Melo should be forever grateful if Nuggets get him to New York
By Chris Dempsey Posted October 20, 2010, 11:43 am MT
If Carmelo Anthony ends up with the New York Knicks, he should bend over backward to thank a franchise that not only reluctantly let their superstar go, but waited and fulfilled his every wish to do so.
That will have been a big-time classy move, my friends.
Anthony could be in New Jersey right this minute. And while that would be fine with him, particularly since the team has plans to move to Brooklyn in the near future, it just wouldn’t be the Knicks. Anthony loves playing in The Garden. He says it every time he goes to New York for a game, and he’ll say it again in December, if he’s still a Nugget by then.
One of the most overblown aspects of this entire story has been the willingness of many to interpret Anthony’s words of fondness for playing in The Garden into meaning he wanted to play for the Knicks. But he does.
And Melo could be headed there. Soon.
The Knicks play in Denver on Nov. 16. What if Anthony were in Knicks blue for that one?
He should bring the team a gift basket. The best offer the Nuggets could act on was the New Jersey offer. The team has tried to do its due diligence since then, scouring the league for more lucrative offers, and you know what that’s turned up? The New Jersey deal was the best deal that could actually happen.
But it’s also given time for the Knicks to be creative, and that’s what that organization is trying to be right now. It’s no secret that they didn’t have all of the necessary assets required to be a serious player in the Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes at the start. But give enterprising people like Donnie Walsh, Knicks president of basketball operations, enough time, and they’ll put the pieces of the puzzle together and make it work.
And so ‘making it work’ has definite faces: Eddy Curry (expiring contract), Anthony Randolph and Danilo Gallinari (both good young talent?) and a first-round pick from somewhere else.
This would be a Carmelo-centic deal. The player would get everything he wants, but you get the feeling the Nuggets get only part of what they want and, most importantly, need. The first-round pick is good. The expiring contract is nice to have for future signing purposes, although there’s nothing extra intriguing out there in at least the next two free agent summers. The players, however, you can take-or-leave, and that’s not the value the Nuggets need in return. Allowing for the fact that the team will not ever get equal or close to equal value for Anthony, it should at least grab one young player that can be an integral part of the new core going forward. I’ve seen Anthony Randolph score in bunches at times, and Gallinari flaunt what can be a deadly 3-point stroke, but neither strikes as being cornerstone-type players.
One reason why that’s important: It chops down on the time it takes to jump back into the pack of relevant teams.
This will be a process; there is no doubt about it, and everyone wants it to be as fast as possible. Anthony’s departure will mean the impending departure of others as well as the Nuggets strip down to a foundation they want to build from. Makes it easier if there are one – or two – fewer players they’d need to draft to attain that goal. There’s a hitting-the-ground-running aspect to it that can happen if at least one player coming back is prime-time or has the obvious potential to be prime-time with the right coaching.
So while the Nuggets would be generous to give Anthony what he wants and the Knicks would beam because they got the player they wanted, the Nuggets must also make sure that when all the food is being taken they aren’t simply left with scraps.
Chris Dempsey: www.twitter.com/dempseypost or cdempsey@denverpost.com
10/20/2010 3:26 PM
