NBA Trade Grades: Knicks send Carmelo Anthony to Thunder

The New York Knicks are finally moving Carmelo Anthony, agreeing to send him to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Here are NBA Trade Grades for both sides.

Apparently Friday’s Troy Daniels trade was just a skimpy appetizer to prepare us for the final course of the summer.

Early Saturday morning, the last expected blockbuster deal was completed, as the Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks were finally able to part ways.

As first reported by ESPN‘s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Knicks have agreed to send Melo to the Oklahoma City Thunder in a deal that will be finalized with an official call to the league office on Monday.

In return, Woj reports the Knicks will be receiving Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott and a 2018 second round pick from the Chicago Bulls.

In a summer full of star players changing hands, it’s not surprising to see Anthony finally on the move, especially with a potentially awkward Media Day awaiting on Monday. However, now that the deed is finally done, how did the Knicks and the Thunder fare in the exchange?

To sort it out, here are NBA Trade Grades for both sides.

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-

Oklahoma City Thunder

Before the trade went down, our Executive of the Year Award predictions for 2017-18 had Thunder GM Sam Presti at No. 2, trailing only the Golden State Warriors’ Bob Myers. Thanks to this trade, we might need to rethink those rankings.

It’s been a stellar summer for Presti, who turned Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis into Paul George, drafted Terrance Ferguson, signed Patrick Patterson to a bargain deal, added Raymond Felton as backup point guard and now swiped Carmelo Anthony aboard for the meager price of Kanter, McDermott and a second round pick.

Those assets were all expendable. Even with Kanter providing a nice scoring punch off the bench, Billy Donovan was unable to trust him when the playoffs rolled around because of his defense. McDermott, meanwhile, only put up 6.6 points in 19.5 minutes per game while shooting 36.2 percent from deep in his 22 appearances for the Thunder last year.

He isn’t what he once was, but even if Hoodie Melo isn’t the version of Carmelo Anthony that OKC is getting, people shouldn’t forget that he just averaged 22.4 points and 5.9 rebounds per game last season. He shot a decent 35.9 percent from 3-point range, but with more weapons around him, he should get some quality, wide open looks from deep.

Anthony has averaged at least 20 points per game every single season of his 13-year career, and with Russell Westbrook and Paul George around him, he has a very good chance of continuing that streak at age 33.

Westbrook was a one-man wrecking ball last season, and the reigning MVP now has two dangerous shooters and scorers to make his life easier and spread the floor for him to attack. If Anthony is willing to play the 4 (where he’s been most effective in the later stages of his career), OKC’s starting lineup is positively sick:

Is this team a legitimate threat to the Golden State Warriors in the West? It’s hard to say, since Melo’s defensive flaws may be exposed in a playoff series where perfection is demanded.

But PG-13, Andre Roberson and Patterson can help cover for some of those deficiencies, and he makes the Thunder a very dangerous team. This move, combined with the PG-13 trade, certainly gives Westbrook and George a lot to think about if they both enter free agency next summer.

The only real downside here is the hefty luxury tax bill this will incur.

Sure, there’s a worst-case scenario where Westbrook doesn’t sign his mega-extension, and he, PG-13 and Melo all leave in free agency next summer if this season falls short of expectations. But that’s a risk worth taking for Presti as long as Westbrook hasn’t signed that extension, especially after watching Kevin Durant leave last summer.

When one of the best three players in the world left last summer, it seemed like the Thunder were down and out. One year later, their one-man MVP show has a ton of help around him and OKC is back to legitimate contender status.

A 33-year-old Melo might not quite move the needle up to Golden State’s level, but it certainly gives the Thunder a better chance of advancing in the playoffs and keeping this newly entertaining team intact beyond the upcoming 2017-18 season.

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Grade: A