Carmelo Anthony: Overrated

This season, Carmelo Anthony, Small Forward for the New York Knicks, is making over 4 times the league average. Last year, when he was traded from the Denver Nuggets to the Knicks, he signed a 3 year contract, worth $65 million. Although this placed Carmelo in the top 5 NBA players in terms of salary, many thought he was worth this money. Last year, he ranked third in the league in scoring, at 25.6 points a game. Considering how prolific of a scorer he is, and how much money every team was willing to pay him, many believe he is one the best players in the NBA.

Carmelo isn't a top player in the NBA though, and doesn't deserve to be treated as such. This year, the Knicks are 9-12 with Carmelo playing. In the last 8 games, since Carmelo has been injured, the Knicks are 7-1. This is because scoring, as a measure of evaluation, is tremendously overvalued in the NBA. The ability to score points, no matter how it is done, is the central figure when evaluating a player. This doesn't correlate to team success, however. The biggest mistake in overstating scoring, is that most people accept points-per-game at face value. That is, they don't look at how efficiently those points were scored. David Berri, points out that Anthony's shooting percentage is below the average small forward for 2 and 3 point shots. He also attempted an extra 11 shots over 48 minutes compared to the average small forward.

These stats are important, because scoring is only important if done efficiently. Carmelo scores a lot of points, because he shoots a lot. He also misses a lot though. In fact, he misses more than he makes a shot. This shows the team is worse off when Carmelo goes off for a high point total, but misses a ton of shots. If Carmelo didn't take a shot, it would leave a chance for someone else on the team to take that shot, someone who might take a higher percentage shot, leaving the team better off. On top of that, Carmelo doesn't contribute in many other ways. He rebounds less than the average small forward, and turns it over more. There's a reason the Knicks have been doing better since Carmelo left. That reason is that he doesn't help very much. He's been replaced in town by newcomer Jeremy Lin, who is scoring at a much more efficient rate, while also recording high assist totals. Hopefully the league learns from Carmelo and moves away from only evaluating scoring in the future.