Clippers And Knicks Seeking Third Team For Carmelo Anthony Trade

Carmelo Anthony may be on the move after all. On Friday reports surfaced that the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Clippers were seeking a third team to help the two sides keep a potential trade alive.

ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne and Marc Stein are reporting the Knicks would reportedly be willing to ship out Anthony without taking back any of the Clippers’ top three players. In this scenario, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan would remain in Los Angeles. That might be the sticking point though, as the Clippers don’t have much else to offer.

The Clippers are definitely interested in adding Anthony, who has two years and $53 million left on his current contract. That said, they would likely have to part with two of their healthy guards (Jamal Crawford, Austin Rivers and J.J. Redick) in any deal. That would be difficult as Paul is currently sidelined with a thumb injury.

A lot of this deal is a mess, since the Knicks likely would be averse to adding the three years and $42 million left on Crawford’s deal after this season. That would be exchanging one bad contract for another. Additionally, if Anthony gets traded, a 15 percent trade kicker would up his 2016-17 salary by almost $10 million. So yeah, there’s a lot of complications here.

Unless they can find a third team to get involved any talks between the two sides will almost certainly fall apart.