I have great respect for the legends of NBA history. I love learning about those guys. I read the Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons twice. Not to say that means I agree with most of his opinions, because I don’t — but it contains numerous descriptions of and anecdotes about older players. Thinking Basketball’s greatest peaks series are some of my favorite videos.
Notice how I left out most of the older players. Because I put a certain amount of thought into that list. To suggest that I don’t care to learn about NBA history is baseless. You seem to have a bias the opposite way that you are accusing me of having. Look at Dame and Earl. There’s a sizable gap between their statistical footprints. Dame already has more points in the regular season and playoffs despite playing fewer minutes in both and he is more efficient, even relative to their eras.
As for Carmelo versus AD, I think it comes down to how much you value longevity vs. peak value. Melo’s greatest value obviously came from his scoring, but I’m not convinced he was a better scorer than AD. That might sound crazy, but just look at their peak playoff stats: 2009-2011 Carmelo Anthony (1,022 minutes)- 27.3 Points per 75 possessions, +1.6 relative True Shooting Percentage 2015-2020 Anthony Davis (1,299 minutes) - 27.7 PTS/75, +8.1 rTS%
That is a huge difference in efficiency. And then when you add on AD’s defensive impact it becomes clear to me that AD is better. And this is reflected by the fact that AD has 4 1st team All-NBA selections while Melo only cracked the 2nd team twice.
Off-ball scoring can still be valuable scoring. There is something to be said for being valuable beside other all-time offensive players. Carmelo was great on his own but it’s unlikely that he could’ve amplified the talent of a ball-dominant talent like AD did with his rolling to the basket. And it’s unknown if Melo could be a #1 on a championship offense. He was a guy who had the ball in his hands a lot but was never a very good playmaker.
And the difference between AD and 99% of play-finished bigs is that he also has elite scoring volume.
Like I said, it depends how you value longevity versus peak. I think that players have more valuable careers when they rack up a handful of strong all-NBA and/or MVP-level seasons over players who have several All-NBA / All-Star level seasons.