Carmelo Anthony is, my stars, still a member of the New York Knicks. Do the Knicks know? Has someone told them? Someone should probably tell them.
We’re getting close to the second straight season the Knicks officially begin in chaos. Last year, it was Derrick Rose’s trial and lots of other weirdness that cut the strings on the season before it ever began. Now, Kristaps Porzingis’ general frustration with the franchise and the pending departure of Anthony look primed to set the Knicks askew before they ever get the opportunity to rise the the glorious mediocrity of the NBA’s Eastern Conference.
But there’s still a faint chance that Anthony does get shipped out of town before the Knicks start their preseason media availability and things get truly weird for everyone involved. In fact, there’s some talk from Melo’s camp that the guard still thinks something could happen before he has to associate with the franchise in a professional manner.
The New York Daily News reported on Wednesday that a source is “cautiously optimistic” that a deal to the Houston Rockets can still happen sometime in the next week.
Anthony’s camp is cautiously optimistic that a deal will be struck before Monday, and trying not to think about the potential media circus that will take place if Carmelo is still with the Knicks. Two weeks ago, Carmelo’s wife, La La, said the family thought a trade would have been completed by now.
The News reported that the deal would have likely been done but Phil Jackson’s firing made what’s left of the Knicks front office reevaluate the trade and things stalled out from there. That’s a bit of irony at play there, being that Jackson and Carmelo were absolutely rooting for each other to be thrown under the proverbial bus and out of the other’s way. It is only a matter of time before both people are a part of Knicks history rather than their present, but it’s taken far longer than everyone expected to happen.
