Lillard, McCollum, Nurkic, and Melo would be as entertaining as Harden, CP3, and Melo. And probably more competitive.
Don't think he'd waive his NTC though since one of his banana boat buddies aren't there.
What?! The Rockets have two top-7 players. The Blazers...don't.
I'm not sold on the fit of Harden and CP3. I think there'll definitely be an adjustment period, specifically for CP3. He's used to holding the ball in his hands a lot in a half court setting. We already know Lillard and McCollum can play together - particularly moving off the ball and shooting at a high clip. Add in Nurkic who's a good post presence who's shown he can take advantage when he's given the ball in the post.
I just think Portland's offense is a more natural fit. I can see Melo's role in Portland.
I'm not entirely sold on the CP-Harden fit either, but let's not pretend Lillard-McCollum is some great fit. They work together, but they're both really point guards. As for shooting ability, you do realize Paul is a vastly superior shooter to Lillard, right? I think many fail to realize that Paul truly is one of the league's premier shooters. I don't think Melo's a particularly good fit on either team, because both have two ball-dominant players who are better than Melo, but I'd hesitate to say Melo's a better fit with the lesser talents whom he's also less likely to defer to.
I'm not sure where you're getting this notion that Paul is a vastly better shooter than Lillard. They're both very good to elite-level shooters, and they're both literally at 37% on the dot for their careers. If anything, the case should be made for Lillard being the better shooter, because he's averaging the same percentage at over twice the attempts per game as Paul. Furthermore, the difficulty of Lillard's shots are generally much higher than Paul's shots. Lillard shoots primarily off the dribble from beyond the arc, where Paul (at least in my experience) shoots from long distance just as much off the pass as off the dribble.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/paulch01.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/l/lillada01.html
I think it's somewhat misleading to take career numbers for Paul, because he's really elevated himself as a shooter the last ~3 years, performing above his previous career marks in both 3P% and TS%. If we were to split Paul's career into two parts (first 9 seasons, most recent 3), you see an increase in 3P% from 35.7% to 39.3% and TS% from 57.5% to 59.3%. He's improved a lot.
Eh, isn't it also a bit misleading to ignore 75% of his career and focus on a mere 25% of his career to gauge his shooting proficiency, even if it is the latest 25%? Lol
But either way, even just looking at his marginal increase in the past three seasons, it's hard to argue that he's a significantly better, or better at all, shooter when Lillard is putting up similar percentages in significantly more attempts with significantly more difficult/contested shots.
And to the larger point you guys were discussing, I really don't like Melo's fit on either team, like at all. Though if you had to pick one, I guess I would say Houston is the better fit, purely because they're veterans (and friends) who should be able to make it work. Paul, Ariza, and Capela could also better make up for Melo's and Harden's defensive deficiencies than Portland.
But hopefully the Knicks just end up accepting something like Love for Anthony instead of shipping him to Houston. I think we matchup much better with a Cleveland team with Melo at the 4 than Love at the 4.