Post trade aftermath OKC & The Knicks

This NBA offseason has been so wild it’s stolen the top headlines from the first two weeks of the NFL season with KD’s burner account and Kyries pseudo kobe moment on first take. This trend continued when our commander and tweets revoked steph curry’s invitation to the white house… after steph said he didn’t want to go, the president then called the NFL players S.O.B and not in the cool Stone Cold Steve Austin way either. Buried in between all of this sports vs politics the President of the Mid range mafia Carmelo Anthony was traded for Enes Kanter, Doug Mcdourmet and a 2nd round draft pick.

Knicks: Carmelo might not be your favorite player you might even think he’s overrated but if there is one thing you know you’re going to get from Melo is a player who isn’t afraid of the big moments and most importantly a player who really believes he’s the best player on court at all time. We may say he isn’t and name 15-20 guys better than him, ( Dam sure not 63) all that matters is Carmelo believes. The offensive skill set and mindset Carmelo has is just the kind of player you want in a series against Warriors when everyone they play is considered the underdog.

The Knicks on the other hand will be terrible this season and i’m okay with that. We can finally see what KP is capable of as the focal point of the offense while simultaneously losing games and getting into the lottery of another stacked draft. For Porzingis the honeymoon is officially over and will now begin to get the brunt of the criticism for the team’s failures, this season nothing is expected from the team. Knicks fans and the front office will be looking for the development in KP as the true marker of success this season.

The Knicks didn’t get back the king’s ransom we gave up originally for Carmelo but we did get a young promising post scorer in Enes Kanter who i have already penciled in to average a double double next season. Dougy mcbuckets was a throw in, He hasn’t really proven he belongs so this year in NY might be his final try out to stay in the league before he moves on to his Hall of fame career in china.

The most significant thing this trade did for the knicks was officially start that hard reset the Knicks have been needing since around 2001 but you know better late than never.

Thunder: Sam presti has had an amazing run of success and disappointment as the Gm for the Thunder, go through the timeline with me. 2007 drafts Kevin Durant, 2008 drafts Russell Westbrook, 2009 draft James Harden 2012 the team makes its only NBA finals losing in 5 games to the Miami Heat, Summer of 2013 trade James Harden fast forward to 2016 and they lose Kevin durant. From that point on it felt like the beginning of the end for the small market juggernaut, losing two of the top 5 players in the league within 3 years.

We all watched Russ have one of the most impressive seasons in NBA history and knew the team stood no chance in the postseason. The pressure fell on Presti to keep the last member of the OKC original big three while making the roster more competitive around him. That’s when Presti hit the easy button and sent Victor Olidipo and baby Sabonis packing in return for Paul George then a month before the season kicks of Presti made the move to add Carmelo

The Thunder are built to win now. With Paul George and Carmelo now manning the wings the Thunders offense should be explosive this coming season.

There are already concerns about the three being able to play together being that they’re all ball dominant players. Westbrook did share the court with KD for eight years a spot where PG could seamlessly slide into. This team coming together is hinged on Westbrook getting Carmelo to turn into “Olympic Melo” for the regular season and if they want to compete for a championship they’ll need “Hoody Melo” for the postseason run. OKC shouldn’t have a problem making the playoffs regardless of how stacked the west is. Once they get in that’s when this experiment will really start showing its results. We all know Melo plays best when he’s surrounded by talent via the olympic and with two of his former USA teammates in tow this team has enough firepower to hang with the any team in the league .

The Thunder were an elite defensive team before adding an All NBA defender in Paul george. The Thunders Elite defensive talent lends itself well to a subpar defender like Melo, while Melo’s elite scoring is just what the doctor ordered for a team that was powered offensively almost solely by Westbrook this came to a head when Russell just ran out of steam in the first round of the playoffs against Houston.

This newly formed super team does have a hard reset button that they would rather leave alone. Unfortunately for the Thunder Paul George holds all the power with his deal ending at the end of the season and he hasn’t been modest about his intentions on playing for the Lakers. Carmelo doesn’t seem to have a destination just anywhere that isn’t the Knicks. Westbrook has a opt out after next season , so in a worst case the Thunder could have none of these players on roster to start the 2018-2019 season.

So the Knicks are going to be a train wreck again but at least their a train wreck with a future.  The Thunder are putting all their eggs in the basket for and can either roll trips with their big three or ace out and be left with nothing.

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