You will not see Carmelo Anthony in Rockets’ red ever again.
This is not a huge surprise, he has been away from the team for three games now, ever since his 1-of-11 shooting disaster in Oklahoma City. Both sides have been ready to move on and that has become official.
“After much internal discussion, the Rockets will be parting ways with Carmelo Anthony and we are working toward a resolution,” Rockets’ General Manager Daryl Morey said in a statement. “Carmelo had a tremendous approach during his time with the Rockets and accepted every role head coach Mike D’Antoni gave him. 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.”
Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN broke the story and added some details.
The problem is there is not a good landing spot for Anthony around the league, so expect this to drag out (as I reported before would likely be the case). Anthony may not want to go to a rebuilding team, and even if he did why would a young squad such as the Kings or Hawks want to take the ball out of the hands of their young learning-on-the-fly playmakers to give those shots to Anthony? On the other end, Anthony just showed he isn’t going to readily accept a role and blend in with a contender. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, and while there were rumors about the Lakers, Heat, Pelicans, and others kicking the tires on bringing him in they each seem to have decided it’s not a great fit.
In 10 games for the Rockets this season coming off the bench, Anthony averaged 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds a game, shot just 40.5 percent overall and 32.8 percent from three, plus the Houston defense has been 10.4 points per 100 possessions better when he is off the court. At this point in his career, that’s pretty much who Anthony is. Anthony wasn’t the root cause of the Rockets’ slow start to the season, but he wasn’t fixing any defensive or three-point shooting problems, either. At this point, Anthony is a bench/role player in the NBA but feels entitled to a larger role and more deference from teams. With all that, it could be a while before a team steps up to take a chance on ‘Melo.