The current hype stemming from the melodrama (pun intended) of Carmelo Anthony is a trade rumor in which the Lakers would send Andrew Bynum to the Nuggets in exchange for Melo. Clearly the Lakers have struggled more than usual this year, and most likely feel threatened by the resurgence of the San Antonio Spurs and the strength of the Miami Heat. Phil Jackson is not known for making midseason trades, so a mere rumor shows that this year's Lakers are feeling vulnerable. To the naked eye, dealing Andrew Bynum for Carmelo Anthony seems like a great deal for the Lakers. Bynum has stumbled through five seasons with feeble knees, and has averaged only 56 games per season, while Carmelo has averaged 73 games per season throughout his seven seasons in the league. However, Bynum is only 23 years old and still has potential to grow; many teams still see him as a player to build around.
Let's take a look at each player's impact on the court. If you have read my basketball blog's before, you already know that I use sabermetrics to evaluate player performance. Credit is due to John Hollinger's NBA player statistics and Basketball Reference which provide analytical statistics to assess qualitative discrepancies between players. Below or the PER and EWA and their respective league rankings for Carmelo Anthony and Andrew Bynum over the past three seasons.
** Instead of using EWA, I will use EWAA = Estimated Wins Added Adjusted, this statistic will be adjusted to simulate if each player played all 82 games of the regular season.
Carmelo Anthony Andrew Bynum
PER 09 19.09 20.03
PER 10 22.29 20.26
PER 11 21.10 20.73
EWAA 09 12.05 11.15
EWAA 10 18.42 11.98
EWAA 11 15.31 10.32
PER Av = 20.82 20.34
EWAA Av = 15.26 11.15
As one can see from these statistics, Carmelo adds 4 more wins then Bynum does above a replacement player, and is slightly more efficient on the floor. However, the fact that Carmelo Anthony only adds 4.11 EWAA more than Andrew Bynum is troubling to me. Melo is the top option on the Denver Nuggets, while Bynum is the third or fourth option on the Los Angeles Lakers. If the Lakers didn't have Kobe Bryant or Pau Gasol and instead had average players at those positions, Bynum's PER and EWAA would definitely increase. How much would they increase? We don't know as Bynum has never played more than a handful games without Kobe his entire career, which has all been for the Lakers, but I can assure you his PER Av would be higher than Carmelo's and his EWAA would be as well.
So. Is it worth it for the Lakers to trade Bynum for Carmelo Anthony? I'll let you decide that for yourself. Bynum does have an injury history, yet is still only 23 and has a lot of potential to dominate the paint for the Lakers for the next decade or so. Anthony is still only 26 and will be a superstar in this league for a while, but his supporting cast in Denver is very important and has a large impact on the team's success, as opposed to say the Cav's supporting cast when LeBron was still in Cleveland. Also, trading away Bynum would limit the Laker's size. Pau Gasol would have to play Center, with Lamar Odom shifting to Power Forward. Playing Bynum and Gasol at the same time gives the Lakers a lot of size and allows for less minutes for those two and Odom. Personally, I don't see a trade for Carmelo Anthony being beneficial for the Lakers at this time, no matter how talented a player he is.
I enjoyed reading this, Rob. Very well written, well thought about, and detailed. Especially liked the "melodrama." I did infact lol. The only disappointment would be you didn't include the video that inspired this title. That would have offered an opportunity to discuss how "Melo" was a big deal in high school.....but there was still someone better :) And you could have incorporated some LeBron :)
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