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you could say that, it would be unture, but you could say it.
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If he gave a [dang] about his game, AT ALL, he'd already be able to play better defense and handel better. but he doesn't seem to care. He's content with being a great scorer, which he no doubt is.
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Um...so Anthony hasn't shown much defensively up to this point in his career, is somewhat turnover prone, and focuses too much on scoring, and these are ways that he's DIFFERENT from a young Paul Pierce?
Carmelo was 23 during the regular season this year - here are his stats and Pierce's stats for the season during which he was 23 (00-01):
FG % 3P% Turn Blk Stl Reb Ast PPG
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Pierce: .454 .383 3.2 .8 1.7 6.3 3.1 25.3
Anthony: .492 .354 3.3 .5 1.3 7.4 3.4 25.7
Just slightly similar. And during his 1 year at Syracuse, Anthony was known as a so-so post player who mostly got by on physical dominance - his jump shot was also very streaky. Most people don't realize he played by far his best ball of his life during the NCAAs that year, and quite a bit of that came from hard work and gaining the confidence and basketball IQ to use his physical advantages. Despite the flaws in his game, he is a far superior player now than he was then, but his great tourney in college and lack of success in the NBA tend to cloud that and make it seem like he's been treading water since then. Remember, this is a guy who was a totally unknown 6 foot nothing point guard until he hit a huge growth spurt his junior year of high school - regaining coordination over a new body like that takes quite a bit of time and, yes, work.
The analogy's not perfect, but the numbers are very similar and the attitude definitely is. I just hate seeing the usual suspects pile on without knowing anything about the guy, or realizing that a lack of playoff success doesn't mean a player is lazy and will never succeed.