Who needs Melo? Who does Melo need?

Amidst all the trade talk circling the player that is Carmelo Anthony, and regardless of what you have to say about the pundits who are circulating these stories, how you think Melo is handling the situation, how you think Masai Ujiri is handling the situation, if you think he will leave, if you think he will stay, regardless of all that, we've kind of been overlooking a pretty major question.  There's not much doubt to me that Melo will ultimately get what he wants, or at the very least go into free agency and sign where he wants to play.  So maybe this question is moot, but it's a legitimate question all the same: which team needs a player like Melo? or in converse, what kind of team does Melo need around him?
I'm probably not the most well-credentialed person to be doing this sort of breakdown, but I think we need to understand what kind of player Melo is first off before we can even determine what team he fits on and what team fits around him.  Carmelo Anthony is a small forward standing at 6-8, weighing in at 238 lbs.  In his 8th year playing in the NBA he is averaging 25 points, 7.7 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.7 blocks, and 2.9 turnovers on 45.1% shooting.  What's that tell us so far?  He scores a lot, is a decent rebounder, doesn't really pass the ball, questionable on defense, and he has the ball in his hands for a lot of the game.  Over his career he is averaging 24.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.1 steal, 0.5 blocks, and 3.1 turnovers on 45.9% shooting per game.  From the few opportunities I've had to watch Melo do his work, I can safely say, he is probably the most multi-faceted offensive threat in the entire NBA.  Does that make him the best pure scorer?  Maybe, maybe not, but I'm not here to argue that.  My observations have shown me that Melo knows how to put the ball in the bucket.  He is a premier back-to-the-basket, post-up player, he can shoot, his range extends well into 3 point territory, and he hits with enough accuracy that it's a shot you would want him to take, and a shot that defenses have to respect.  He's a deadly face-up shooter as well as having the size and strength to finish strong at the rim.  He may not be as freakishly athletic as LeBron James or Blake Griffin, but he's certainly one of the most, if not the most dangerous triple threat player in the league right now.

So, what do we know about Melo then?  Well, we know he can score, he can get a lot of points, but he needs the ball in his hands to do so.  So what kind of team works for Melo?  One immediate analogous situation that comes to mind is the Iversonian Philadephia 76ers that got to the Finals under the coaching of Larry Brown in 2001.  The one that featured the likes of Aaron McKie and Dikembe Mutombo, which needed a 51 point effort from Iverson in game 1 to kept from getting swept by the Shaq and Kobe Lakers.  Well, historically, we know that the Iversonian model wasn't exactly the biggest success (though one could argue nothing was stopping the juggernaut that was the Lakers that season) it's worth considering what they had and working from there.  I mean, outside of Iverson, we're looking at a veritable plethora of role players like Aaron McKie, Dikembe Mutumbo, Eric Snow, Raja Bell, George Lynch, Kevin Ollie, Todd MacCulloch, Tyrone Hill, Jumaine Jones, and Rodney Buford.  Yeah, I know, I don't know who half these people are either, and I'm the guy writing this post.  While we can speculate on how Iverson could've used some more help, it's hard to figure out exactly what kind of help you could've given Iverson considering that he needed the ball in his hands so frequently to be effective.  Is Melo the same type of player?  I'd like to think not, and that's partially simply because Melo has more physical tools he could use relative to the smaller Iverson.  As we see from Melo's overall performance, he can score, and he can do so much more efficiently than Iverson can, the question of where Melo fits in now becomes what he else he brings to the table, which is hard to gauge.

Ultimately, I think Melo's niche, so to speak, boils down to this, he's somebody you can toss the ball to to score when the play breaks down.  I don't know that you have draw up a huge number of plays for him, and he'll still find a way to score.  It's hard not to knock Melo with all his other liabilities, defensively and the like, but it's hard to knock him hard when he does what he does (score) so well.  I mean, scoring is half of the game (the other half being stopping the other team from scoring).  So what kind of team do we need around Melo then?  This part gets a little tricky because we've seen a lot of players playing around Melo, from Earl Boykins, to Andre Miller, to Marcus Camby, to Allen Iverson, and most recently we have Nene, Chauncey Billups, and Kenyon Martin.  So what pieces fit around the piece that is Melo to make a successful basketball team?  Well, first as we've established, Melo's role would simply be to get buckets.  When Melo touches the ball, he's generally expected to put the ball in the bucket, that's pretty much it.  Naturally, there's the stuff we sometimes take for granted, box out your man for the rebound, stay in front of him on defense, etc... but primarily, when the ball goes to Melo, he's going to put it (or try to put it) in the hole.  Now let's try to do this position by position.

