Houston Rockets Rumors: Why the team will win Carmelo Anthony

The new marriage between the Houston Rockets and Carmelo Anthony is becoming closer to a reality and he expects that a deal should be done soon.

The trade rumor involving the Houston Rockets has had tremendous legs for the past couple of weeks, continuing to have twists and turns like a bona-fide soap opera. The drama leading up to the intricacies of a complicated maneuver to get Carmelo Anthony out of Gotham City has been dominating the headlines, mostly in the Houston Rockets’ favor.

Toward the end of last week, trade talks were on the “two-yard line” as a report from the New York Daily News had phrased it and it was likely that a deal would be done through the weekend. Now we’re almost at the completion and there’s no sign of an agreement just yet. The Knicks just completed the hiring of Scott Perry — the former VP of basketball ops with the Sacramento Kings — to take over the GM duties. Keep in mind, that Perry was just hired at his former post back in April, so to say the Knicks lured him away the Kings, with his former employer accepting goes to show their blatant disregard for continuity in Sac-Town’s front office.

But with Perry installed as the new GM for the Knicks, the latest is to push for Melo to stay in New York. The team wants to meet with him to try to pitch and drive home the fact that he’s more valuable to them if he stays. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Melo’s trade value has plummeted, likely precipitated by Phil Jackson working immensely to discredit his stature when he was running the team.

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In that same report, it indicates that Anthony would like to and is still advocating a trade away from the Knicks to the Houston Rockets. But in this situation, there’s nothing much Melo can do as he can’t opt-out of his contact until after the end of this upcoming season. So if the Knicks forcibly bring him back, he’ll have to swallow his pride and play one more season in the Big Apple. But that option is undesirable for Anthony and won’t benefit the Knicks in the long-run as they’d likely let Anthony go without getting anything in return after the 2017-18 season.

The best option for the Knicks now is to work a trade so that way they get the highest return now instead of nothing later down the road. They may not like what their getting in proposals that they’ve come up with so far but the team has little leverage in this situation.

Another interesting wrinkle in the report was that the Portland Trail Blazers were interested in being a trade partner for Anthony but only on the condition if he waived his no-trade clause for them. We all know that’s not going to happen. The Blazers have no interest in being part of trade that would bring Melo in the fold in the Western Conference. With that stance, you can almost nix the Blazers out as being part of trade, unless something changes with the return that they like, not including Anthony.

Yes, we’re all concerned about the chemistry between teammates if Melo should become a Rocket. Of course, we don’t know if it’s going to work considering his past relationship with Mike D’Antoni and his ball-hogging style at times. But you have to try something different if the objective is to beat the Golden State Warriors and Daryl Morey’s doing that. That’s why I continue to applaud him. Will this deal happen? I think so but it will be within a matter of time when the Knicks realize that they’re up the creek without a paddle. Until then, we must wait. Tick-tock…tick-tock…

Next: Why Chris Paul made his choice

Anthony, 33, averaged 22.4 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists off 43.3 percent shooting from the field and 35.9 percent from three through 74 games last season.

Go Rockets.

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