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One of the surprising developments in what has been a brutal start to the NBA season for the Lakers has been the performance of Carmelo Anthony, particularly in front of the home crowd. At age 37, and three years removed from a yearlong exile out of the league after he was waived by Houston in the winter of 2018, Anthony has been reborn with the Lakers.
More specifically, with the Lakers’ home crowd. He has loved playing in Staples Center. And the Staples Center crowd has been loving him right back.
And one number holds the key to that love: 64.4%. Anthony has been a deadly catch-and-shooter perimeter guy in the early going of this season, but only in home games. He is shooting, amazingly, 64.4% from the 3-point arc when playing in L.A. (Let’s just ignore, for now, that he is shooting 6.3% from the 3-point line on the road, just 1-for-16 in three games. We’re trying to be positive here.)
As Lakers forward Anthony Davis said, “Any time he shoots the ball, I think it’s going in. He just gives us confidence, gives us momentum.”
Carmelo Loves Staples Center
The Lakers, as they usually do early on in the season, have had a soft schedule to this point, and have only had to hit the road three times. They won two of those games, against relatively weak foes (San Antonio and Oklahoma City) in overtime. So, Anthony has not had much chance to bulk up his road numbers.
But his Staples Center numbers are through the roof. He says he’s long had a thing for the building.
“I always thought Staples was a good shooter’s gym,” Anthony said. “Even back in the day, I thought Staples was a good shooting gym. But it’s different when you are an opponent as opposed to the home team, now I’m on the other side of that.”
That’s been, arguably, the most joyous aspect of the first nine games of the season in Lakerland. While Lakers fans remain tepid, at best, on some of the big offseason acquisitions the team made—Russell Westbrook, DeAndre Jordan, Malik Monk—there has been plenty of love for Anthony.
“You get that energy, you get that momentum, you get the crowd behind you, you get your teammates behind you,” Anthony said. “That’s what we need. That’s the Lakers basketball we need.”
Coach Frank Vogel, for one, agrees. Considering the Lakers’ offense ranks just 19th in the NBA in efficiency, 3-pointers from Melo are just about the best thing he can hope to see from his team.
We’re getting as many threes as we can get him,” said head coach Frank Vogel. “We’ve always got him spaced in areas where it’s going to be difficult for defense to help, and our guys are always looking for him.”
Carmelo Anthony Has Been Among NBA’s Best in Transition
What’s been especially fun about Anthony is that he has been an incredible finisher on the fast-break—though not with thunderous dunks or suave lay-ins. He has been among the best in the league at finishing breaks with open 3-point tries.
He ranks third in the league (per NBA.com/stats) in offensive efficiency among players with 2.0 possessions per game in transition, at 1.61 points per possession, mostly off 3-point shots.
“Some of them are coming in transition, when the defense is all the way back,” Anthony explained. “Me trailing into the 3. Some of them are coming off the attention that AD and Russ, and even when Bron was playing, the attention that those guys get, it’s just a matter of me getting to the right spot and those guys finding me at that point.”
They’re finding him and he is knocking them down. And Lakers fans are loving it.
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