Melo

I'm not sure if I agree with your assessment of Carmelo. No doubt his play in this series has not matched his skill or potential, but there are many reasons for this:
(1) He was just a little behind on realizing how much he is supposed to step his game up in the playoffs, and how difficult that is. I know he won an NCAA championship, but he was definitely the best player on the floor then. Plus, the fact that he won a championship to me means he will eventually figure out how much harder he has to work;
(2) With the Olympics and the Billups trade, he finally is asserting himself on D, which is a big difference;
(3) I also think Denver has done a terrible job getting him the ball in scoring situations late in the game. In game 5, there was the string of possessions where they went from being up 7 to down 11, and that basically happened when Carmelo stopped getting the ball. How many times did Martin shoot silly 12-foot standing floaters or J.R. jack up ridiculously contested and/or off-balance 3s? Carmelo isn't good at being the primary ballhandler, and needs to be given the ball on the wing where he still has his dribble, so he can't go get the ball like LeBron or just as much Kobe, whose offense has now turned into just high pick-n-rolls with Pau;
(4) His coach is not one of the top offensive minds in the game. George Karl just seems to get blessed with having great players on his teams. You or I could have coached those Sonics teams to the Finals, and then he couldn't ever get those Bucks teams with Big Dog, Jesus Shuttlesworth and an actually good Sam Cassell there. The Denver offense has succeeded because Karl just basically says "Go out there, and make something happen." Maybe there's something to that, because of the way NBA players psyches are, but at the end of games, as we've seen time and time again in the '09 playoffs, you have to run plays and have good offensive execution in half-court sets late, or you're going to lose. It wasn't until they got Billups and finally had a floor general to direct people before they started winning close games. They only score on plays that are (a) a Billups 3 at beginning of shot clock, (b) a Smith 3 at the end of the shot clock, or (c) whenever someone decides to go to the basket. Luckily this postseason, that has been often. Carmelo is especially good at taking his man off the dribble, and does it regularly, that's why he's a good player. He's not good when he shoots 18-footers all day, which has plagued him at times during his 6 years in the league; and
(5) Hate to use this excuse, but he has been sick and has a sprained ankle.

In my opinion, he is on his way to that stratosphere with the best in the game (LeBron, Kobe, DWade, CP3). But, if there is a reason why he doesn't join that list, I think it will be because of the fact that he can't or doesn't realize he needs to or chooses not to go get the ball.

When are we gonna talk about hockey?