The Point Guard -
Well, Melo isn't a horrible ball handler, but I wouldn't want him initiating the offense like say, LeBron James.  I find this to be one of the more crucial positions playing next to someone like Melo.  Ideally, I'd say you want someone who can break down the defense and set other players up, but typically looks to pass first.  This player would likely be the second (or first, I guess depending on how you look at it) star of the team playing next to Melo.  He may not score like Melo, but he essentially is the one in charge of punishing the other team for ignoring any one player and over focusing on Melo, that includes himself.  Which means he has to be something of a scoring threat.  This takes Rajon Rondo out of the picture, because while Rondo does fit most of the molds that we refer to, I personally don't find him to be a big enough scoring threat that asserts himself in the offense to really fit well next to Melo, most notably, because he has such a shaky jump shot.  This also takes names like Deron Williams and Derrick Rose out of the question because they are asked to handle the ball much more and score in bunches.  Chauncey Billups was supposed to be this man, but due to age he is now but a shadow of his former self (think 2004 NBA Finals).  The two most ideal candidates that I can think of (and some of you might scoff at me for the obviousness of these picks) are Chris Paul and Steve Nash.  Both are known to be distributors, but both also have the capability of putting up a lot of points in a hurry if you forget about them.  Whether it be Melo himself, or the other 3 players on the court, Paul and Nash are experts at getting the ball in a position to score, getting the most out of his respective teammates, thanks to smart playmaking.  With Nash, you naturally have to question him on defense, but that could perhaps be remedied, with the assumption that Melo is at the very least average defensively.

The Shooting Guard -
Naturally, if Melo is going to be scoring in bunches, your second wing player doesn't need to be able to score a ton.  Primarily, this player would be your lock-down defender, be able to hit big shots, primarily three pointers, which is something the Nuggets have been getting from Arron Afflalo.  Granted, it's hard nowadays to find the likes of Raja Bell circa 2006 (Raja Bell circa 2011 doesn't count), but someone like that is exactly the kind of player that you would need, even assuming Melo is halfway decent on defense.  Other names that come to mind would be somebody like Martell Webster, or if you want a bigger name, Andre Iguodala, of course, this is assuming Iggy can live with the defensive specialist role and scoring less.  Granted, I think a team with Melo is going to be much more perimeter oriented, just based on the skillset Melo brings to the table, but ultimately you're going to need a stopper on the outside, regardless of if he can score or not.  At the very least, he should probably have a 3 point shot people respect.  I'll stick with Webster for now since I can't really think of someone else I'd want as my shooting guard at the moment (DeShawn Stevenson?).

The Small Forward -
This is Melo, duh.

The Power Forward -
Personally, I see this guy as pretty much what we might call a "garbage" or hustle guy.  Of course, naturally when I say something like "he's the garbage man of the team" you'd think of someone like Reggie Evans, and while he works, he's not exactly what I was thinking of.  I'm thinking of that solid "glue" guy, who crashes the offensive glass, sets smart picks, gets most of his scores off put backs, and just in essence cleans up after everybody, the guy that does all the little things.  Ideally, we can imagine the ideal fit of the defensive juggernaut that was Dennis Rodman, but we don't really even need to go that extreme.  In today's league, the likes of players like Nick Collison or Udonis Haslem fit the mold quite well.  You're not going to draw up your offense around them, but they'll figure out a way to contribute, almost on just hustle alone.

The Center -
This guy basically needs to be your defensive anchor.  Whether or not he scores, he basically is the last line of defense when the perimeter guys get broken down.  Dwight Howard would be ideal, but Tyson Chandler definitely works just as well, heck, even Samuel Dalembert (when his head's in the game) fits the mold as well.  Basically, he needs to be enough of a shot-blocking presence to intimidate the other cutters, and a solid enough post defender to make life difficult for opposing bigs.

Sure, this requires something of a perfect storm to throw together something that will work for everybody, but  essentially, you'd be building a team predicated on mostly the offensive play called "pass Melo the ball" and secondly on "let your PG (Chris Paul or Steve Nash) be awesome".  That more or less covers who (I think) Melo needs around him, now lets see if there are any teams that really fit that mold.  Well, the first obvious thing is to look around to see who needs scoring.  The most obvious answers are teams like the Bucks and Bobcats.  The Bucks obviously are a pretty bad scoring team, and I think have some ideal pieces that would wok with Melo.  Andrew Bogut is a premier center and Brandon Jennings is an up and coming point guard, though we must question whether or not he can be a facilitator that Melo would need.  Ersan Ilyasova and Luc Mbah-a-Moute are serviceable at the power forward spot, and John Salmons, despite shooting so much,  is pretty good defensively.

The one team I personally think fits Melo the best would be a team like the Hornets.  Chris Paul is the point guard that Melo needs to play with, and Okafor is solid enough defensively to cover a lot of mistakes.  Ariza is a solid perimeter defender and while West isn't ideal, he can be worked in as a part of the offense.  Unfortunately, most players and GMs can't really afford to think like this, as Melo wants a big name city like Chicago or New York.  However, both, as well as the latest Lakers rumor, are pretty bad fits for Melo.  In New York, Amar'e pretty much serves the same role that Melo does, and while it's nice to have 2 all-world scorers on the squad, you'd have to think there'd be some give and take somewhere.  On the Bulls, Rose needs the ball in his hands to be effective, Melo needs the ball in his hands to be effective, Boozer needs the ball in his hands to be effective, you do the math.  On the Lakers, the triangle offense is all about ball movement, and Melo has kind of sticky fingers.  Secondly, the only way I see this being effective, is if Kobe becomes more of a defensive specialist, which I don't see happening.

Do you think I'm crazy?  Maybe I am, but I seriously see something like this making all the teams better.  It's unfortunate that the Hornets don't really have the assets to trade for Melo, at least not in a way that I'd think Ujiri would go for.