Quote:
Originally Posted by Male29Dan
Thiggy... I think the overrated piece you are hitting Amare with has been fairly proven wrong (i.e. he was only good because of Nash). Dude has been pretty stellar this year. His shooting percentage is down, sure, but he is still shooting over 50%. His scoring, assists, blocks, and steals are also up.
As far as Carmello being overrated due to him not being able to be the best player on a championship team, well, isn't that subjective for a lot of the past championship winners? What I mean is, aside from maybe the Heat team that beat us and the Lakers recently where there is just a TON of overall talent but really only one true superstar, haven't all championship teams pretty much had two or three guys that are considered fairly equal in overall talent?
KG/Allen/Pierce
Duncan/Parker/Manu
Shaq/Kobe
Billups/Hamilton/Prince/Wallace
In my opinion, you can really only win a championship if you have an absolute freakishly awesome stud player (Kobe with a lot of help, Jordan with another top-50 player in Pippen, Wade + refs, etc) or with a number of them. Sorry, but an older Billups, oft-injured Nene, Terry-like streak shooter Smith, etc is not a cast like these past championship teams have had - yet he has still made them very good. It is really the KG factor.
NOW - if you put Carmelo on a team with Dirk, a guy that many would call an equal to him, you have started to build something special like these other teams have accomplished. Keep enough talent around them and you have an absolute tremendous chance at winning a championship.
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Amare is a fantastic offensive player, no matter who he's playing with. But he's a horrendous defender, and has historically been a poor rebounder. Amare is great, and better than Carmelo, imo, but he's not an MVP candidate (which is why I think he's generally overrated) and is getting way more hype than he deserves because of where he's playing.
As to the rest of the point, I don't think Dirk and Carmelo are equal players, which is part of my point. Obviously who can and can't carry a team to a title given the right circumstances is very subjective and hard to pin down. I'm simply of the opinion that given the typical breakdown of talent on an NBA contender, if Carmelo is your best player than you better have two other players that are very, VERY close to him and compliment him perfectly.
Carmelo has, in general, been lumped into the same class as Lebron, Kobe, Wade, Dirk, Dwight Howard etc. and I don't think he belongs there. He's on the next tier.
And thus, overrated.....in my opinion.
Having said that, I'll gladly take him here given the right circumstances. But it's not happening. He's destined for NY and I look forward to their failure.