Carmelo Anthony, aye? No surprises that the bloke’s been traded, he’d been trending in this direction all offseason. That he’s ended up on the Oklahoma City Thunder? Actually, given the work Sam Presti does in that front office, that’s hardly a surprise either.

Melo’s on his way to OKC and going in the other direction are Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott and a second round pick. Melo waived his no-trade clause for this and he also waived his trade kicker. Thus the Knicks officially move on from an era that netted them three playoffs appearances in seven years with only one postseason series win. They’ve been one of the four worst teams in the East for the last three straight years and it’s time to try something else. In trading Carmelo Anthony that can now finally happen. The Thunder, meanwhile, add another high profile All Star to their team to pair with Russell Westbrook and Paul George. They’re calling them… OK3.

Back to the Knicks later, the most fascinating side of this trade-a-roo is the Thunder. Once again Sam Presti’s magic is in sharp focus, he reels off blockbuster trades without giving up excessive assets like… well, like the New York Knicks tend to do the opposite.

The Thunder didn’t give up anything major here. A second round pick is nothing, Dougie McBuckets is basically just a spot shooter which Melo does far, far better and Enes Kanter is a wonderful dude with a gift for scoring but his defensive liabilities made him a wasted roster spot in the playoffs – they simply didn’t trust out there. He played 45 minutes total in the five game playoff series against the Houston Rockets. Melo also has significant defensive liabilities these days but no worse than the bloke he’s replacing and with far more positional flexibility on offence he’s easier to hide. Andre Roberson knows what’s up, don’t panic.

There’s a disconnect between Melo the actual player and Melo the player by reputation. Playing for the Knicks these last few years will do that to ya. He’s this isolation-type scorer who can drain a clutch shot or two but isn’t necessarily about the team around him. That’s what people say, anyway. He’d had chances to get out of the Knicks before but he wanted to stay in New York, despite the direction they were heading – it’s a theory that was in place from the start as he forced a trade mid-season to NYK that’d allow him to sign a max contract a few months later rather than just signing there for a little less in free agency, which cost the Knicks valuable assets.

The balance between Russ and PG is one thing but adding another guy who likes the ball in his hands, likes to shoot his shot, in Carmelo Anthony and there’s now a lot of pressure on Billy Donovan to keep all three happy in the rotation. In fact if you go by the reputation of Mr Anthony then there’s no way that this works and what the hell were they thinking!?

But you can throw those fears out the window because Anthony has already shown a willingness to bend by agreeing to this trade. Remember he had that no-trade clause. He got to choose whether to use the red stamp or the green stamp. Melo’s a businessman who doesn’t mind playing for a bad team if he can build his brand in a major market? Oklahoma City is not a big market and he won’t be the star on this team. Those are inherent facts in his decision.

As for his ability to play with others, one may wish to glance towards his performances on USA national team squads. Carmelo is the only man in history to have played for America at four different Olympiads, winning three gold medals. No man has scored more points for Team USA and no man has more rebounds. That’s him playing alongside other superstars there and still finding success – and not at their expense either, how about his sixth-man turn in 2012?

He’ll have to log a few minutes with the bench in OKC and given his experiences in New York with some of the players they’ve signed up and some of the scrubs that’ve been filling out the OKC bench lately he’s probably overqualified for that task. Works fine for Billy Donovan, the Thunder got roasted whenever Westbrook sat on the bench last season. Now they have a player who can pick up some of that scoring all on his own.

You have to separate the man from the situation. The way Melo played in New York is gonna make for a disaster in Oklahoma City yet maybe he had no choice but to play that way in New York. They encouraged it and they didn’t have a lot of other options until Kristaps Porzingis entered the room and Melo and Zinga never really mixed. Some players just don’t. But Carmelo played with both these OKC lads before with his country.

But, yes, there are risks with that. It’s a tightrope walk. Carmelo has hinted at a willingness to adapt and be the third option in OKC but he still has to actually, you know, do it. Also we have zero proof that Paul George and Carmelo Anthony will even have a say in how well they merge into this team – the ball goes through Russell Westbrook’s hands first and he might still decide he needs to take 24 shots a night like he did last season.

