With his relationship with the Knicks all but damaged, Carmelo Anthony could possibly be looking for a new home to play out the twilight of his career. At this point, he’s pretty much been relegated to a one-dimensional scorer. Not much defense, not much ball movement…just let it fly, and if he’s hot– he’s absolutely still capable of going for 50 on any given night.
If he’s cold, well he can be bad enough to shoot your team out of wins, and ultimately out of the playoff race.
However, it just so happens that the rival Boston Celtics are struggling mightily with the Chicago Bulls in the 1st round of the playoffs, mostly because they only have one reliable scorer in Isaiah Thomas.
Carmelo wouldn’t help many championship-caliber teams with his style of play because any team that doesn’t have a LeBron James or Kevin Durant on the roster is going to need to depend on moving the ball and getting players open/good looks…not Carmelo’s strong suit by a long shot.
But a team like the Celtics, a stable organization with solid coaching & leadership could definitely use a scorer like Carmelo. They have enough perimeter defenders, plus defense is contagious. On that team even Carmelo would step it up enough to not look like a complete liability on the floor.
According to the NY Post’s Marc Berman, the Celtics might be starting to agree with that sentiment as well. If you remember the trade talks earlier in the season, Carmelo didn’t garner much interest from the Celtics, however after seeing how devoid the team is of a second scoring threat, plus with Melo seemingly on the outs with Knicks management; Danny Ainge may be singing a different tune:
According to an NBA source, the Celtics coaching staff was in favor of trading for Anthony at the trade deadline, but general manager Danny Ainge had too many reservations. One of Ainge’s concerns, according to a source, was an Anthony trade would have given Boston no real cap space to work with for the 2017 free-agent class.
With the top-seeded Celtics possibly on their way to getting swept by the eighth-seeded Bulls, Ainge’s thoughts on adding Anthony could change this July.
The Post has learned that in talks with the Celtics, their defensive small forward Jae Crowder would be a major player of interest for Knicks president Phil Jackson. In fact, Jackson lamented not trading for Crowder when he was on the table in the 2014 trade talks with the Mavericks for Tyson Chandler. Crowder is an active, gritty defender who can shoot from 3-point range.
The Celtics long have been thought of as a sensible destination for Anthony because of their expiring contracts and trove of draft picks that will include the Nets’ first-round selection (Boston is seeded first in the May 16 lottery, though that pick is off limits).
The Celtics may have the most flexibility to make some moves with a multitude of draft picks and a playoff team already on the floor; and theres no doubt a focused, healthy Carmelo Anthony drastically improves them even more.
The question now is what will Danny Ainge be willing to give the Knicks, who are in a pretty bad position themselves. Anthony’s no-trade clause means that he’d need to agree to any move the Knicks want to make, and why would he want to make anything easy for them after all that’s gone on between them this season?
