Carmelo Anthony

[...] Most notable was the Carmelo Anthony trade. Melo simply never helped the Thunder that much in his one season with the team, yet was set to earn $27,928,140 after declining his option to terminate the deal this summer. He arguably was not wanted by them as a player at all, he definitely was not at that price, and thus his departure was inevitable. And after lengthy deliberations, the Thunder eventually settled on a trade that sent Anthony and a top-14 protected 2020 first-round pick to Atlanta in a three-way deal that yielded Dennis Schroeder from Atlanta and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot from Philadelphia.

Combined, the Schroeder and TLC pairing are to earn $17,044,951 in 2018/19, a full $10,883,189 lower than Anthony's $27,928,140. Opportunities to fully divest themselves of Anthony's salary through a salary dump trade were limited by the few teams capable of doing such a deal, opting to pursue other options, if even they were pursued at all, and while Atlanta's acquisition of Anthony was contingent on him taking a buyout with the team, thus reducing the amount owed to him, Anthony gave up only $2,393,857, a much less significant saving than the $10,883,189 saved by the Schroeder option. [...]

Carmelo Anthony
SF/PF, 6’8, 240lbs, 33 years old, 14 years of experience

Anthony’s effectiveness wanes year on year, to the point that last season’s numbers were pretty much on a par with those of his sophomore season twelve years ago, before he joined the elite. As his mobility dwin-dles, it becomes slightly harder to get to his favourite spots, slightly harder to push off for the fallaways when he gets there, and the gravity is not as strong as a result. Never a defender and a declining rebounder, the offensive game does not overcome the weaknesses as well as it did. A change of scenery and the change of role it brings would be for the best for his career.

Player Plan: Two years and circa. $54.13 million remaining, with an ETO after this season he likely won’t exercise. The book’s out on his declining play, so a buyout seems like the likely result.

New York and New Jersey made the two biggest moves by acquiring the two All-Stars, Williams and Anthony. The Knicks finally closed the deal on the Anthony saga, their additional acquisition of Chauncey Billups and their retention of Landry Fields keeping the price tag just about on the right of 'acceptable.' Meanwhile, the Nets's genuinely staggering trade for Williams, whilst ultimately a backup plan, turned out to be better then their original plan. If their intention was to chase Melo for half a year, then give up and trade less in a deal for a better, cheaper player with less mileage on the clock, then they pulled it off beautifully.

[...]

Carmelo Anthony's trade kicker, equal to the lesser of 5% of his remaining salary or $1 million, was not activated upon his trade to the Knicks. He was already earning the maximum salary, and putting a trade kicker amount on top of that would have pushed his salary above the maximum, which is not legal. Therefore, his trade kicker was not invoked, and his salary remained unchanged. (It could therefore be argued that this trade kicker was redundant from the start, and needn't have been included at all. Probably true. But it was put in anyway, just in case the cap had grown beyond all reprehension since the date he signed the deal. As it turns out, the global economy went the other way, we had a recession, and I lost my job. Swings and roundabouts.)