Could Carmelo Anthony Replace Kyrie Irving’s Offensive Production?

Kyrie Irving is likely on his way out in Cleveland. At this point, it doesn’t appear that there is a way to save the relationship between LeBron, Kyrie, and the Cavs.

Kyrie Irving is a talented player who is valuable on the offensive end of the floor. His ability to score in isolation and being a great spot up shooter is what makes him the perfect compliment for LeBron James’s unique skill-set.

Kyrie is arguably the best isolation player in the league. He scored 1.12 points per possession in isolation in his 5.1 isolations per game. He did this while posting an effective field goal percentage of .533 percent. Irving also excelled in spot up shooting where he averaged 1.15 points per possession while posting an effective field goal percentage of .599 percent.

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While Carmelo Anthony is not the scorer he once was, he still has the ability to be tops in the league in both areas. Anthony posted 0.99 points per possession in isolation with 5.3 isolations per game. Anthony’s .468 percent effective field goal percentages in this situation is significantly lower than Irving’s in isolation. That being said, Anthony is still in the 78.3 percentile in isolation scoring and is still one of the best in the league in this category.

Anthony is, however, a significantly better spot up shooter than Irving. Anthony shot .459 percent from 3 with an effective field goal percentage of .620 percent in spot up situations. This puts him in the 93.8 percentile in the NBA in this department. For comparison purposes, Anthony is a better spot up shooter than traditional spot up shooters such as J.J. Redick, Bradley Beal, Klay Thompson, Ryan Anderson, and Kevin Love.

It would be foolish to simplistically boil down Kyrie’s immense offensive skills to just two categories. However, when playing alongside a player with the skillset of LeBron, those are the two categories that matter most.

The Cavaliers are looking for a king’s ransom in their trade for Kyrie Irving. It is yet to be seen what exactly that Cavs could be rumored to get in such a trade. However, a package that included Carmelo Anthony and another starter(s) such as Eric Bledsoe could make them a more well-balanced team to compete with the Golden State Warriors in 2018.

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Carmelo Anthony is still one of the premier offensive players in the league even at the age of 33. A package that included Anthony directly or indirectly could lessen the impact of losing Kyrie on the offensive end of the floor.