NBA rumors: Knicks unwilling to engage in buyout talks with Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony may be ready to move on from the New York Knicks, but the team is unwilling to engage in buyout talks.

The relationship between Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks has been a growing picture of dysfunction, with team president Phil Jackson offering criticism through friends in the media and Anthony taking the high road rather well.

Anthony may want to stay in New York due to personal concerns, but it’s clear his basketball playing future is better off elsewhere. Prior to last week’s draft Jackson said as much (per ESPN), but Anthony’s no-trade clause makes it tough to do much about it.

"“Here’s a guy that’s really special, a Hall of Fame player who’s done a lot for our organization, and we know we value him highly and we know that the NBA does and other teams do,” Jackson said. “This is something that is on the long-term kind of situational thing. We’ve expressed the fact that we’ve done a lot of things to try to put teams together that can win, and we haven’t been successful, and it might be time for him to find an opportunity to go somewhere else.“[Anthony has] come back and said he’d just as soon stay. We’re trying to start growing from the youth aspect of it. There will be conversations after the draft and after free agency when teams start reorganizing their rosters.”"

Anthony has two years and around $54 million left on his contract, so a buyout is another option for he and the Knicks to part ways. The Cleveland Cavaliers have been mentioned as the front-runner to land Anthony if he is bought out. ESPN’s Marc Stein has added that Anthony’s camp is trying to engage the Knicks in buyout talks, but the team is not having it right now.

The idea from Stein suggesting the Knicks don’t want to “clear the way for him (Anthony) to join the Cavs” is the punch line here. Jackson once called the circle of people around LeBron James his “posse”, and among players in the league Anthony is one of James’ best friends. Anthony might not be a member of James’ “posse” in quite the way Jackson alluded to, but a petty comment is now being followed by more pettiness from the guy running the Knicks’ show.

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Not wanting to buy Anthony out because he may join the Cavaliers is another quintessential “Knicks’ move” during Jackson’s tenure. There’s an option to move on with Anthony’s full blessing, presumably. But Jackson apparently wants to continue to push Anthony out the door with public comments, while simultaneously making excuses for why he’s still around.