The Lakers Reportedly Have No Interest In Signing Carmelo Anthony, Even If LeBron Does


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LeBron James hasn’t told the Los Angeles Lakers that they should sign Carmelo Anthony, which is good because they apparently have no interest in doing so.

But the nuance is important here, which is why a report on Thursday that James wanted the Lakers to sign his banana boat friend is, indeed, very different than the reality that the Lakers have no interest. James apparently didn’t ask LA to sign his friend, but reports that he wanted them to did come to light on Thursday.

Los Angeles Times writer Rob Turner reported on Friday that, despite those reports, the Lakers have no interest in doing anything of the sort.

Ramona Shelburne echoed the same on Thursday evening:

The problem here is that many feel that Melo has played his last game in the NBA, but he has a lot of good friends who are on teams and think he’s been mistreated by the Rockets, Thunder, Knicks and so on. Having his final act be to get paid by a Rockets team that doesn’t want him isn’t sitting well with many, LeBron included.

But actually going to the Lakers and demanding they sign his friend is a very different thing than floating something in the press and seeing where it lands. Which appears to be what happened here. For what it’s worth, Joe Vardon, who wrote the initial report about James’ wishes on Thursday, tweeted shortly after the report that the Lakers were not interested came out to clarify that, well, something is definitely going on here.

What that something is, however, seems unlikely that it ends with Anthony signing in Los Angeles.

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