Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey is confident his bet on acquiring perennial All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony will yield a fortune with head coach Mike D’Antoni at the helm.
While his signing could spell an increase in long 2s, typically a no-no in D’Antoni’s offense even with Chris Paul adding some mid-range juice last season, Morey feels Anthony’s signing was a matter of amassing as much talent as possible and letting the rest take care of itself.
“We go towards talent,” Morey explained, according to Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle. “The reality is Chris especially is maybe top three ever shooting a shot from anywhere on the floor. Anywhere outside of three feet Chris Paul has been elite at shooting. Carmelo has been elite at being a one-on-one scorer and a lot of that is being able to score in those situations so we’ll take talent wherever we get it. I understand that fit-wise there are question marks, but there were question marks about Chris, and Mike makes it work.”
Paul did change his game to shoot a career high in 3s attempted (6.5 per game), converting on 38 percent of them. But doing the same with Anthony could prove troublesome, as he has been a see-saw 3-point shooter for his career .He shot as high as a bold 40.2 percent from deep in 2013-14, but he only converted 35.7 percent of his attempts with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Yet Morey isn’t concerned about his fit.
“That I think is easy,” he said. “Two things are happening. Shooting has become more important and he’s always been a plus shooter. With all the switching that happens, people that can score one-on-one in isolation are very important and Carmelo has been one of the best in the league at that. We feel like we have three of the best one-on-one, isolation scorers in the league in Chris (Paul), James (Harden) and Carmelo which is an asset not many teams have.”
The talkative GM is banking that the sheer potency of one-on-one talent will help the Rockets get back to the top of the West, and barring any health scares, allow them to reach the NBA Finals after falling a game shy of it against the Golden State Warriors.
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