Bill Walton and top basketball statistician agree on something. Excuse me for a minute while I relocate myself to my underground bunker.
New York Knicks fans are still living in the Carmelo Anthony fantasy land, picturing him and Amare Stoudemire as two-thirds of the powerhouse trio they need to return to glory in the East.
Walton was on ESPN 1050 in New York and was asked about pairing Anthony and Stoudemire, He’s not a fan, as you can hear in this podcast clip.
Carmelo, to me, does not have what it takes to be the great player. He puts up nice numbers, he makes a great salary, the media, publicity all likes him, but does he win the games? Does he make the squad better? Does he pull guys together?
It hasn’t happened in Denver at all. I’m a big Amare Stoudemire fan, I will hold my tongue on Carmelo.
That’s holding your tongue?
Remember that Tom Haberstroh — a stats guru that works for ESPN as well as at Hoopdata — wrote a column saying Anthony is not an efficient enough player right now to be elite. Another report said the reason he is not efficient is he takes too many contested jumpers and that hurts his efficiency. He has played with top players before — Chauncey Billups right now for one — and that pattern hasn’t changed.
So no matter how you get there — statistics or whatever it is that is rattling around in Walton’s head — there are a lot of questions to answer about how good a fit Anthony really is in New York. Not that it would stop Knicks fans from pulling the trigger on a deal.