The Houston Rockets seemed to be nearing a trade with the New York Knicks to bring Carmelo Anthony into the fold. The trade would give the Rockets a Big 3 to rival the Golden State Warriors as Carmelo would join James Harden and Chris Paul to create another very powerful super team in the West. However, the Knicks announced that they were pulling back all trade offers for now and were considering keeping Anthony in New York. Here is a look at how the Rockets and Carmelo are dealing with the latest news.
Harden wants Carmelo in Houston
James Harden knows that the Houston Rockets will be good in the 2017-18 NBA season but he also knows that they need to be better to beat the Golden State Warriors.
Harden said that Carmelo Anthony is still one of the top players in the NBA right now but he said that he will leave it all up to the Houston front office to deal with the issue of the trade. With that said, Harden revealed that he thinks that Carmelo will help the Rockets “tremendously” if he joins the team.
However, James Harden also said that the team that Houston has right now is “pretty good,” meaning that he feels pretty confident about their future with him and Chris Paul as the two big stars. There is also the idea that the Houston Rockets would have to clear some salary cap room to sign Carmelo and that could hurt that locker room quality that Harden was talking about. While Harden doesn’t feel it is his job to recruit players, he did say that the Warriors set a standard with their team and the rest of the NBA needs to get to that standard as well.
Carmelo Anthony is ready to join Houston Rockets
For most of the 2016-17 NBA season, former New York Knicks team president Phil Jackson was doing everything he could to chase Carmelo Anthony out of town. However, Carmelo refused to waive his no-trade clause. With Jackson gone, many thought that Anthony would remain in New York but then they signed Tim Hardaway Jr.
to a huge deal and that almost signaled that the Knicks were ready to move on.
When Carmelo Anthony said he would waive his no-trade clause for a move to the Cleveland Cavaliers or Houston Rockets, the Knicks started working on it. Anthony seemed ready to leave and the Knicks reconsidering this week does not change that. ESPN reported that, when Carmelo meets with the Knicks’ front office next week, he will tell them to trade him to the Houston Rockets and that he no longer wants to play with the team.
