NBA Trade Grades: Knicks send Carmelo Anthony to Thunder

New York Knicks

With Melo being 33 years old and on his last legs, it’s not surprising the Knicks got a paltry return for their biggest star. He just wasn’t going to command a first round pick on the open market, especially with the entire league knowing they wanted to move him and Anthony possessing that no-trade clause to further close off potential trade avenues.

However, for a team that said it wanted to improve defensively, a return of Kanter and McDermott hardly helps. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of that objective, since both players are notorious for being such poor defenders that this glaring flaw keeps them off the floor.

Neither one is a bad player though. Kanter is a useful big off the bench, averaging 14.3 points and 6.7 rebounds in just 21.1 minutes per game last year. He can get buckets, even if he can’t spread the floor and is a sieve on the defensive end. Unfortunately, Kanter joins a frontcourt logjam including Kristaps Porzingis, Willy Hernangomez, Kyle O’Quinn and Joakim Noah as potential options at the 5.

As for McDermott, his early career continues to spiral out of control, with the Knicks being his third team in as many seasons. His trademark skill of 3-point shooting (39.4 percent for his career) will help, but New York now has a logjam of average wings to sift through, including McDermott, Michael Beasley, Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Lance Thomas.

At this stage in Melo’s career, a trade sending him was more about addition by subtraction than anything else though. After Phil Jackson dragged his name through the mud, the bad blood between those two parties had no resolution other than this.

Anthony was a great teammate and well-liked in the locker room, especially by the team’s next superstar, Porzingis, But with him gone, the team can now focus on rebuilding around their unicorn, Frank Ntilikina and Hernangomez.

The pieces the Knicks added in this deal will hardly be factors in the rebuild. McDermott will be a restricted free agent next summer, while Kanter owns an $18.6 million player option for the 2018-19 season. Even if he opts in, these two will likely be gone two years from now.

The 2018 draft pick will be coming from Chicago and could be at the very beginning of the second-rounder, making it nearly as valuable as a late first-rounder. Unfortunately, the 2018 draft class is expected to be loaded at the top, but not particularly deep.

The good news, however, is with Melo gone, the Knicks are going to be even worse in 2017-18, which means they can focus on tanking for a top-five pick in a top-heavy class, hopefully adding another franchise pillar to the group in the process. Also, the Knicks can finally tailor their offense and rebuild around the Zinger.

All in all, this is an expectedly underwhelming return for the Knicks, who continually botched the situation by giving Carmelo Anthony a no-trade clause in the first place, failing to be more proactive about moving him until the absolute last minute, dragging his name through the mud while trying to move him and ultimately having to settle for such a mediocre package.

It was expected at this point, and certainly not Steve Mills’ fault what he was forced to accept, but it doesn’t make the pain of losing one of the greatest Knicks of all time — and that’s exactly what Melo is, regardless of his lack of playoff success in New York — for the likes of two backups and a second round pick.

Grade: C-