Kevin Love Or Carmelo Anthony: Who Needs New Teammates More?

They’re both forwards on teams that were supposed to make a bit of a splash in their respective conferences, but while Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Love have largely lived up to their pre-season hype, their teams have not. ‘Melo’s Knicks were supposed to be within the middle of the Eastern Conference playoff bracket by now, and Love’s ‘Wolves were supposed to be in the thick of the last few spots out west. With the future of both in doubt, it’s time to figure out which All-Star forward needs a change of scenery or drastically re-altered lineups to support them.

Before we break it down, lets caution some of the less astute among us that we still don’t know if either of these forwards can be the best player on a championship team. ‘Melo has never missed the playoffs in his 11-year career, and Love has never made the playoffs. But while ‘Melo has won a few playoffs series (most recently against the Celtics last year), neither has gotten further than a Conference Final — again ‘Melo with the Nuggets in 2009 after Kiki Vandeweghe (and up-and-comer Masai Ujiri) swindled a still-effective Chauncey Billups for the walking corpse of Allen Iverson from Joe Dumars.

But the Knicks are 21-35 on the year, five and a half games back of Atlanta for the final playoff spot in the LEastern Conference. Carmelo even recently told Al Iannazzone of Newsday his optimism is “definitely being tested” this year:

It’s become an all-too-familiar sight and trend for the Knicks. They have 26 games to dramatically change things, or Anthony will miss out on the playoffs for the first time in his 11-year career. “I can’t imagine what that’s like,” he said. “I’m not even trying to think about that at this point. We still got a lot of basketball to play.”

But Anthony admits his optimism is “definitely being tested” this season, and you wonder if his desire to stay with the Knicks is too.

Anthony has been playing one of the best seasons of his career, personified by that incredible, record-setting performance at Madison Square Garden. He’s sporting career-bests in PER and total rebounding percentage, and the second-highest win share, per 48 minutes, of his career (all stats via basketball-reference.com unless otherwise noted). His true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage are both near the best marks of his NBA tenure, and the Knicks are actually giving up greater than six more points per 100 possessions when he’s sitting than when he’s in the game, via NBA.com. To say it another way, Melo’s no longer a total diva about defense and genuinely gives a crap on that end of the floor, even while battling some fours in Woodson’s depreciating attempts to play small.

But the Knicks are dreadful, ranking near the bottom of the league in pace and points per possession. So not only are they giving up a ton of easy buckets in the half-court, but they’re playing super slow leading to fewer transition looks and fewer easy buckets. That means more forced one-on-one iso time for an overextended ‘Melo as the shot clock winds down. Overall, the Knicks are 22nd in the league in overall net rating, per NBA.com, which is why they’re 21-35.

Let us count the various issues the Knicks have run into during a season from hell: Tyson Chandler has been hobbled with injuries and is a long way from the form that made him the 2012 DPOY; Raymond Felton is probably the worst staring point guard in the league; Iman Shumpert after vacillating between Mike Woodson and James Dolan‘s dog house, while also being a fan favorite, now has a sprained left MCL — the same knee where he tore the ACL in the playoffs during his rookie year; J.R. Smith is playing as if he’s still in a ganja cloud from his summer, and Andrea Bargnani has somehow been a bigger bust than he was in Toronto.

‘Melo can, and will, opt out of his current deal this summer to enter free agency. Even with the Knicks possessing his Bird Rights, which allow them to re-sign him for an extra year and $33 million more than any other team), there’s very little within the team keeping him in town. So whether he needs and/or gets better teammates between now and this summer (and he won’t since the deadline has passed), it will go a long way towards his decision to re-sign this summer, or flee for another club that can get him a lot closer to the Larry O’Brien trophy.

Kevin Love is in a similar boat as ‘Melo, though Love can’t opt-out of his current deal until the summer of 2015. Let’s find out how Love’s performance — in relation to his teammates — stacks up against Anthony.

Click next page…

Love has been on fire over the last four games, never shooting less than 52 percent from the floor on his way to games with 32, 42, 37 and 31 points. He even recorded his first triple-double over the weekend with 37 points, 12 rebounds and 10 dimes in Utah. Love’s overall brilliance in the game against Utah came directly after dropping 42 and 16 in a win over the dominant Pacers.

Except those previous four games only tell a small part of his tale. Kevin has quietly been having an amazing overall season, even if Minney’s sub .500 record doesn’t reflect his top notch production.

Like ‘Melo, Love has a career best 28.4 PER this season. That mark ranks third in the league, trailing only a couple players you’re probably pretty familiar with, and it’s more than 1.5 points higher than the No. 4 man on that list, Chris Paul.

Love is also shooting better than he ever has in his previous five seasons. So far, he’s setting career highs in effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, and he’s got a career high in win shares per 48 minutes.

Perhaps you’re one of those folks who thinks his defense is lacking. If you’re looking for a rim-protector (and every team is at this point), Love isn’t your guy. He’s not very athletic, and in terms of rotating and jumping straight in the air to contest shots at the rim, there are a lot better options. But the ‘Wolves as a unit are better on the defensive end with Love in the game than when he sits.

They give up 103.5 points per 100 possessions while he’s riding the pine, and 102.2 when he’s in the game. That’s not a huge discrepancy, but his frontcourt mate, Nikola Pekovic, isn’t a rim protector, either. Primarily, Love brings tenacious defensive rebounding to the fold on that end, and as a result the ‘Wolves are sixth in the league at preventing opponent’s second chances on offensive rebounds, per NBA.com.

His gains on defense are nice, but it’s on offense where he thrives and brings the highest return on his investment. Love needs to be on the court if the ‘Wolves are going to have any chance at scoring the ball. With Ricky Rubio and Corey Brewer, Minnesota has two guys that can’t shoot along the perimeter, and they need Love’s outside presence to spread the floor for Rubio’s dazzling runs to the rim and pick-and-roll sets with Pekovic.

The ‘Wolves score the second most points per possession in the league when Love is on the court. When he’s off, they would be the absolute worst by 2 points per 100 possessions. The Sixers score at the worst rate in the league, 96.2 points per 100 possessions, but the ‘Wolves score 94.2 points per possession when Love is on the bench. That’s a dreadful reminder GM Flip Saunders needs to get Minney some shooters and Love can find some better teammates around him.

Even though Minnesota, at 27-29, has a much better record than the Knicks, they’re still further back for a playoff spot than New York (6.5 games vs. New York’s 5.5). And Love has never made the playoffs in his entire career.

Love is set to earn $15.72 million next season before he can decide to opt-out of the last year of his deal in the summer of 2015. After more than half of the 2013-14 season has been played, it looks like not only is Love opting out, like Anthony, but there’s very little incentive for him to remain in the cold confines of the Twin Cities once he does opt-out.

Which player needs new teammates more?

Follow Spencer on Twitter at @SpencerTyrel.

Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.

Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.

×