After Carmelo Anthony struggled with Oklahoma City Thunder last season and had a failed 10-games experiment with the Houston Rockets this season, it started to look like he will never play in the NBA league again.
But that won’t be the case if Los Angeles Lakers’ star LeBron James can do something about it.
According to a report by Joe Vardon of The Athletic, James believes that Melo still has what it takes to play a significant role in NBA and would like the Lakers to explore the possibility of bringing him to Los Angeles.
While Vardon’s sources said that James wouldn’t request the Lakers to acquire Anthony, he is convinced that this move would benefit the team greatly.
LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony are close friends off the court, entering the league at the same time; James was the No.1 pick in 2003 NBA while Anthony was selected third overall. They expressed interest in playing together several times over the years, and were close of achieving that in 2017 when Anthony was about to leave New York Knicks. There were rumors that he might join James in Cleveland at the time but ended up in Oklahoma City with Russell Westbrook and Paul George.
Despite James’ desire, it remains unclear whether Magic Johnson and the rest of Lakers’ front office would be willing to add Carmelo Anthony. Although Anthony averaged solid numbers in his 10 games with the Rockets, 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, he was such a liability on the defense that the team deemed him unplayable and openly said that his time in Houston is over.
It now remains to be seen whether Lakers or any other NBA team are willing to bet on Anthony once again.
