The Carmelo Anthony saga in New York has finally come to a close with the team agreeing to a deal to send him to the Oklahoma City Thunder. In the deal the Knicks will be receiving Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott and a 2018 second-round pick via Chicago. The terms of the trade were reported by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN via his Twitter account.
This deal finally puts an end to one of the more dramatic will he be traded or not? situations in recent memory in the league. It would have been essentially impossible for the Knicks to bring Carmelo into training camp on Monday and ask him to play with all of his effort and now they will not have to do that.
Pairing Anthony with Paul George and Russell Westbrook in OKC will make them a very dangerous team that has three guys that can get a bucket at any time and if they get a healthy and motivated Carmelo Anthony that will bode really well for their chances of making a run to the Western Conference Finals. This is just another great move made by Thunder GM Sam Presti as he continues to prove that he is one of, if not the best GM in the whole league with the way that he has re-tooled the team since losing Kevin Durant in free agency a couple of years ago.
For the Knicks this move makes sense simply because they couldn’t afford to bring Anthony back for this season after the way his relationship with the team has become damaged publicly over the past couple of year. The biggest piece they will be receiving in my opinion is easily Enes Kanter because he will give a legit big man to pair with Kristaps Porzingis.
The NBA offseason really never ceases to be entertaining even when training camps are about to start around the league.