It’s almost been a year since Carmelo Anthony played an NBA game with his last team being the Rockets. He didn’t last two weeks in the regular season with Houston as he was released. Since then, no teams have shown interest despite Melo obviously being a solid offensive contributor off the bench.
According to sources close to ESPN, we may be getting some answers as to why Melo’s tenure in Houston was so short. He supposedly struggled so much with their aggressive switch-centric defense that he just couldn’t adjust to it in the end. Houston wouldn’t have signed him to the team had they known this would’ve been an issue.
“Although the Rockets knew of Anthony’s defensive weaknesses before he joined, team sources say they didn’t anticipate just how limited he would be in their aggressive switch-centric defense, which tasked him with running quicker players off the 3-point line. One team source speculates that, had they known he’d struggle so much in their defense, Anthony wouldn’t have been brought aboard. “He really, really struggled with it,” the source says.”
In the end, teams don’t use Melo for defense, he’s always been known as a scorer throughout his career. The Rockets should’ve known that too. Hopefully, we get to see him back in an NBA uniform soon. It’s a shame that Melo is being treated like this when he’s a future hall of famer.
Flip the page to see some of Melo’s defense.