Houston Rockets: Race For Carmelo Anthony Gets Sticky
By Mario Hicks
As expected, there are many teams pursuing the services of Carmelo Anthony this season. These teams include the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Lakers. It is also rumored that the Miami Heat will join the race depending on the roster moves that are made during the upcoming NBA Draft, this Thursday.
The New York Knicks can provide Carmelo Anthony with a five year, $120 million contract, which is more than any other team could. The New York Knicks make the most sense for Carmelo from a financial perspective but they are limited on bringing in any other players so their team would most likely stay the same. This is unappealing for Anthony as he really wants to play on a team that can make the playoffs.
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The Chicago Bulls are considered early front runners as they have been planning for their pursuit of Carmelo Anthony since early January. In January the Bulls traded away all-star forward, Luol Deng in an effort to free up salary cap space to pursue Anthony this summer.
Although the Rockets do not have the salary cap space to sign Carmelo Anthony right now, they have been in numerous trade discussions to free up the money needed to sign Carmelo. The Rockets are willing to part ways with Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik and in order to be able to afford Carmelo Anthony, the Rockets are very confident, as the should be, that their destination is just as good, if not better, than Chicago for Anthony.
The Dallas Mavericks have been trying to sign a big name free agent for the last few years. Mark Cuban has positioned the Mavericks in a prime financial position to do so, but so far they have been unsuccessful. The Mavericks have recently pursued LeBron James, Derron Williams and Dwight Howard, but we saw how those moves played out and no doubt Carmelo will follow suit.
The Los Angeles Lakers have the most salary cap space available but their team is in the worst place possible after the disaster that was last season, so it seems unlikely that this would be his first choice. Lakers management and Kobe Bryant have been on different pages causing riffs which adds to the unstableness that has become the norm for LA.
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As the Miami Heat were on the verge of getting eliminated from the NBA finals, rumors started to swirl in regards to the addition of new members to their Big 3. The issue with this is that in order to achieve the welcoming of Anthony, Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade would have to take major cuts in their salaries, to the order of $7 million. It has previously been reported that LeBron and Anthony would like to play together eventually but judging by the cards that are already on the table, a miracle would have to take place to make the deal.
Carmelo Anthony will officially become a free agent at midnight on July 1st and he will have several teams violently knocking at his door. The Houston Rockets will have some persuading to do just like last year when they welcomed Dwight Howard to town.
With the Chicago Bulls being the supposed front runner right now, do you think the Houston Rockets can surpass the Bulls and convince Anthony to come to Houston?