Melo Will Not Be a Laker No Matter How Much ESPN Wishes
Sorry Melo! Carmelo Anthony seen on the bench in a game on the road against the New Jersey Nets. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
The NBA trade deadline is on Feb. 24, so let’s start getting crazy with idiot Lakers trade speculation.
This morning ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard reported that sources said the Lakers were willing to trade center Andrew Bynum for the Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony.
ESPN has taken Broussard’s story and ran with it. ESPN Los Angeles’ Arash Markazi even went so far as to post a link to a picture of Melo in a Lakers jersey on Twitter.
While we're at it, let's bring over LeBron James for Lamar Odom, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders for the Lakers girls and Eva Longoria for Khloe Kardashian.
For all the Lakers fans with visions of Melo in their heads: don't. This is not going to happen.
For one, LA Times’ Mike Bresnahan and Broderick Turner refuted that story later in the morning citing a Lakers representative saying, “What’s out there is inaccurate.”
Also when was the last time the Lakers aired their business out in the open?
When the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol three years ago, not one person in the media knew anything was up. No one rumored the Vladimir Radmanovic trade to Charlotte for Shannon Brown and Adam Morrison. And who scooped the Sasha Vujacic trade to New Jersey earlier this season?
The Lakers don't leak out internal business to the public because they don't have to. General Manager Mitch Kupchak and the front office is secure in every decision they make.
That isn't to say that they haven't had a conversation with Denver about Melo. It would be negligent if they didn't inquire about it. But to make the leap from an inquiry to an almost certainty that it will happen is just absurd.
Most likely this is something that was leaked by either the Nuggets or Melo's camp to try and get more leverage with the New York Knicks to get a deal done. And we here in Los Angeles should be accustomed to being used as a bargaining chip (see: NFL.) Once the New Jersey Nets packed up shop and moved on, the Knicks suddenly had all of the leverage in the negotiations.
So let me just repeat it for you. CARMELO ANTHONY WILL NOT BE A LAKER THIS SEASON. The clowns in Bristol, Conn. can foam at their mouths until they die of glue inhalation doesn't make it true.