Bulls thriving after being spurned by Melo
When the Bulls host the New York Knicks on Saturday, there will be no sign of Carmelo Anthony. He won't be walking off the team bus and those photoshops of him wearing a Bulls uniform won't show up on the outdoor message boards.
Anthony hasn't played since the NBA All-Star Game. He made one last appearance for the East all-stars on Feb. 15 at Madison Square Garden and shut it down for the season because of a sore knee. The Knicks had a 10-43 record at the time.
Had he signed with the Bulls as a free agent last summer, it's possible Anthony would have played the whole season. After all, Anthony did play 30 minutes in the all-star game, scoring 14 points on 6-of-20 shooting, so shutting it down early seemed to be more choice than necessity.
At this point, it's easy to assume getting jilted by Anthony was the best thing that could have happened to the Bulls. But what would the team look like now had he signed?
The biggest difference would be no Pau Gasol. The Bulls set their sights on Gasol once it seemed obvious Anthony wasn't jumping to the Midwest. The Bulls were fortunate Gasol was fed up with the Los Angeles Lakers and preferred the big-city culture in Chicago to San Antonio or Oklahoma City - teams that also made offers.
Gasol has obviously been a nice addition for the Bulls, averaging 18.6 points and a career-high 11.8 rebounds. He leads the league in double-doubles and has missed just four games.
In some ways, Anthony would have been a similar addition. He's always been able to score, averaging 24.2 points this season even with the bad knee, and he would have changed the Bulls' physical defensive style, like Gasol has done.
But one of the major unknowns is who else would be gone from the Bulls in order to make room for Anthony? Mike Dunleavy would likely have been traded, with plenty of teams willing to take on his relatively small $3 million salary.
If the Bulls had completed a sign-and-trade for Anthony, there were several possible outcomes. But the Bulls never made much of an attempt to do that. Based on what we know now, it sounds like the Bulls told Anthony, "We don't want to trade Taj Gibson, but you can have whatever money is left under the salary cap."
Anthony turned down that offer and accepted $124.9 million over five years to stay in New York, but claimed later it was an agonizing decision. A documentary about Anthony's free agent quest aired earlier this season in New York.
"It came down to Chicago and New York," Anthony said in the documentary, according to the New York Post. "Chicago was the one from Day 1; something I was very impressed with. It was a perfect setup and a perfect fit for me in Chicago.
"But also I had to just think about living in Chicago. Do I want to live in Chicago? Do I want to take everything I created in New York and move all of that? But there was one point in time I was like, 'Oh, I'm going.' "
No need to be cynical about Anthony's "living in Chicago" comment. His wife is from New York, his kids go to school there, he has charities, friends, employees.
The real positive for the Bulls in this missed transaction is the improvement of Jimmy Butler and Tony Snell this season, along with a strong performance from rookie Nikola Mirotic. Those results would likely be different with Anthony here and the Bulls ended up with an extra big man instead.
Some believe the Bulls were never all-in on the pursuit of Anthony. Coach Tom Thibodeau thought the Bulls needed another star, worked hard to convince Anthony to change teams and almost succeeded. Gar Forman and John Paxson may have felt better about a future with Butler, Mirotic and Doug McDermott, players they had worked hard to acquire.
What's done is done. But it is funny to look back at Anthony's comments from media day at the start of this season. He obviously had higher expectations for the Knicks with the arrival of team president Phil Jackson.
"There's a new level of focus now. You could just see that everybody is rejuvenated again, everybody wants to win," Anthony said, according to Newsday. "I can't put any numbers (on it), but I can tell you for sure that we will have a much better season than we had last year."
He was a little off there. The Knicks have the worst record in the league and will likely finish with the worst record in team history.
But there is some hope. Jackson recognized that a high draft pick was a safer path than trying to make the playoffs with a flawed roster - and New York should have roughly $30 million in cap space this summer.
The Bulls can offer a word of warning from their miserable 2000 free-agent experience. Even if the location is nice, most players are reluctant to jump into a losing situation.
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