http://nypost.com/2014/07/02/anthony-do ... y-of-tour/Sweet home, Chicago?
Maybe not for Carmelo Anthony.
With the Melopalooza set to hit Los Angeles on Friday, the Bulls’ position appears to be weakening. According to an NBA source, the Bulls, during Tuesday’s meetings, floated the idea of Anthony making about $16 million per year across four seasons — a sum that is not going to move the needle away from Anthony’s pre-trip gut feeling to stick with the Knicks.
The Bulls are over the cap and can manage a starting salary of $17 million only if they amnesty Carlos Boozer and trade both Mike Dunleavy and Jimmy Butler. That would create a contract worth $72.6 million over four years.
Hence, it appears the only chance the Bulls and Anthony have at a marriage is if they can coax Jackson into a sign-and-trade, and the Knicks president has shown no inclination toward cooperating. That’s why the Knicks have remained so confident. In fact ESPN.com reports Jackson is opposed to a sign-and-trade deal centering around Boozer. The Chicago Tribune reported Bulls officials nevertheless feel they “connected’’ with Anthony.
Before the Anthony free-agency tour, The Post quoted a source connected to Anthony’s inner circle saying, “There’s reason to believe he’s staying.’’
plenty of NY attitude. I tire of reading it, but I wanted to ask...
This is not the only place where it has been written the Bulls tried to go the capspace route with Melo. I take this to mean, the Bulls did not even attempt a S&T scenario at this point. Phil must have written "No (Boozer) S&T" down in blood.
So I assume where we are at is that in order to get Phil to possibly budge on S&Ts, we will require Melo to say to the Knicks that he will go to the Bulls for their capspace offer no matter what. However, the gist that I am getting from reports like this is that Melo needs a bigger Bulls offer in order to consider that kind of hardball play, and will not cooperate?
So, to sum it up in terms of drawing conclusions:
-Melo won't play hardball to force a S&T with the Knicks because of the small size of the Bulls offer. He is not willing to play for that.
-Phil is not gonna move on the S&T situation. The Bulls seem to believe him.
-The Bulls have to trade Taj Gibson in order to get that basic capspace offer up to a point where Melo will play for it.
-However, both the Bulls and Melo don't even want to go there with Taj. Melo doesn't want to be here if he can't win (because Taj would not be here). And he also doesn't want to be here if he can't get paid more than what the Bulls have to offer with Taj still on the team.
Even though this has been said before in more glib fashion in other articles, it finally sinks in. Sounds to me, there is no way out of this? I don't want to say the patient is dead yet. However, if these are the basic tentpoles of the situation, the Bulls should be moving on.
(Indeed perhaps the Boozer amnesty is not being done with Melo in mind anymore)
