The Knicks Offered Carmelo Anthony For Kevin Love, The Cavs Laughed

Carmelo Anthony’s days with the New York Knicks may be numbered, but the franchise’s brass may want to rethink what it can get in return for him. A report from ESPN’s Marc Stein claims the Knicks offered to trade Anthony to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for Kevin Love. They were rebuffed because Cavs general manager David Griffin isn’t an idiot.

As I’ve written before, Anthony is nowhere close to the player he once was. His PER has dropped to 19.68 this season. Meanwhile, Love is 28 (four years younger than Melo) and appears to finally be fitting in alongside LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in Cleveland. He’s currently averaging 20.5 points and 10.9 rebounds in 31.9 minutes per game. His PER has also risen to 22.28, his highest number since joining the Cavs before the 2014-15 season.

There is no way the Knicks can expect to extract an All-Star caliber player for Anthony at this point of his career. Yes, Melo is close friends with James, but LeBron isn’t dumb enough to try and push a trade like this through. He might want to play with Anthony, but he knows his salary is too high and Love is too valuable to give up for an aging former star.

The fact that the Knicks actually tried to work on this kind of deal is hilarious. Have Phil Jackson and the folks at MSG just completely lost touch with reality?