Carmelo Anthony NBA Trade Rumors: Damian Lillard Says Anthony 'Didn't Seem Opposed' to Joining the Blazers
A couple of months ago, Carmelo Anthony's departure from the New York Knicks seemed inevitable. He has already agreed to waive his no-trade clause to join James Harden and Chris Paul in Houston, and all they had to do was to work on a trade with the Rockets.
Unfortunately, trade negotiations had been difficult and a stalemate has ensued between the Knicks and the Rockets. Anthony can always wait it out. But with training camp just around the corner, perhaps he should consider moving elsewhere.
In a recent interview with Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated, Damian Lillard revealed that Anthony "didn't seem opposed" to the idea of waiving his no-trade clause for the Portland Trail Blazers, but he added that he didn't want to go overboard to convince the All-Star forward to join them.
"I didn't want to press him. I ain't a big fan of doing all the extra recruiting and all that stuff. And I guess they call it tampering or whatever. It's not against the rules for us to interact with each other. We all peers, we all play in the same league, and everybody hints at playing with each other. 'What you think about this?' 'What do you think about that?' All that matters is whether it got done or did not get done," Lillard said.
Aside from Lillard, C.J. McCollum and Evan Turner have also attempted to recruit Anthony this offseason.
Anthony's numbers have been on the decline for the past couple of seasons, but he's still a pretty good player on the offensive end of the floor and he can lighten the scoring load placed on Lillard and McCollum. Still, acquiring him is going to be risky for the Blazers because a high-volume score like Anthony can mess up the flow of their offense. They will also have to give up a lot to get him.