above, I'm not worried about him shooting sub-45% for the season.

28 ppg-7 boards-2.5 dimes-.9 steals the occasional three and solid percentages.

Great? yes, but his lack of dimes, threes, and defensive stats makes him a much better real player than fantasy.

My point was why would his FG% go up and not down, when all else is equal?

This is always his knock... And thus he goes commonly in the third round. For me he was too difficult to pass up in the third round, b/c he does score a lot. He has the potential to be in the top-5 if not top-3 in scoring. For the "defensive stats" you can always go for the AK-47's, the TT's, the Battier's, etc, who do give you great all around numbers but don't exactly score.

Also, I believe his value does shoot up a few spots in H2H, which is my format of choice. So for me, Melo is a no brainer in the third round. His major scoring with great %'s helps directly 3 cats: FG%, FT%, PTS.

In the league that I have him in I have Wade/Harris/Melo as my first three picks, and I should have no problem competing with the best of them in the PTS cat.

And we all know players that score a ton of points are easy to trade... when the time is right, I can always sell MELO high for someone who does give me more all around value. It's extremely hard to ignore 30ppg! Ok, realistically he has a shot at 28ppg, but still, even that's hard to ignore.

Straight Outta CPT's point was that all things are NOT equal.

(1) Fully recovered from BROKEN HAND
(2) Not tired from Olympic Off-season
(3) Full training camp with one of the best passers in the league in Mr. Big Shot

I think his scoring goes down to the 23-25PPG mark when Smith returns from his suspension, weather anybody likes it or not Smith takes lots of shots in a small amount of time which will take away from some of Carmelo's mid-post isolation plays.

I'd expect Anthony to continue shouldering the scoring load while Smith is out and then see his FGA around 17-18 when J.R. returns from suspension. However, you have to look at the fact that he had an anomaly of FG% in terms of points in the paint last season and it looks like it is starting to normalize and that should help raise his FG% back up to +47%. If he can continue nailing the 3PT, hitting FT's at +80%, and keep the REB/AST up around 6/4 he should easily finish with 1st-2nd round value.

Carmelo's been the same story his whole career, he won't join the fantasy elite jus based on his scoring/percentages - he needs the other parts of his statlines to stay consistent.

1. if you look at Melo's percentages before and after Billups, he shoots much better with Billups. (big surprise)
2. Nomidi is correct, he needs to add a little bit to his steals or threes to really get up there to the top 10, but ....
- If JR can demand a double team, watch out. Big if, but Melo could really put up some numbers at that point. Like I said, big if.
- People don't give Melo enough credit for consistency. In H2H in particular, consistency means a ton. You know what you are going to get with him. Around pick 12 or so, you start to get a lot of question marks, age, injury, role etc. There are no question marks with Melo. I think that bumps him up.

Obviously, if he can't fine tune things a bit, he will continue to put up mid 20 numbers or so (depending on league set up), but as guys like Al Jefferson, Pau, Nash even Dirk start to fall, it seems like his predictability might push him into that category.

20 points at the half... He's at it again.

Gonna get 40 again tonight with great %s and no turnovers. WOW. I'm super happy I traded him for Calderon.

Scoring champ contender for sure.

This dude is killing it. Wish I had drafted him

Melo looks like a different player this year.

He's taking better shots, finding the open man, and attacking the boards. I know its only been 3 games so far, but I like what Im seeing out of him.

He's been great. He played great the second half of last season and is showing why he is an elite player this season once again. I definitely think he could be a top 20 player and am sad I didn't have the cajones to pick him in the roto invitational earlier even though I contemplated it..

You traded Melo for Calderon?? What the bloody were you thinking!

I'm all for the Melo hype... btw if any of you guys in the roto league want him, attach your first round pick in a offer for him.

Get real

Because players with world class talent that actually put in time improving there game and fitness in the off season have a tendency to improve there numbers. Natural Talent + Hard Work= Success… it’s that simple the only thing stopping Melo is injury just like any other elite NBA player all this sell high talk is nonsense.

After a hot start Melo has really cooled of the last 3 games, as his shot just wont fall.


The Nuggets were handed a 6 game Eastern road trip to start the season which I think is over now.


Can we take bets on when Carmelo will drop his first 50 point game?

You can definitely attribute part of this slump to this eastern road trip(still one more game Wednesday in Milwaukee). The Atlanta game was the Nuggets' 4th in 5 nights, which are notoriously pretty bad for every team. After this next game though, the Nuggets will have 8 of 10 at home, which should definitely help Melo get back into form.

As far as a 50 point game? Minnesota looks pretty good on the 29th, as he did put up 33 in one quarter against them last year. He also has games against Toronto, New Jersey, and New York in the next couple weeks. Maybe not 50, but I'd bet he has at least a couple more 40 pointers before the end of the month.

Everybody drops career highs against Toronto. If I had to put money on one of those games, I'd pick the game against the non-exisitant Raptors perimeter defense.

got him in the third round, used him to win the first two weeks then hawked him and bargani to a guy starving for point in exchange for Stevey Nash and Josh Smith

Melo hasnt even warmed up yet.

Youd have to be nuts to trade him away.

I can see him averaging 34ppg for the entire season.

Zero chance, with J.R. Smith back he won't be seeing as many isolation opportunities. Carmelo is back to a 25-27PPG scorer by end of the season, which is what needs to happen if the Nuggets want to be successful. He just needs to continue to be efficient with the chances he gets, get his FG% back to the high 40's and FT% up in the 80's.

Points are hardly everything my friend.