As a depressed Knicks fan who hasn't seen a good a promising season since 98-99, I found this quite funny.
If you follow the NBA, you’ll know Carmelo Anthony. A great talent, an unbelievable scorer, but whose teams can’t seem to win.
There are a lot of Carmelo Anthonys in the Iron Banner (and Crucible). Incredible players with physics-defying movement, precise aim, map knowledge, and eye popping K/D ratios; but whose teams don’t win (in PUG at least).
Here are the things a Carmelo Anthony would do in PvP:
Roam the map and pay no attention to team defense in search of kills
This is fine if the other five guardians are locked in on defending the two good control points held; but the problem is that two or three others inevitably follow the superstar out. This happens often on Blind Watch after winning B and C. Instead of defending those points, Carmelo Anthony would take half the team to crowd around A in search for easy kills. In the meantime, C is vulnerable to a coordinated attack, which of course will happen when fighting a decent team. The spawns flip and soon it’s the opposition holding B and C. The team loses and Carmelo Anthony blames his teammates for their low K/D, not realizing that if he played within the context of a team, they could have won easily.
He wouldn’t have as many kills, but his teammates wouldn’t have as many deaths.
Avoid risk of death by not attacking a control point
I’ve had games in Twilight Gap where every single person on my team would have a K/D above 1, whereas three or four on the opposing team would have a K/D below 1, and yet we would lose.
How?!
Because we never took B. And why didn’t we take B? Because taking it is risky and people don’t want to lower their K/D ratio, so they stick to their comfort zone of going from A to C and back.
I like to think of myself as team oriented, but even after three or four failed solo attempts that result in death…eff it, why should I risk my neck when no one else will.
Carmelo Anthonys, despite being the best player in the entire match, won’t lead the team to take those control points because they care more about K/D than about winning. Even though they are the most qualified to do so.
Use a teammate as bait instead of a proper 2-on-1 attack
Has this ever happened to you? You’re with a teammate and facing one opponent. The odds are in your favor right, two versus one. So you trade shots, only to realize you’re the only one from your team firing. You die, and only then does your teammate pop out to finish the opponent. Or you’re winning, then your teammate appears, often stealing the kill.
I’ve also been on the other side. It appears to be a 1-on-1 fight. I win, only to get killed immediately after by someone who must’ve have been watching our fight, given how seamlessly he jumps in. This will happen again and again, all from the same player, and no surprise he’s the guy with the best K/D.
Carmelo Anthonys are happy to see teammate die as long as it helps their K/D.
Camp for maximum individual safety but to no team benefit
Now this may not be a Carmelo Anthony, because top players tend to roam more than they camp. Maybe more second tier players who still get amazing K/Ds with less talent.
You know the type: they camp in safe areas to get safe kills. They show their face to the real battlefield only when Supers are ready, to get an additional three to five near-guaranteed kills. After which, if alive, they run back to their positions of safety.
Not all camping is bad of course. For example, on Shores of Time, you absolutely want at least one sniper looking out over C and sometimes B. This is in context of team strategy, and is actually not K/D maximizing. When you’re the only person looking after C and multiples from the opposition attack, you will often die. But your death is valuable because then your team knows to rotate over from B and retake C.
That’s good camping. Bad camping is when it adds no strategic value to the team; it’s done just to maximize K/D. In fact, it often harms the team because they are short one player to defend the control points.
The camper dies less, sure, but everyone else dies more.
Take heavy ammo without regard to teammates
Because teammates are hopeless and he’s Carmelo Anthony. Why wait, exposed to enemy attack, for lousy players who keep dying?
My thinking on heavy ammo has actually changed considerably. At first, I thought people should wait. Now I’m of the mindset that it’s not a player’s responsibility to wait for others; it’s the responsibility of others to get there on time. I play with shoot-to-loot so I never open the heavy ammo box, but increasingly, I prefer for teammates to open sooner than later.
All that said, Carmelo Anthonys take it too far. They open the box even as blue dots are running in and there are no reds on the radar.
Not all top players are Carmelo Anthonys of course. There are lots of LeBron James and Kevin Durants too; gifted players who elevate the whole team because they care more about the team win than about individual K/D.
I blame our obsession with vanity numbers, and specifically, on K/D. We place way too much emphasis on it.
Any casual NBA fan knows the measure of a player extends far beyond points per game, even though technically, points are what wins games. (Just like K/D technically wins games in Destiny.) Whether you play good defense, box out to prevent rebounds, pass the ball, take only good shots, and so on, there are many intangibles that separate the great from the good. A basketball player is evaluated by much more than just points per game.
So it should be with Destiny.
I want to play with LeBron James, I don’t want to play with Carmelo Anthony.
I hope the Carmelo Anthonys reading this will reflect, and not just smash that downvote button.
TL;DR - Focus on team wins, not on individual K/D.
P.S. No offense to Carmelo Anthony or to his fans -- he's an awesome basketball talent and I'm sure a great guy. But he's not the level of LeBron James or Kevin Durant in terms of team impact.
evoxr1
you def deserved it bruh. Now it's snoops turn then me 
TPT needed another one what's that number 3 or 4 now? 
at the same time.
dat dude chris
wait wait WHAT??!! It turns your cloak gold??!! I wish u would have done the IB now... :\
