Rockets: 3 positives of Carmelo Anthony potentially accepting a bench role

No. 3: Addresses a lack of bench scoring

Though a bench role is widely considered the best position for Anthony himself to succeed at this point in his career, putting him there also fills a scoring void in the Rockets’ bench units. Their non-starters averaged a combined 30.5 points per game last season, a mark that sits at 6th worst in the league.

One of the best remedies for a bench that doesn’t score well is to add a literal professional scorer to it. Knowing that the Rockets bench is weak in the putting-the-ball-in-the-basket department makes the idea of adding Anthony into the mix sound perfect for both sides.

Anthony averaged 16.2 points on 15 (largely ill-advised and inefficient) shot attempts last season. Assuming he claims the lion’s share of Ryan Anderson‘s 26 minutes per game, along with some of Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute‘s runtime, he’ll likely average just under the 32 minutes per game that he did with Oklahoma City and see a slight reduction in his shot attempts. It’s likely that the team’s focus will be more about where his attempts are coming from and how efficient they are rather than about how many he’s getting.

Anthony would likely see a lot more open spot-up opportunities and open shots, in general, that would, in turn, lead to an increase in shot efficiency and to his points-per-game mark staying around the same, plus or minus a few.

A similar points-per-game average to Anthony’s last season on a heightened efficiency clip would give Houston’s bench exactly the type of boost that it needs. If he accepts that role, he could do wonders for the Rockets next season.