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Thursday, September 23, 2010

TWTWTNBA: The Melo Conundrum



So, the Nuggets finally relented and decided to do the inevitable and listen to trade offers involving Carmelo Anthony. They're not going to get full value, but they'll try. Who should be trying to pry away him from the Rocky Mountains?

These are in no particular order, by the way.

1. Los Angeles Clippers. Homerism aside, they have an interesting trade chip (David Kahn's unprotected future 1st round pick. You can thank Adrianna Lima's husband). They can also dangle any combination of Chris Kaman, Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon and Aminu. In the end though, Sterling will nix it for he is Donald Sterling.

2. Chicago Bulls. Any deals that Denver would be interested in would probably involve Joakim Noah. The Bulls would like to jettison Luol Deng out of Chi-town at this point. Other than that, no dice.

3. New Jersey Nets. If this Russian billionaire is like the one that's running Chelsea FC, they will be looking for a star. They struck out on Lebron (for now), so they train their eyes on Melo for the Barclays marquee. They can trade Derrick Favors, a gaggle of big men and possibly Devin Harris.

4. New York Knicks. Because they are Melo's top choice. Unfortunately, they don't exactly have the ammo for a deal. They'll need a conduit third team in the mix.

5. Philadelphia 76rs. The Sixers would be interesting if they can part with Iggy and/or Brand. Yes, Elton pretty much sucked since he left the Clips to sign that huge contract. Iggy played well in Istanbul, but he's a glue guy paid like a superstar (sort of what Rudy Gay is now).

6. Orlando Magic. They are so ridiculously deep that they can offload them onto someone and not miss a beat. Gortat / Bass would be included, as would probably Vince. Hey, they can jettison the rights to the coward named Fran Vasquez.

7. Washington Wizards. Melo grew up in Baltimore, so a hometown trip may be what he needs. He would also be relieving pressure on John Wall to become a scorer and focus more being a distributor. It's unlikely though because it will definitely involve Gilbert Arenas' contract, which is highly immovable.

8. Los Angeles Lakers. Imagine Melo with Kobe and Pau vis-a-vis the South Beach Diet of Wade, Lebron, and Bosh. They'll have to part with Odom and Bynum to do this, for starters. If Kupchak pulls this one off, God help us.

9. Houston Rockets. Given that Yao Ming is the Zydrunas Ilgauskas 2.0, Daryl Morey has some nice trade chips he can use to snag Melo (Kevin Martin or Luis Scola, but not both).

10. Atlanta Hawks. I just think that the Hawks need to shake their offensive lineup a little bit. I have a sense that there is not really much upside left and they need to fix it to compete with the upgrades that Miami and Boston conducted. A Melo-JR Smith for Joe Johnson-Marvin Williams swap could help both squads.

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