Carmelo Anthony Signs with Houston Rockets

Carmelo Anthony will be joining the Houston Rockets on a one year, $2.4 million deal. Anthony was traded from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Atlanta Hawks and was immediately waived by the Hawks. Anthony was part of a three-team deal including the Thunder, Hawks, and Philadelphia 76ers involving Dennis Schroder and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot.

Anthony will be getting $28 million from the Atlanta Hawks on top of the $2.4 million. Anthony had arguably his worst season last year with the Thunder where the Thunder was mostly an iso ball dominant squad, and he had a career low in points and minutes. Anthony must clear all the waivers before joining the Rockets. Anthony will be entering his 16th NBA season at the time the 2018-2019 season starts.

Anthony will help the Rockets on their offense as he can still be a very good scorer, so his efficiency should go up playing for the Rockets, and he will most likely be starting for the Rockets as Trevor Ariza left the Rockets to join the Phoenix Suns. The Rockets is the original team the Anthony wanted to go to last offseason when he told the Knicks that the Rockets was one of the teams he wanted to go to. Anthony had one of his worst seasons as he averaged a career low in points, 16.1 points, a career low in field goal percentage, shooting the ball at 40.4 percent.

Anthony will be playing with Chris Paul, James Harden, and will also be reunited with coach Mike D'Antoni, these two played together when Anthony was on the Knicks but they both never got along, thus D'Antoni leaving New York. Could these two put their differences aside to possibly win a championship for the 2018-2019 season and will Anthony accept whatever role he has on the Rockets? For the fit to work, Anthony will have to stop playing like he is trying to take over the game and forcing contested shots like he was playing on the Thunder, he would have to play a lot of off-ball and playing in D'Antoni's system where there is a lot of spacing and ball movement. Anthony can blend well if he just accepts the role players such as Manu Ginobili, Dirk Nowitzki, Ray Allen, and Vince Carter have, they are some players that lasted very long in the league because they understood that they were not the stars or superstars anymore and took a back seat to the other players. If Anthony does not accept his role he might turn out like Allen Iverson did, jumping around from team to team and being out of the league earlier then he should have been, and this is why it Anthony did not work out in Oklahoma City as he did not want to sacrifice coming off the bench and being a role player. But if it does not work out for Houston, the good thing is that is only a one year deal so they could just let him walk after this season.

This signing is coming off after the Rockets had their best season, winning a franchise-best 65 games and having the best record in the entire NBA and in the Western Conference. The team advanced all the way to the western conference finals for the first time since the 2014-2015 season. The Rockets took the Golden State Warriors to seven games and would wind up losing to them in game seven. With them getting Carmelo Anthony, will this signing help the Rockets get over the hump and defeat the Warriors and make the finals and can Anthony get the one thing that has been hurting his legacy for the past 15 years and win an NBA championship?