Carmelo Anthony came to the Los Angeles Lakers last season hoping to win his first career championship.
While he ultimately came up short, it wasn’t because of a lack of effort on his part. He was brought to L.A. to serve as an offensive sparkplug off the bench, and that is precisely what he was.
Anthony didn’t let the Lakers down; the Lakers let Anthony down.
Now, having raised his stock in the eyes of NBA execs yet again, Anthony needs a new team for 2022-23. At the moment, two squads appear to be the most legit potential suitors for him.
As noted by Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley, don’t sleep on a possible Anthony to the Golden State Warriors move.
“[Anthony] is primarily a spacer at this stage, but he can still create offense in a pinch against second-team defenses,” he wrote.
“Most of his makes were of the catch-and-shoot variety (1.9 per game, per NBA.com), and that skill could shine brilliantly in Golden State’s motion attack. The Warriors generated the third-most catch-and-shoot threes this past season (27.3), and having a sharpshooter like Anthony on the receiving end of those passes could up the offense’s potency.”
The Lakers are also possibly in the hunt. According to NBA insider Evan Massey, “the Lakers have had productive talks towards bringing Carmelo Anthony back.”
That said, he was careful to add one asterisk: “However, there are still a couple of other teams in the mix,” he noted.
Two teams have consistently been in the hunt to steal Anthony from the Lakers since the beginning of the summer, but circumstances have changed around the league dramatically over the last few weeks. It’s unclear what their level of interest is at this point.
Anthony averaged 13.3 points and 4.2 rebounds over 69 games for the Lakers in 2021-22. In addition, he also connected on 37.5 percent of his shots from beyond the arc.
Does he come with some off-the-court nonsense? Sure. His groupie drama from last season wasn’t great. Neither was La La going into such explicit detail regarding why she divorced him.
But you have to take the good with the bad.
— Game 7 (@game7__) July 25, 2022
And Anthony, on the court, is a stellar player – even at this age.
Who will he ultimately end up with when it’s all said and done?
Time will tell.
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Jennifer Withers Hoey is a former Business Development Manager who transitioned to writing about sports. With valuable connections all over the West Coast, she has used those contacts to break some of the most interesting stories pertaining to the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Ducks, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Seattle Supersonics (RIP), and more.
