Carmelo Anthony ending up in Portland was a marriage of convenience. The Trail Blazers had been wrecked by injuries — specifically to Zach Collins with his dislocated shoulder — and desperately needed help at the four. Anthony, out of the NBA since early last season (the Rockets sent him home, then when they couldn’t trade ‘Melo waived him), didn’t have other options.
The marriage has thrived — so much so Anthony wants to stick around in Portland and retire.
That’s what he told Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune.
“I would love to stay,” he said. “I feel like this is the place for me to end my career. It could have happened earlier, but it didn’t. Now, where I’m at in my life and my career — this is where I want to retire.”
Anthony is averaging 16.1 points and 6.5 rebounds a night for the Trail Blazers, with a decent (but slightly below average) 52.3 true shooting percentage. He’s been solid and a fit. Portland has been +2.1 points per 100 possessions with Anthony on the court this season, which speaks to a combination of his play and the frontcourt weakness of the Blazers outside him.
Most importantly for Anthony, he has found a comfort zone.
“I’m happy,” he said during an interview after Tuesday’s practice session. “I like the group a lot. When I came in, it was like a welcome-home party. I come in and it’s, ‘Thank you for coming’ from everybody.'”
Portland would like Anthony back, but can only offer 120 percent of his current veteran minimum salary. It’s unlikely there is a lot of demand for ‘Melo’s services around the league for much more than that, but Portland’s hands are tied if another team comes in over the top. Besides, Portland is already spending more than $74 million tied up in the combination of Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, and Jusuf Nurkic, so they are looking for helpful players on affordable contracts anyway.
Expect Anthony to be back with Portland next season as the future Hall of Famer looks to leave the NBA game on his own terms.
The Bucks (41-6) are on pace to win 71.5 games.
In other words, they have a chance to pass the 2015-16 Warriors (73-9) and 1995-96 Bulls (72-10) for the best regular-season record in NBA history.
Bucks owner Marc Lasry, via Eric Woodyard of ESPN:
“When I was in Paris, I was talking to Michael about this, and I said, ‘Well, what do you think? I think we’ve got a real shot at doing what you guys have done [win 70 games]. This is a really unique team.’
“And he goes, ‘Look, my advice to you is don’t focus on beating our record, focus on winning a championship.’ And I said, ‘Wow, that’s great. Thank you for that. Just so you know, we’re going to focus on beating your record and winning a championship.’ I think we should do everything, but that’s me.”
That runs counter to the message from his general manager.
Jon Horst, via Woodyard:
“We’re not chasing wins. I do think that playoff seeding matters,” Horst told Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski on this week’s episode of his SiriusXM show, “Basketball and Beyond with Coach K.”
“I think our seeding matters and we want to be intentional and careful about how we end up seedingwise, but we’re not chasing total wins,” he said.
“What we’re chasing is we want to be an NBA champion. We want to be better than we were last year. Last year we fell short of the Finals, this year we want to get to the Finals. We want to get there healthy. We want to be playing well. As I think you would tell anyone, that if you’re healthy, if you’re good enough and you catch enough breaks along the way you can win it. And that’s where we want to be positioned to hope to be able to do.”
This sounds like Lasry taking advantage of a rare opportunity to mouth off to Michael freaking Jordan while allowing his basketball operations to run the team.
Chasing 70 wins or more can be exhausting. Golden State didn’t win the championship in 2016. Though we can never know what would have happened if the Warriors relaxed more in the regular season, it’s hard to believe their pursuit of the record didn’t contribute to them blowing a 3-1 lead to the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. It just takes so much energy to win that much in the regular season then throughout the playoffs.
I doubt the Bucks have it in them. Even a small slump would eliminate Milwaukee from the 70-win chase.
Can the Bucks win the title this year? Absolutely. That should be – and likely is – their overwhelmingly predominant goal. The Bulls and Warriors didn’t win 70 games until their cores already won a championship.
But when the owner is spouting off like this, it’s at least worth watching how it affects the front office, coaching staff and roster.
Bradley Beal has far bigger problems. He’s not sweating a taunting technical foul.
I love Beal and Brook Lopez laughing together after the whistle. Give players – especially those who can dunk like that on one of the NBA’s best rim protectors – room to celebrate. Lopez, whose Giannis Antetokounmpo-less Bucks were crushing the Wizards, doesn’t need a referee to protect him.
Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven others died in a helicopter crash Sunday. Rick Fox – who played with Bryant on the Lakers – was not on board.
But a rumor emerged that Fox also perished in the crash.
Fox explained how difficult that was to handle, including a conversation with Monmouth head coach King Rice.
Fox on TNT:
One of my daughter’s greatest fears is finding out that a parent or one of her parent’s would be lost through social media instead of from a loved one or a family member. And she fortunately called me, and we just were talking, crying about the news of Kobe. And my son. We started – we were talking. I was talking to my kids trying to spend the time with them.
Then, the phone just started going off. And I’m thinking to myself, “Everybody wants to talk about Kobe. And I right now want to be with my kids and my family.” And then all of a sudden, my best friend, King Rice, who’s a basketball coach.
He walked off the court at Iona, and somebody apparently told him that I have may have been on the helicopter. And he started calling. So, I’m seeing King’s number repeatedly going and going and going and think he’s worried about. So, I said I’m going to talk to my best friend. And I answered it, and I said, “Hey, man. This is crazy about Kobe.” And he just was bawling. And I started crying. And he’s like, “You’re alive.” And I’m thinking, “Well, yeah. What do you mean?”
And it was in that moment, my phone just started going. And my mom and my sister and my brother.
And so, look, this has been a lot to process for all of us. Quite frankly, we’re blessed to have had the time we had with Kobe. A city is mourning. A family is mourning. We’re all morning. And I’m glad that’s over with. But it was hard to deal with, because it shook a lot of people in my life.
Shame on whomever started the rumor. Shame on whomever spread it as fact.
For years, the LeBron James-Kobe Bryant relationship had been defined by not meeting in the NBA Finals.
One played in the 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 Finals. But the other fell short each year. It was just incredible missed timing between LeBron’s Cavaliers then Heat and LeBron’s Lakers for a whole decade.
LeBron and Kobe played together on Team USA, and they admired each other. But they didn’t share the deepest bond. LeBron had his close friends – Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul. Bryant was more of a loner.
When LeBron signed with the Lakers in 2018, that offered more opportunity for him and Bryant to connect. But that was amidst an iciness from some Lakers fans who’d grown accustomed to denigrating LeBron in support of Kobe (a sentiment Bryant tried to thwart). When the Lakers disappointed last season, Bryant also didn’t rush to associate himself with that team.
LeBron’s and Bryant’s relationship had changed by the time Bryant and his daughter Gianna died Sunday.
Ramona Shelburne of ESPN:
LeBron James and Kobe Bryant were starting to develop the close relationship they’ve always wanted. pic.twitter.com/TaGttNTFA7
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) January 29, 2020
LeBron James as absolutely devastated by this on Sunday. I’m told he didn’t sleep at all on Sunday. He was just in a really bad place all day Monday. Just what I think the hardest part for LeBron is that he and Kobe had started to develop the relationship that both of them had always wanted to have. They started to get much closer this year. Even last year, when LeBron came here, Kobe reached out to welcome him to the franchise. But he didn’t come to any games. There wasn’t much back and forth between them. And the back and forth actually started this year, when Kobe came to the game with Gianna. She actually wanted to see Trae Young. So, they came to the game. And LeBron came over, embraced Kobe, and that’s actually what started the dialogue between both of them. It’s been described to me as the relationship that they always wanted to have.
LeBron’s heartache was evident when he left the Lakers’ team flight Sunday:
LeBron also expressed his sadness on Instagram:
The Lakers, whose game was postponed, gathered yesterday.
When James redirected his focus to what lies ahead for the grieving franchise, James said he could handle the burden of playing through grief in pursuit of the Lakers’ 17th championship.
“God gave me wide shoulders for a reason,” James said, according to multiple people who were present.
LeBron had just passed Bryant for third on the all-time scoring list. They spoke after that achievement.
Shams Charania of The Athletic:
One final conversation: LeBron James and Kobe Bryant had phone call late Saturday night after James passed Bryant on the NBA scoring charts, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @Stadium. Several Lakers players listened into call — in what would be their final memory of Bryant's voice.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 27, 2020
Bryant’s final tweet has become sadly poetic:
Continuing to move the game forward @KingJames. Much respect my brother 💪🏾 #33644
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) January 26, 2020
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