Carmelo Anthony is a ten-time NBA All-Star and a beloved member of the famed 2003 draft class that featured himself, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Last season, Anthony only saw action in 10 games with the Houston Rockets before being released. Though he was rumored to be a target of various playoff-bound teams throughout the season, he never ended up getting signed and remains a free agent well into the 2019 offseason.
Stephen A. Smith of ESPN’s First Take believes that “analytics” are the reason why Melo was released so quickly from the Rockets as well as why he still hasn’t been signed this offseason.
“If you’re an analytics dude, you’re coming in there with numbers,” Smith told DJ Envy, Angela Yee and Charlemagne on Thursday morning’s episode of Power 105’s The Breakfast Club per a story by Brandon Robinson of Heavy.
“So they’re going to let you flow. This is why Daryl Morey let go of Carmelo with ten games into the season because the analytics dudes judge the game in ten game increments. After ten games, they think it tells you something… They ain’t cutting you game 15. They’re gonna cut you at 10 or 20 or 30. It’s like 10 game increments. So it wasn’t an accident. So you got that working against Melo.”
Despite Stephen A.’s claims, Melo’s abilities on the court have been seemingly dwindling since his heyday with the Nuggets and Knicks in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
Anthony logged some of his lowest numbers of his career during the 10 games he played with Houston, including a 51.3 percent true shooting percentage, career-low .048 win shares per 48 minutes and another career-low in box plus/minus of -5.9 per Basketball Reference.
The post Stephen A. Smith believes analytics is what led to Carmelo Anthony’s departure from Rockets appeared first on ClutchPoints.
