Things aren’t looking good for the Houston Rockets this season, and it seems like the team is going to blame all of their problems on Carmelo Anthony. According to multiple reports from NBA Insiders like Marc Stein and Adrian Worjanowski, the Rockets are seriously thinking about releasing Anthony in the upcoming days.
Carmelo Anthony missed the Rockets’ last two games due to an “illness,” but it is believed that there is another reason behind this. There are several Houston players and members of the coaching staff that think Anthony already played his last minutes as a Rocket.
Despite all of this, the team’s general manager Daryl Morey is still reluctant to confirm the reports about Anthony’s departure and went on to call them “unfair” to the 34-year-old.
“One of the reasons I’m here, besides its 10 games in, about, is I think there’s just a lot of unfair-like rumors and everything going around about him,” – said Morey on Sunday. “He’s been great with us. As Coach [Mike D’Antoni] said yesterday, his approach has been great. He’s accepted every role Coach has given him — starting, off the bench, whatever it’s been.“
“We’re struggling as a team, and it’s my job, it’s Coach’s job to figure this thing out. But from Guy 1 to Guy 15 — and I’ll put myself in there; a lot of this is on me right now — we’re not playing well. We’ve just got to figure it out. We’re evaluating everything.” – he added.
Carmelo Anthony has struggled to gel in with the rest of Houston Rockets team since signing a one-year, $2.4 million deal in August. He is averaging 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per game this season, but the bigger issue is his defensive performance that has been particularly poor. Rockets are nine points per 100 possessions worse with Melo on the court, and that is something that a championship contender can’t allow themselves.
Either Anthony will step up on the defensive end or he will be out of Houston. Something tells us it will be the second option, but we will have to wait and see.
