Is the NBA rigged or nah?
According to recent reports from ESPN.com, the Miami Heat and Pat Riley have already started making plans to make a very legit run at Carmelo Carmelo Anthony who is expected to enter free agency this year if he doesn’t opt into his Knicks contract.
Following the summer of 2010 when the Heat created the “Big Three,” there has been non-stop shots thrown at Miami, claiming they “bought” championships or that the combination of stars Chris Bosh, Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and the late addition of Ray Allen, was too much talent for one team to have. Those same people should begin to prepare for the worst, because ‘Melo and LBJ have been friends since the two played in high school and can now potentially play together on the same team.
The two have previously stated they would like play together.
Is it even possible with the big money contracts the Heat already carry? Apparently so according to Marc Stein of ESPN. It would take the big three to restructure their deals as well as “Birdman” Chris Anderson and Udonis Haslem who both have player options for next season. In doing so, they would free up to $50M in cap space. The big three have all gotten a taste of winning together and previously have taken pay cuts in order to achieve that. Will they be open to doing that again? Lebron should have no problem taking a small salary cut as his off the court ventures are going extremely well, including a $30M payout from the Apple and Beats Music merger.
The Heat will not be able to officially make a formal offer to Anthony until July 1st and that can only happen if Anthony does opt out of the final year of his contract. Melo has until June 23 to let the Knicks know of his decision whether or not he will fulfill the last year of his contract. Was the hiring of Phil Jackson and more recently Derek Fisher enough to keep Anthony in New York? That question just got a little harder to answer considering Pat Riley is extremely aggressive when it comes to obtaining players he wants. Also, the Miami market is not much different than New York when it comes to opportunity and how much players enjoy the actual city.
The summer just got real.