Cleveland Cavaliers: New York Knicks Offer Carmelo Anthony For Kevin Love

The New York Knicks have reportedly offered small forward Carmelo Anthony to the Cleveland Cavaliers for power forward Kevin Love.

The New York Knicks actually did it. According to ESPN’s Marc Stein and Chris Haynes, the Knicks offered Carmelo Anthony for Kevin Love in a deal that was reportedly shot down before it took flight.

While many may take this as a sign that the Cleveland Cavaliers are completely unwilling to trade Love, they may just be unwilling to trade him during the season.

According to Marc Stein and Chris Haynes, in the same report:

"“Although James and Anthony are incredibly close and have both expressed interest in playing together someday, sources say Cleveland is not prepared to surrender Love to get him after the role Love played in helping the Cavaliers win the first championship in franchise history last June”."

The idea of trading Anthony for Love should be more appealing than it sounds.

If anybody is noticing, Love’s is beginning to have back issues on a consistent basis as a unathletic 28-year-old power forward that’s trying to change his body to be a more mobile player. Anthony may be aging but his body isn’t showing signs of breaking down.

In addition, Anthony is the type of triple-threat that the Cleveland Cavaliers need on the offensive end while being a player that won’t be forced into a role that doesn’t suit them on the defensive end.

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For the Cleveland Cavaliers, Love is a player who either shoots, attacks the rim off the dribble or (on occasion) tries to score in a post-up opportunity. Defensively, Love seems like a player forced to play center because, in theory, it should work. He has the size to play the position against small-ball centers and will draw defenders outside of the paint with the threat of his three-point shooting. Therefore, Lue tries it out.

Unfortunately, Love is not a great defender and because he can’t guard small forwards, James can’t help as much as he should be able to as a versatile forward who can play all five positions.

(Tristan Thompson is a mobile center but their best rim-protector so having him guard opposing small forwards is both counterintuitive and counterproductive).

Anthony would be able guard those small forwards though and LeBron James could guard the quicker small-ball power forwards if he needs to. That would leave Thompson to guard centers full-time. He’s performed admirably in that role this season, even against the bigger, burly centers of the league.

From there, Channing Frye wouldn’t be forced into lineups with Love. The Cavs would either be forced to acquire another center for rebounding and rim-protection purposes or they’d simply play Frye at center with anyone from James to James Jones and try to rebound well as a group.

That’s what it would do with an offseason to integrate Anthony into the offense anyways. The Cavs will likely have that opportunity even then as Anthony has a no-trade clause in his contract and would only waive it to play with the Cleveland Cavaliers or one of the two Los Angeles-based franchises.

Now, the Cavs could possibly trade for Anthony midseason and make it work. In terms of chemistry, Anthony is one of James’ best friends and the NBA and so it’s even assumed that the Knicks were prompted to make this offer because of their friendship and James’ comments that the Cleveland Cavaliers need another playmaker.

That’s why reporters asked Anthony about those comments. According to ESPN’s Marc Stein and Chris Haynes, Anthony responded to reporters questions saying, “Yes. I do think he’d want me to play with him. I don’t think he wouldn’t” but added “But I don’t know if that comment was about me. I don’t think I’m the only playmaker in the NBA”. Anthony just doesn’t know if it will be this season and he won’t allow himself to dwell on it.

"“I don’t think about it — [that’s] not something I think about right now. As far as playing with him, I don’t think about that. I can’t think about that. You know I’m not thinking about that.”"

On the court, Love’s role in the offense shouldn’t be too hard for Anthony to mimic as it essentially resembles the role Anthony has had on Olympic teams playing beside James. In Olympic Tournaments, Anthony is a big-time catch-and-shoot player but also does some work down low.

He’s not a selfish player in those tournaments at all. He’s instead, incredibly willing to thrive as a scorer by playing off-ball offense rather than dominating the ball.

Of course, there is a greater possibility that the team will be in disarray this season with a midseason trade for Anthony.

As James has said, he doesn’t have time to waste and a haphazard experiment could qualify as just that. A waste of a season.

Do you think that the Cleveland Cavaliers will make this move now or in the future? Let us know in the comments section or Twitter @KJG_NBA.