After stopping in the Eastern Conference semifinals, The management of the Philadelphia 76ers has been actively preparing. As expected, with the official start of the draft, the 76ers officially launched their action. The team combined Danny Green with the 23rd player in this year's first round. The No. 1 pick was packaged and sent to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for combo guard De'Anthony Melton. The 76ers have a very clear idea. After all, Danny Green is likely to miss all the games in the new season due to injury. Moreover, in this small year of the draft, there is a high probability that players in the middle and late first rounds will not be of much use. It is better to give priority to exchange for immediate players. Combat strength.
In fact, since Danny Green was injured, the outside world has speculated that the 76ers will find a way to deal with him. During the offseason, the management even bundled Danny Green with the No. 23 pick in the first round. Now that the 76ers finally got their wish, the team officials also updated their social media updates to welcome new aid De'Anthony Melton to join. The 24-year-old combo guard will become an important rotation in the 76ers' backcourt next season.
De'Anthony Melton's starting point is not particularly high. In 2019, he was selected by the Houston Rockets with the 46th overall pick in the second round. Of course, at that time, Chris Paul had just recovered from a hamstring injury, plus There is a vacancy in the Rockets' backup point guard position, and De'Anthony Melton has high hopes. However, due to their insistence on not signing a standard second-round pick contract, and the urgency to deal with Ryan Anderson's big contract at the time, the Rockets finally reached an agreement with Suns and sent De'Anthony Melton and Ryan Anderson as a package. Go and trade for two former lottery picks, Brandon Knight and Marquese Chriss.
Of course, after joining the Suns, De'Anthony Melton did not have many opportunities to perform. He can only be regarded as the team's substitute, averaging 5 points, 2.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game. De'Anthony Melton's organizational and defensive abilities are already very good among the new generation of guards. His problems mainly lay on the offensive end, especially his three-point shooting rate of less than 30% in his rookie season, which made the Suns make the decision to send him away that summer. So soon after entering the league, De'Anthony Melton was put on the shelf twice. He felt the cruelty of the business league very early.
But because of this, D'Anthony Melton has always been holding back the energy to prove himself. His next stop is the Memphis Grizzlies. In the 19-20 season, D'Anthony Melton averaged 7.6 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game. At that time, he had become a member of the main rotation. Since D'Anthony Melton was a second-round pick, he started to He only signed a two-year contract, so De'Anthony Melton became a free agent after that season. Of course, the Grizzlies recognized his performance and felt that De'Anthony Melton, who was only 22 years old at the time, had great potential and room for improvement, so the management was extremely generous and offered De'Anthony Melton a job. Four-year contract worth $34.6 million.
After getting the lucrative contract, De'Anthony Melton did not slack off. On the contrary, he performed very well. Last season, De'Anthony Melton averaged 9.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game, and he also hit three-pointers. The rate reached a career high of 41%. This season, the Grizzlies ranked second in the Western Conference. Even when Ja Morant was absent, the Grizzlies still showed strong momentum. The outside world attributed the credit to Desmond Bane and Tyers Jones. But in fact, De'Anthony Melton also performed well. He averaged 10.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.4 steals per game, providing sufficient support on both offense and defense. Of course, De'Anthony Melton performed poorly in playoffs , averaging only 5.6 points and 3.1 rebounds per game, and his three-point shooting percentage also dropped to 25%. Of course, this cannot be too harsh on De'Anthony Melton. After all, this kind of situation is very common for role players. If he really performs well or even better in the playoffs, his salary may have to be doubled, or even towards the end. The direction of superstar development.
For the Philadelphia 76ers, this signing is quite targeted. De'Anthony Melton has the opportunity to make up for the 76ers' two major shortcomings.First of all, except for James Harden and Tyrese Maxey, the other defenders of the 76ers are very average. Although De'Anthony Melton performed poorly in high-end games, he is more than enough as the main substitute. He can make two The starting backcourt will get more breathing space, which will not make this position completely useless.
On the other hand, the overall strength of the 76ers' bench is relatively poor in the entire league. This is actually no wonder. We can find that the 76ers have three maximum-paid players in the starting lineup. In this case, it is understandably difficult to find many strong role players and substitutes. De'Anthony Melton averaged double digits in points per game last season. He has the opportunity to serve as the main offensive point of the second team. If De'Anthony Melton can provide about 10-15 points of firepower output every game, the 76ers will The second lineup will no longer be easily defeated by the opponent, and the pressure on the main players will be reduced a lot.
