Counter-views on Carmelo Anthony

I have never been a big fan of Carmelo Anthony or the NBA within the last ten years for many similar reasons. I will confess that many of these are not entirely rational. The problems with the NBA (and personified by Melo) in my view are rather numerous:

• Too much emphasis on star players
  
• Not enough passing or defense
  
• Fouls being called to frequently
  
• Lack of consistency in player line-ups
  
• Lack of competitive balance

I used to watch NBA game religiously from when I was as old as I can remember to a few years ago. Now, I much rather watch college basketball because the games are more interesting and competitive. I find myself frequently bored with the NBA, while I have never watched a college game that I found boring.

I watch the occasional Nuggets game because I find Chauncey Billups and Chris Anderson interesting players who play fundamentally sound, unselfish basketball. I also find them interesting personalities and Billups is a Denver native.

Unfortunately, these arguments are rather "fan based" and not entirely rational. I'm sure people more knowledgable about basketball have great counter-arguments. Charley Rosen writes in my opinion the best sports columns and one of the reasons why I even watch basketball.

Needless to say, Fivethirtyeight, which I reference a lot in my political blog , wrote an interesting piece on Carmelo Anthony that is well worth the read. In the end, I might like Melo or the NBA in general but basketball is still a great sport.