OKC Thunder: What to do with Carmelo Anthony after subpar season

With an upsetting season over, the OKC Thunder will have some decisions to make over the summer. One decision will be what to do with Carmelo Anthony.

For the Oklahoma City Thunder, the 2017-18 season ended way too early for their liking. Now they will have decisions to make. After a subpar season by Carmelo Anthony, it seems like the Thunder should try and part ways with the star swingman.

As the postseason and certain games during the regular season showed, the team is more productive when Jerami Grant is playing. The Thunder would be happier letting Anthony go in this offseason.

Grant fits the OKC Thunder’s style, which is based on spacing, passing and putting pressure on the defense to make difficult decisions. Movement by the offense is the best way to do all those things.

Grant moves. Anthony doesn’t. Anthony likes to post up and iso his defenders on the block. That doesn’t fit the Thunder’s style.

Also there is the fact that Carmelo is on record via his exit interview saying that he wants to start. Accepting a bench role is out of the question for him. Anthony also talked about his sacrifices in the interview. He took a requested role around Christmas time and it paid off for his shooting during the season.

Anthony wants to be more involved in the Thunder’s offense if he comes back.

The problem with trying to get rid of Carmelo Anthony is the fact that he will have the final say in his status for next year thanks to a player option for the final year of his contract.

The Thunder can buy out Carmelo if he picks up his $27.9 million option. If Carmelo is not likely to sit on the bench, he most likely will not take less than the full $27.9 million.

The Thunder will have the ability to apply a stretch provision as well.

A stretch provision is when a player gets waived and the money that the team has to pay a player is portioned out for a period of time.

The Thunder would have to pay $9.3 million to Carmelo for the next three seasons but before this is possible, Anthony would have to agree to a “set-off,” which means a portion of his salary would be set-off from what the Thunder owe him.

Trading him would be the option I would say is the best idea in terms of getting rid of Melo. The Thunder had to give up something to get Carmelo, so getting something back while getting rid of him would obviously be beneficial. Unfortunately, this is the least likely outcome.

For starters, Carmelo has a no-trade clause, so he can veto any trade he doesn’t like. If OKC pursued this option, it would all come down to where he wants to go more so than where the Thunder want him to go.

He would want to go to the Houston Rockets. The Rockets would have a Big 4 in Chris Paul, James Harden, Clint Capela and Carmelo Anthony. The Rockets were the best team in the league this year.

More from Oklahoma City Thunder

• 3 Steps for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to enter the MVP race next season
• 5 NBA teams on the rise that will surprise everyone in 2023-24
• 5 players who will challenge Victor Wembanyama for Rookie of the Year
• What does Oklahoma City plan to do with an abundance of picks?
• Thunder Summer League: Notes from Holmgren’s chaotic yet magical play

Adding Carmelo to an already premier iso team would be something that Melo would probably dream of.

Unfortunately, the Rockets may look at Carmelo’s subpar season and say that Melo’s experience with a Big 3 was bad, so they may not want to ruin a good thing — even in the interest of offloading Ryan Anderson‘s contract.

From the Thunder’s perspective, hoping and wishing for a LeBron James-Melo union in Cleveland makes sense. The Cleveland Cavaliers have a lot of young pieces that would intrigue OKC Thunder, like Larry Nance Jr. or Jordan Clarkson.

Anthony would be able to play with LeBron James and have the Cavs would have a Big 3 again in Kevin Love, LeBron and Carmelo. Unfortunately, this would require LeBron to re-sign first, and there’s no guarantee Cleveland would be anywhere near interested in Melo after the season he just had.

If LeBron goes to LA, Melo could say that he wants to go there too, but good luck convincing Magic Johnson to send anything in return for Anthony’s bloated salary.

Next: Full two-round 2018 NBA Mock Draft

OKC’s first priority this summer is retaining Paul George, but not far behind it is finding some way to end the Carmelo Anthony experiment. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there’s a clear path to that outcome.