It's looking more and more like our dreams may come true and Morey and Co are making serious headway in landing a max contract player.
The sewing circle is telling us that we may have already lost out on Carmelo Anthony, who, per Frank Isola of the New York Daily News, is expected to accept a five-year 129 million dollar offer within the next 48 hours. Anyone could hardly blame Melo for that.
They rolled out the red carpet for Melo and it always hurts to lose out on talent like that but there's plenty of silver lining to this news. The vast and furious opinio-sphere out there was quick to point out that Melo's defensive woes would be even more grievous playing along side Hardcourt Swiss Cheese James Harden. Melo is clearly a max contract talent but would he really be the best basketball decision for Houston? Basketball purists realize that the biggest catch would be Chris Bosh.
Bosh's skill set, even at a more diminished clip than they were three years ago when we were hurling iPads at him, are still the best suited for Houston. He'd be the perfect space creator in the post to let Howard work in the paint and his mere presence on court would create a number of lanes for our perimeter guys to drive through. He rebounds great even when he's 10 feet from the basket and his improved corner three only makes his acquisition that much more logical. Add Chris Bosh to a team that won 55 games last year and it's easy to imagine a scenario that lands us the second or third seed at the minimum.
And it looks like our chances of landing Bosh are a lot better today than they were yesterday. While Bosh has not scheduled any official meetings with any team as of this post, People Who Know Things are saying that with Anthony likely staying in New York, and assuming LeBron James resigns with Miami at the price he deserves, Bosh would be the most likely of the Big Three to depart given that there's no godly reason why he would take a massive pay cut when the market would easily offer Bosh a four year max offer close to or about 18-20 million a year AND a deeper roster to work with.
It's important to note that the Rockets cannot currently offer this much until they move Jeremy Lin and perhaps Donatas Motiejunas. In my opinion it'd be foolish to get rid of Terrence Jones.
But we've been hearing for a long time how Houston has something in place for Lin, and reports broke today that the Philadelphia 76ers would be happy to take him off our hands. The league at large might sense some skullduggery going on with the development that former Morey acolyte Sam Hinkie is more than willing to accept Jeremy Lin so long as the trade also sees some attractive assets. This could mean anything from giving up a first round pick to perhaps giving up to rights to one of the many Euro players that Morey has stashed over the years. This would be similar to the deal Philly got when it took Royce White.
So to recap, Melo is (probably) staying. Bosh is (maybe) open to leaving. And Lin (kinda) already has a new home. So much is left to be decided that free agency often feels like the end of a Dragon Ball Z episode. So, stay tuned to find out next time on.... well you get it.