NBA Trade Rumors: 5 Most Likely Landing Spots For Carmelo Anthony

5. Los Angeles Lakers

I want to preface this by saying the Los Angeles Lakers are rather unlikely to land Anthony. They’ve seemed disinterested in making a deal, and general manager Mitch Kupchak isn’t willing to part ways with one of his three rising stars.

However, as I discussed previously, the Lakers were mentioned by Charley Rosen as a team Carmelo may be willing to waive his no-trade clause for. They made a run at him during his latest trip to free agency in 2014, but failed to woo him away from the Knicks.

If all other options fall through, though, I’d guess Jackson would at least ponder the possibility of reaching out to his former team. Los Angeles has some decent trade assets, and may be willing to part with them if it means landing that superstar they’ve been after for the past few years.

Imagine if New York offered to take Luol Deng or Timofey Mozgov off the Lakers’ hands. Both were big free agency mistakes this past offseason, taking significant tolls on the team’s salary cap in the process. Getting one of those contracts off the books would be a big plus for Los Angeles.

Still, I’ll say this again — this is highly unlikely. The Lakers appear happy with trusting the process, building through the draft and developing their young talent. It’s the right route to take for a team that’s tried way too hard in the past to build via trade.