For the past year, Carmelo Anthony has been kicked around by the Knicks organization, namely former team president Phil Jackson,, who spent much of the 2016-17 season trashing Anthony to the media in an effort to drive him out of New York. Those efforts failed and ultimately it was Jackson that found himself fired, largely because of his crusade to get Anthony off of the team by any means necessary.
Now, with Jackson gone and general manager Steve Mills back in charge of the Knicks’ front office, the focus of the Knicks continues to be unloading Anthony, but going about it in a somewhat more diplomatic manner. That approach seems to be enough to make Anthony reconsider his hard line stance for the past year-plus that he will not waive his no-trade clause (ironically, the one that was given to him by Jackson).
According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Anthony now has two teams on his list of possible destinations that he would waive his no-trade clause to get to: the Rockets and the Cavaliers.
It comes as little surprise that Anthony would make the two teams that have his best friends in the league his preferred trade destinations, but the fact that he’s considering taking a trade after all we’ve heard from him about staying in New York to be near his family is newsworthy.
LeBron James and Chris Paul are well known as Anthony’s best friends in the NBA (along with Dwyane Wade), so it makes sense that the two places outside New York he’d consider going to would allow him to play with one of his buddies for the first time in his career. We already heard from La La Anthony on the matter, noting that Cleveland is pretty close to New York, but Anthony seems willing to branch out beyond teams a short ride away from the Big Apple, so long as they have a close friend on the squad.
The Rockets likely have more ammunition to land Anthony in a trade than the Cavs, who seem like a more likely post-buyout destination for Anthony than a trade partner for the Knicks — unless, for some reason, they were willing to flip Kevin Love for him, which seems highly unlikely. Houston makes far more sense, but as Wojnarowski notes it would have to involve the Knicks eating Ryan Anderson’s salary, which pays him over $20 million annually for the next three years. It is yet to be known what the Knicks’ asking price is in terms of younger assets coming back for Anthony, but to take on Anderson, it would likely require some significant deal sweetening from Houston.
