Carmelo Anthony opts in, will make $27.9M as potential third option

By Ross Kelly June 24, 2018 at 9:45am

All four members of the NBA’s “Banana Boat Crew” have interesting decisions to make this summer as LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul all have the option to become free agents.

It seems like this would be the last chance for the four of them to all join the same team, but Anthony has apparently decided to pass up that opportunity by opting into the last year of his contract.

Shams Charania of Yahoo Sports says Anthony is passing up the chance to be a free agent in order to return to Oklahoma City by picking up his player option.

Sources: Carmelo Anthony has informed the Oklahoma City Thunder that he has opted into $27.9M deal for 2018-19 by not exercising his early termination option.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 23, 2018

This is the final season of the five-year contract that Anthony signed with the Knicks in the summer of 2014. He was given an early termination option that allowed him to end the contract after four years, but the $27.9 million he will be guaranteed far exceeds anything he would see on the open market.

Saturday was the deadline for Anthony to inform OKC if he would be opting in and he waited until the last possible moment. As it stands now, and before free agency begins, Anthony will be the 12th highest-paid player in the league next season.

But Anthony’s salary isn’t commensurate with his production in his first season in OKC. Anthony moved to power forward for the first time in his career but struggled on both ends of the court, and had career lows across the board.

37 Players took 15+ shot a game last year, Carmelo Anthony ranked:

37th in PPG
37th in TS%
35th in eFG%

Could also argue he's the worst defender on the list and next season he's getting paid 28 million. Guys, it's bad.

— Josh Eberley 🇨🇦 (@JoshEberley) June 23, 2018

According to BasketballReference.com, Anthony ranked 100th out of the 101 players who played at least 2,000 minutes last season. Only 20-year-old rookie De’Aaron Fox graded out as a worst player in terms of box score plus-minus.

Can you really be mad at a player like Carmelo Anthony for chasing the money?

A bad regular season for Anthony then became an even worse postseason as his production dropped even more as the Thunder were upset by the Utah Jazz.

After averaging 25.7 PPG in the playoffs prior to last season, Anthony only mustered 11.8 PPG in the six-game series defeat to the Jazz.

Anthony struggled to get off the bench in the last two games of the series as the likes of Jerami Grant and Alex Abrines took playing time away from him.

Speaking of the bench, that is where many believe Anthony should be at this stage of his career, but he shot down that notion both before the season and after the playoffs.

https://twitter.com/Ballislife/status/990929072145362949

“I’m not sacrificing no bench role, out the question,” Anthony said after the Thunder were eliminated. “As far as sacrificing finances and the economics of the game of basketball … when that time comes, that time will come.”

That time has come and Anthony has decided not to sacrifice his paycheck by opting out, which answers one big question for the Thunder.

The other big question should be answered within a week as Paul George has a June 29 deadline to opt out of his contract.

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