Last year my friend Kamari Stevens wrote an article in the Clarion about the five NBA players he hated most with Kobe Bryant’s father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, topping the list.
I personally don’t hate any players in the NBA because I feel like hating somebody I’ve only seen on TV is weird (no offense Kamari), but I do think there are some NBA players that are extremely overrated. Here are my top three:
3. Amare Stoudemire, Phoenix Suns
How does a guy that is supposed to be a scoring machine only have two 40-point games on the season, as of April 8th?
Stoudemire was a great player five years ago, but he hasn’t been the same since knee surgery following the 2005 season. He doesn’t jump as high, he isn’t as quick and he doesn’t play with the same fire he used to. The only thing about him that’s still the same is his defense. But he never played that very well to begin with.
2. Joe Johnson, Atlanta Hawks
No doubt, Johnson is a very good ball player, but he is not the superstar ESPN and TNT commentators constantly refer to him as. Johnson’s never won an MVP, never led the league in scoring and has never made it out of the second round of the playoffs during his time in Atlanta.
There are only a handful of true superstars left in the NBA and Johnson definitely is not one of them.
1. Carmelo Anthony, Denver Nuggets
No team that features Anthony as their best player will ever win a NBA championship.
Anthony can definitely put the ball in the basket, but of his top-4 scoring games, two of them were against the mediocre Memphis Grizzlies and one other was against the pathetic New York Knicks. Against the Western Conference’s top-2 teams – Lakers and Mavericks – Anthony is only averaging 20.3 points, down more than eight points from his season average.
That wouldn’t be such a big problem if he had another elite skill, but he doesn’t. Anthony’s only averaged 3.1 assists a game for his career and his defensive impact is negligible at best.
When Anthony won his gold medal at the Beijing Olympics two years ago he was arguably the third or fourth best player on the team. The same will hold true for any NBA team he wins a championship with.