Getty Images Houston Rockets forward Carmelo Anthony
Carmelo Anthony’s days as a member of the Houston Rockets are over.
What team will get him next?
The San Antonio Spurs should give Melo a look.
At 7-7 the Spurs could use the help. Thinking outside of the box, Melo has a Team USA Basketball relationship with Coach Pop, is a Baltimore native just like Rudy Gay.
The Houston Rockets announced that both the team and Anthony have parted ways and “working towards a resolution.”
The third overall pick in the 2003 draft, Anthony sat out of the Rockets’ last three games with what the team called “an illness.”
Anthony, who has averaged 24 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3 assists in his career with both the Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets career that also included stints with the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks.
A ten-time NBA All Star, Anthony signed with the Houston Rockets this summer after clearing waivers in the trade that shipped him from the Oklahoma City Thunder the Atlanta Hawks.
The Rockets needed help at the small forward position. Trevor Ariza bolted Houston and signed a one-year $15 million deal with the Phoenix Suns this summer. “He played good defense on guys,” former Houston Rockets forward, Robert Horry told me this summer.
His last appearance for Houston came in a blowout loss to Oklahoma City on Nov. 8 when he had two points and five rebounds.
“Carmelo had a tremendous approach during his time with the Rockets and accepted every role head coach Mike D’Antoni gave him,” Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey said in a released statement. “The fit we envisioned when Carmelo chose to sign with the Rockets has not materialized, therefore we thought it was best to move on as any other outcome would have been unfair to him.”
“They didn’t want to play defense on guys like Kevin Durant.”
Added Horry:
“You know it’s crazy, I live in Houston and I watch the Rockets play a lot. I see the way they play and I don’t think they gave [Trevor] Ariza enough credit for what he did for that team.”
Will he join the Los Angeles Lakers?
GettyHouston Rockets forward Carmelo Anthony and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James
USA Today’s Erik García Gundersen says it’s very unlikely he’ll join them sooner or later.
Per Gundersen: Anthony has a history with LeBron James, but the Lakers haven’t had a good start defensively to the season and adding Anthony would only exacerbate their issues.
It would effectively cancel out what they’ve added in Tyson Chandler.
Another team worth considering Anthony if he were released by the Houston Rockets is the Philadelphia 76ers, per NBA insider Chris Sheridan.
I am hearing the @Sixers are kicking the tires on the idea of claiming @carmeloanthony off waivers if the @HoustonRockets let him go. Definite need for Philly, with @dariosaric gone and @mikemuscala the only other option at the 4 right now.
“We just had to see how things worked out,” said Rockets coach, Mike D’Antoni.
“And the way we play probably wasn’t conducive to his game and he was trying to make the necessary sacrifices and it wasn’t fair to him as a Hall of Fame player to play in a way that wasn’t good for him, wasn’t good for us. It just wasn’t a fit.”
The 34-year-old Anthony is a 10-time All-Star who has had a tough time over the last two seasons. He averaged a career-low 16.2 points in 78 starts in a tumultuous season for the Thunder last season before coming to Houston – and accepting a reserve role for the first time in his 16-year career.
Eight of Anthony’s 10 appearances for the Rockets came off the bench after he had started all 1,054 games he’d played in his first 15 NBA seasons.