Hours ago, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported the signing of Carmelo Anthony to the Portland Trail Blazers on a non-guaranteed contract.
The forward will join the Trail Blazers on their upcoming road trip and is set to fill "a specific role and need", following the injury to Zach Collins that left rookie Nassir Little starting at the power forward position.
Imagine the classic movie relationship where the protagonist overlooks his clearly attractive best friend while he pursues a beautiful, yet vain girl that will clearly hurt him. Then after the girl who everyone, except the protagonist, knew was wrong for him proves she's wrong for him, the protagonist, now at his lowest point of the film, vents to his best friend and finally sees her beauty.
Everyone knew the Houston Rockets, who was clearly in love with another guy, wouldn't work for Carmelo Anthony, but he chose them over Portland anyways, and it almost cost him his career. Being blackballed from basketball for a year brought Anthony to his lowest point and helped him finally see the beauty of a season in Portland.
After years of the Blazers chasing Anthony and 371 days of Carmelo being out of the league, the signing points to the 4-8 franchise and the 35-year-old forward being as desperate as ever.
Just two months ago, fresh off a Western Conference Finals appearance, Damian Lillard set down with the Joe Budden Podcast and stated how he and the team were tired of seeing Carmelo Anthony choose the wrong girls over them, so they were going to stop chasing.
Similar to the love-stricken people that use the lines Lillard used, the Blazers never stopped chasing.
Everyone knows what plagues the Trail Blazers; it's been their Achilles heel/go-to excuse for almost half a decade—they need a third scoring option to truly be contenders.
But this season and Blazers team has been different.
Second option C.J. McCollum's struggles have left Lillard on a one-man show at times, and the team's lack of forward depth following the departure of Al-Farouq Aminu and Moe Harkless have left the team depending on a rookie, Anthony Tolliver, Skal Labissiere and an out-of-position Mario Hezonja to provide major minutes at the four.
Those four average a combined 16.5 points per game and a mean 7.83 player efficiency rating. For context, in his 10 games last season, the worst of his career, Carmelo Anthony averaged 13.4 points with a 10.9 player efficiency rating. Anthony at his worst is better than the four options the Blazers have been throwing out on the court.
It's easy to see why they have the third-worst record in the Western Conference.
Despite being a clear better option than the players he will likely be taking minutes from, Anthony isn't automatically keeping his spot in the league just for being better than a few players two seasons away from being out of the league.
Anthony's desperation is just as clear. From reality show style sitdowns with Stephen A. Smith to publications helping him pick his next career, the last 12 months have been a cycle of humbling slaps to the future Hall of Famer's face.
However, thanks to the extreme desperation of the Blazers and possibly due to the positive play of a similarly treated Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony is being given another chance. His last chance.
Despite the public outcry from his peers and the videos of Anthony dominating in open courts, make no mistake, Anthony wasn't a good player before his dismissal from the NBA.
Did he deserve to get cut 10 games into the season and not play for over a year? No, but let's not pretend as if Carmelo went from dropping 20 to being blackballed. He was legitimately nothing special before being released by the Houston Rockets, so expecting Anthony to fill the gap of Portland's needed third option is about four years too late.
However, an Anfernee Simons level of production, 11 points per game with a 15 PER and the occasional scoring outburst, is realistic and could score Anthony a permanent spot back in the league as a scoring stretch four—the position that has always suited him best. Even in his last days, he proved he can still put the ball in the basket.
Dwight Howard has provided Carmelo Anthony the template for erasing the stain around your name—stay humble, play your role efficiently, and when the opportunity arises, make SportsCenter.
The Blazers winning a few games wouldn't hurt either.
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