Report: NY Knicks Reject Deal For Carmelo Anthony
(Royce Young/cbssports.com) -- According to the New York Daily News, a deal was on the table between the Knicks and Nuggets, but New York turned it down. The Knicks would've received Carmelo Anthony while they were sending Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Eddy Curry and at least one first-round pick.
Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni both agreed that was too steep a price to pay. Also headed to New York in that deal was Chauncey Billups, but that really didn't sweeten the pot for New York.
The Knicks were wise to rebuff the Nuggets on that deal. Giving up Gallinari, Felton, a first-rounder and Curry's corpse is a bit much when they know they can get Melo anyway. I do think if you swapped Wilson Chandler in for Gallinari and took Felton and Billups out of the deal, this thing would get done. That appears to be more of a realistic trade that the Knicks would agree to. The Nuggets wouldn't be happy, but that's the way it is.
Also in the report is that the Nuggets are most interested in making a deal with either New York or Chicago. The Rockets and Mavericks are in the discussion, but those are long shots. And of course the Nuggets could call back the Nets, but that's probably going nowhere.
The Knicks are running a small risk here if they don't go ahead and reel in Carmelo. First, Anthony might decide he doesn't want to lose money in free agency. Ken Berger wrote yesterday, "Under the owners' proposal, Anthony would only be eligible for a four-year, $47 million deal with New York as an unrestricted free agent." That's almost $20 million. That's a lot.
And Marc Stein of ESPN tweeted that the Nuggets might try and keep Anthony because of the potential for a franchise tag rule in the new CBA.
So there's definitely cause for the Knicks to act sooner than later. There's a lot of posturing going on and it's hard to know what's going on, but I firmly believe Carmelo Anthony will be a New York Knick come Feb. 25. It's just going to take a better deal than this one.
