Carmelo to the Lakers? Yes, and then no
The New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers should make a deal involving Carmelo Anthony, but won’t.
Sometimes in life, you have nothing left but to shake your head and either laugh or cry. Hell, you might decide to do both simultaneously and nobody would blame you.
In the case of Knicks and Lakers fans, this is sadly the reality. New York and Los Angeles are two of the pillar franchises in the National Basketball Association, and both are rancid. The Knicks have been to the second round of the playoffs exactly once since Patrick Ewing was traded away, and the Lakers are looking at a decade into oblivion with Jim Buss running the show.
Yet, both teams could start to fix their disasters with one man. Carmelo Anthony.
Anthony is under contract with a full no-trade clause for this season and the following three. His cap hits are $22.875 million, $24.559M, $26.243M and $27.928M. When that contract runs out, Anthony will be 34 years old and ready for a rocking chair, or at least a heavily-reduced role. So why would the Lakers want him? Star power and attractiveness for free agents.
Anthony is still a superstar in the league. He’s an elite scorer and a quality rebounder who can play either forward position and excels on the wing. This year, despite a horrid cast of characters around him save rookie Kristaps Porzingis, Anthony is averaging 21.4 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.
Also, the salary cap is about to explode in 2016 with the influx of television money. Anthony’s contract is still large, but the number will be much easier to handle the rest of the way. Right now, the cap stands at $63.065 million. Next year, some believe it will jump to a whopping $108 million. Salaries are going to explode, and Anthony will be seen as a reasonable contract to have on the books.
If these two teams wanted to make a deal, consider the following: Anthony and Jerian Grant to the Lakers for D’Angelo Russell, Tarik Black and Roy Hibbert.
On the surface, New York should be jumping at this deal and Los Angeles should hang up the phone. Yet, the exact opposite would happen. New York owner James Dolan is idiotic and meddling, and would squash the notion of moving Anthony out of Madison Square Garden. Buss would immediately sign off, with rumors already swirling that Russell could be on the move.
Frankly, the move is solid for both teams when you look a bit closer. Los Angeles gets the best player in the deal who will suddenly have a palatable contract, while New York gets a terrific young player to pair with Porzingis and a pair of expiring contracts. Furthermore, the Knicks would finally have a competent point guard for the first time since Mark Jackson in the early 1990s.
Unfortunately, this won’t happen, and both fan bases can continue to weep.