Is Kyrie Irving courting Carmelo Anthony for the Celtics?
It’s not confirmed, but many reports indicate that Carmelo Anthony’s time with the Houston Rockets is coming to an end. Though the team has publicly denied that they’ll waive him, several reporters are saying that he’s on his way out.
So where will 34-year-old ‘Melo go next? Kyrie Irving of the Boston Celtics said on Sunday that his team may have an opening for someone with Anthony’s particular set of skills.
Kyrie: "Right now I think it would be nice if we had someone that was a 15-year vet, a 14-year vet that could kind of help us race along the regular season and understand it’s a long marathon rather than just a full-on sprint."
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) November 12, 2018
Irving didn’t say “the Celtics should go and get Carmelo Anthony,” but ‘Melo is a 15-year NBA veteran, and it’s been hard to ignore the Rockets’ drama lately.
It says a lot about Anthony that despite his struggles with the Rockets, Irving is practically asking the Celtics to snap him up. But is he forgetting who’s on his team already? While he recognized that he, Al Horford and Aron Baynes are veterans, he still made the appeal for a 14- to 15-year veteran despite there being a number of other veteran-types on the team already. Horford is in his 12th year. Marcus Morris has played in the NBA for eight seasons. Gordon Hayward is on his ninth. Both of them have more experience than Baynes, who is in year seven.
But Irving wants more, and you can’t blame him. After a four-game winning streak, the Celtics have lost four of their last five games. And just before he started talking about the team needing a veteran, he discussed the current state of the Celtics, and how they needed a few losses to bring them back down to Earth.
Kyrie reflects on the Celtics 1-4 road trip (Presented by https://t.co/Av8GdCiYr0) pic.twitter.com/nRYxoOA9m3
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) November 12, 2018
Kyrie: “We’re not as good as we think we are. That’s what it comes down to.”
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) November 12, 2018
Irving knows the Celtics need help, and he doesn’t want them to wait to go and get it. And if Anthony is going to be waived by the Rockets, he has to go somewhere. Maybe the universe — or just Irving — is pushing the two parties together.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on Twitter at @lizroscher.
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