Anthony's contract is up at the end of the season. The Nuggets have 3-year extension on the table for Anthony to sign, if he wants to, but he doesn't. Anthony wants to play in New York, and he will one way or another. A trade this season would just speed up the inevitable. That is, of course, if he gets what he wants, and is traded to the New York Knicks. If somehow the Nets land him, then we would have to wait a couple years before seeing Melo play in New York. A trade has little to no impact on this NBA season though.
The Knicks and Nuggets will most likely make the playoffs this year with or without Anthony. The Knicks currently sit comfortably in the 6th seed in the East. The two teams behind them that are set to go to the playoffs as of right now, the Pacers and 76ers, both have losing records, and it would take a catastrophic meltdown for the Knicks to be held out of the playoffs. Acquiring Anthony would only maybe result in a bump to the 4th or 5th seed, but those seeds are currently held by two pretty good teams in the Magic and Hawks. The Nuggets have the 7th seed locked up in the West as of right now in what's turned out to be a pretty bad Western Conference this year. I honestly think that the Nuggets would still make the playoffs even with trading away Anthony.
The Nets have the third worst record in the NBA and it would not make any difference if they acquired Anthony. I am aware that they would also gain two other solid players in Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton from the current trade that's being negotiated, but I don't think that trio would be enough to get the Nets into the playoffs this year. The Nets getting Anthony would be a move for the future to coincide with their move to Melo's hometown of Brooklyn.
As you can see, Anthony being traded this season really has no impact overall on the NBA currently. I think the media is blowing the trade rumors out of proportion because basically everyone in the League expects Anthony to be playing for a New York team in the near future anyways. The media has seemingly used the trade rumors to counteract all the coverage LeBron James gets from saying the stupid things he says or tweets on a weekly basis. Media needs to find something else to focus on though because any Melo trade isn't going to be important. Media should get these three words into their heads: Melo matters not. The sooner they do, the sooner the topics that are actually newsworthy can be reported on.
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I think there's a couple things you're missing:
ReplyDelete- if he accepts the trade to NJ, then NJ can offer him an extension now (3 yrs/$65 mil is what I saw). if he waits until the offseason, there's no telling what the salary cap may be or what the max contract he could get, since we're heading into labor talks. what if he is a free agent and he can only make $15 mil vs. the 20+ he could have made with an extension from the nets?
- ideally, he'd like to go to the knicks, but they have nothing to offer denver (at least anything they want) and aren't just going to give carmelo away. they can at least ride out the rest of the year, get to the playoffs and hope for the best.
- if he is traded though, I could easily see Denver diving in the standings and not making the playoffs. they'd no longer have arguably their two best player (anthony and billups) and would most likely get younger players who'd have to learn a new system. I could easily see a Phoenix or Houston going on a little run and taking Denver's place in the playoff race.
ultimately, I think it's a pretty interesting dynamic where a guy obviously wants to go somewhere (NY), but also wants to make his money. meanwhile, the team he wants to go to doesn't have much to offer the team he's currently with. and the team that does want him, he may not want to go to them (and subsequently resign with them). basically, there's a lot of people who want something, but the other person/team doesn't want what they're offering. I imagine it'll get worked out one way or another, because i doubt the nuggets want to end up with nothing to show for him (other than a trade exception, I guess), but I don't know that the nets are going to make the trade for him if they can't get him to agree to an extension. new york is probably doing the right thing and waiting for denver to come back and take their 40 cents on the dollar offer.