Anthony finally finds home with Thunder
Long-teased deal to play with Harden, Paul never pans out, so Knicks ship forward to OKC
The Rockets’ long, slow-speed chase of a deal for Carmelo Anthony is over.
It ended Saturday when Anthony green-lit the Knicks to send him to Oklahoma City rather than wait any longer for a way to get to his preferred destination.
The Thunder pulled off one last stunning move in an NBA offseason full of them, landing the 10-time All-Star with the Knicks and Nuggets for no more than reserves Enes Kanter and Doug McDermott and the Bulls’ second-round pick.
The Rockets, long teased by the 6-8 forward’s desire to join them, were left to wonder if they can miss something they never had.
They will soon find out. That will likely be determined by how far the players they preferred to keep and those they could not move will help their stars contend in a Western Conference getting more loaded with nearly every astonishing move.
Anthony, 33, had given the Rockets the inside track to deal for him by telling the Knicks he would only waive his no-trade clause for a move to Houston.
But the Rockets and Knicks never got any traction on an agreement on a deal and could not find a third team to provide the Knicks with the sort of young talent they sought.
Forward Ryan Anderson has a contract that could have made a deal for Anthony work, but the Knicks had no interest in a role player signed for three more seasons to play the same position as their best player, Krystaps Porzingis.
The Rockets were not about to offer a package built around combinations of Clint Capela, Trevor Ariza and Eric Gordon, not wanting to take two steps back to take one forward.
An offer built around Chinanu Onuaku and Isaiah Taylor was not going to get it done. All-Star expands options
Instead, the Rockets waited for the Knicks to grow more desperate as the Knicks and Anthony played chicken. Either the Knicks would give in and trade Anthony to the Rockets for whatever they could get or Anthony would relent and agree to waive his no-trade clause to go somewhere besides the city where his buddies Chris Paul and James Harden play.
On Friday, hours after the Knicks brass said again and again they expected Anthony to attend Monday’s media day and Tuesday’s opening of camp, Anthony blinked, offering to accept a move to the Thunder or Cavaliers.
The Rockets had long since run out of things to discuss with the Knicks. The Knicks moved quickly to come up with a deal that amounts to Oklahoma City’s second steal of the offseason.
Since losing to the Rockets in five first-round games, the Thunder have turned Kanter, McDermott, Victor Oladipo, Domantas Sabonis and a second-round Bulls pick into Carmelo Anthony and Paul George.
Since the Warriors rolled to the championship, Paul, George, Anthony, Paul Millsap, Dwight Howard, Gordon Hayward, Isaiah Thomas, Kyrie Irving and Jimmy Butler have relocated.
A season since Kevin Durant joined the Warriors, the Thunder added two of those stars to MVP Russell Westbrook for spare parts (and the uncertainty about how they’ll keep them together or pay incredible luxury tax fees.)
When the Rockets open camp this week, they will have no complaints. They did not put together the three-star super team general manager Daryl Morey has long sought. But they did what they wanted in the offseason.
They got the second star they needed with the deal for Paul. They improved defensively with the additions of P.J. Tucker, Luc Mbah a Moute and Tarik Black. They kept Ariza and Gordon and don’t mind having Anderson back at the 3-point line, considering his issues shooting on his home court too inexplicable to be more than a one-season fluke. Tough road ahead
Anthony would have done more, though his first job with the Rockets would have had to be as a catch-and-shoot floor spacer to replace Anderson. The Rockets, as with the Thunder, would have thought of him as a power forward first.
Instead, their championship chances remain tied not just to how well Harden and Paul mesh and play to their enormous potential, but how those brought in to play around them compete against the elite.
That club of contenders gained another member Saturday. The Rockets considered themselves worthy to be included in that small group. That did not change, even if the road just to face the Warriors got that much tougher.