The Portland Trail Blazers have a gaping hole at the three spot. They just so happened to have signed one of the best small forwards of the past era, Carmelo Anthony.
Melo has primarily played a stretch 4 role for the Blazers so far. But with the announced absence of their last small forward starter in Trevor Ariza, and the previous loss of their initial starter in Rodney Hood, Anthony will definitely find some minutes playing at his original wing position.
Carmelo Anthony shared his thoughts on this development:
“Yeah, well, the good thing is that I get to go back to my original position which is playing at the three where I'm actually very comfortable at. I've been doing that my whole life. Just over the past couple years is where I started moving, transitioning towards playing the four more.
We've got teams that is going small, so … That was to my advantage as well, but I think today in this game it’s positionless. There's no positions, no more today. So it doesn't matter when people put an emphasis on you're playing the three or you're playing the four, we out there playing at the end of the day. The schemes are going to be the same. We're going to figure it out.”
Although it's true that the former Knicks star played most of his career at the 3, he's clearly lost a step now that he's on the wrong side of 30 years old. But the Blazers don't have many options, with the team lacking in sizable wing players. They currently have little-used rookie Nasir Little and undersized wing player Gary Trent Jr.
It doesn't help that the Blazers' other guard spots are already on the smaller side, with CJ McCollum and Anfernee Simons flanking Damian Lillard in the back-court.
Portland has to hope that Carmelo Anthony still has a lot left in the tank
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