in the hole

but

w/o question King was the better player...

I will say that Melo has more versatility scoring the ball - he's mostly a jump shooter but he can also take you off the dribble, take you in the post, and he has the midrange game

King on the other hand mostly did his work in the low post which made his ability to score all the more impressive because more times than not, you had to put a bigger player on him down in the low blocks, he was too difficult to guard in the post for 95% of the small forwards back then. In addition, Becaused he played nearer to the basket than Melo does, it made him the more efficient scorer of the two.

King once led the league in scoring at 32.9ppg...Melo may go on to win the scoring title but he's averaging a little over 28ppg and this has been his best season offensively.

King also played in an era where the small forward position had far greater players playing the position than the 3's Melo is going up against (Lebron & Durant are the only *elite* small forwards in the game, all others are good to average), so it says a lot abt the player he was for him to be amongst the elite players at his position when you had all time greats and HOF type players at that position
-Bird
-Dr.J
-James Worthy
-Marcus Johnson
-Dominique Wilkins
-Adrian Dantley
-Mark Aguirre
-Alex English

Also, when the list for the 50 greatest players came out 1996, Bernard King was the player I heard more than anyone else who other former players said should've made the list (Nique and Dantley got some mentions)

Melo as of right now is not even on track to make the HOF, let alone being thought of as one of the greatest players to ever play. He still has time but as of right now he's not a better player than Bernard King was...