At least for the Thunder there’s pretty little risk. Or an enormous risk… depends how you look at it. They just got Enes Kanter’s $17.9m salary off the books for this season and also the $18.6m player option he has for next season. That’d be a lot of money to pay for a guy they can only use in specific matchups anyway, always off the bench. In return they take up an even heftier $26.2m in 16-17 for Anthony who also has a player option ($27.9m) for 17-18. But while Anthony probably won’t find that much money elsewhere in free agency, he might prefer to chase the security of a longer term contract instead, particularly if his stocks rise at the Thunder this term.

Point being that Anthony might be a free agent at the end of the season. So might Paul George. So might Russell Westbrook. The Thunder already had the third highest payroll for 2016-17 and this hardly abates that. Steven Adams’ big deal just kicked in and they re-signed Andre Roberson too. Four players on this roster will make at least $19m this season. If they’re to re-sign all three of the big stars (shout out Alex Chilton) then they’ll probably end up with the biggest single-season payroll in history and one hell of a luxury tax… this from a team that notoriously avoided paying the tax when they traded away James Harden back in the day (to be fair, Harden rejected an offer that woulda taken them over).

Let’s be honest though: who thinks all three are coming back? Russell Westbrook is still holding off on signing the five-year $270m extension that the Thunder left on the table for him back in June. Deadline for that offer is October 16. As for Paul George, he’s going to the Lakers isn’t he? Chances are this OK3 squad is a one and done prospect… but dammit it’ll be fun.

So what’s up with the Knicks now? Here’s what’s up with the Knicks now: they finally get to tank in peace. They were already struggling for relevancy and now they’ve cleared the oldest, most expensive hurdle towards going all in on the next incarnation of the Knickerbockers. With the presence of Kristaps Porzingis – who struck a big win recently with the franchise by outlasting Phil Jackson – they don’t have to go all in for a top three pick or anything either, so this is more about putting together a team around him, working on a style of play and all that.

Of course, it ain’t quite that simple. Joakim Noah has three more seasons on a contract that might be one of the worst in the entire league. They massively overpaid Tim Hardaway Jr this summer too – they tried to play the Sean Marks poison pill RFA thing with him only the Hawks couldn’t have cared less once that deal landed on the table. Frank Ntilikina was a risky take with the eighth overall pick, although to be fair they booed the last under-hyped European chap they drafted in the lottery too. Other than that there are a fair few single year deals on this team, which is exactly where they wanna be… clearing up space for the future. New York will always draw free agents. Best thing they can do this season is show players that Porzingis is a fellow they want to line up alongside.

Enes Kanter will be awesome on the Knicks too. If Noah can stay fit then he’s got a similar dynamic there to what he had with Steven Adams – on the court at least. An offensive centre who can’t defend with a brilliant defensive centre with limitations on offence. Kanter’s margin for error off the ball is greater for a team not expected to win so many games and he’ll get plenty more chances to do what he does with his scoring. Should be fun. As for Dougie McBuckets, you can always use a spot shooter for something and the Thunder already have Alex Abrines in the same mould so they’re both all good there.

It had been suspected that the Knicks would trade Melo, if indeed they did at all, to either the Houston Rockets or Cleveland Cavaliers. They were real close to the Rockets deal a while back but it never came to pass while the Cavs… they didn’t wanna trade him to a rival Eastern team anyway. Which, by the way, is remarkably dumb. Anthony is 33 years old and the Knicks aren’t gonna be a playoffs team this season so who cares?

The Cavs, Rockets and Thunder thus emerged as the only three teams Anthony was willing to waive his no-trade clause for. Three star-packed teams, no coincidence there – the Trail Blazers were an enticing one too but apparently Melo didn’t wanna move that far away. The Thunder presumably had the best offer and bingo, there ya go.

It’s risky but it’s worth it for the Thunder, even if only for one year in a stacked Western Conference. It’s risky for New York but that’s a step above ‘stupid’ which is the usual realm of performance for front office moves involving the Knicks. Sweet as then, one more crazy trade in an offseason full of them. The only major complaint is that… *sniff*… this breaks up the legendary The Stache Bros. But that’s another article all in itself.

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