LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony have talked about playing on the same team since they were both high school basketball phenoms. But that doesn’t mean that Melo asked James to get him on his team the Los Angeles Lakers.
It’s something that Anthony confirmed during a recent interview, because he just returned to the NBA after being out for nine months. And there were several reports that said during his absence, James was trying to get the Lakers’ front office to bring his friend on board.
As of last month, Anthony joined the Portland Trail Blazers, his first team since being waived by the Chicago Bulls last February. Anthony never played for the Bulls after being traded to them by the Houston Rockets last season. The Rockets had benched him permanently after 10 games last fall. Before that, he was with the Oklahoma City Thunder but was traded after one season for reportedly not meshing well with the team.
And besides the Lakers, there were rumors that the 35-year-old had interest from the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Clippers, but obviously neither of those deals closed.
“There were a lot of teams that I thought I was going to be on,” Anthony told Clutch Points on Tuesday. “As far as LeBron goes, it’s something we’ve talked about since we were in high school.”
“It wasn’t in his power,” he added. “Some people might say it was in his power. But it’s not something that I was calling him and talking to him about, asking him, ‘Can you do this for me?’ I would never put him in that position, because a lot of times it’s deeper than that, and I started understanding the business of basketball.”
Anthony has been doing very well since joining Portland, and on Monday the NBA named him Western Conference Player of the Week, while the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo was named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week.
Plus, within three games last week, Anthony averaged more than 22 points and nearly eight rebounds. He’s also seemed to silence those critics who said he’s lost his potent scoring ability.
Currently, the Blazers’ record stands at 8-13 and they’re in 11th place in the Western Conference, between the Oklahoma City Thunder (8-11) and the San Antonio Spurs (8-14). The Lakers, meanwhile, are in first place with a record of 18-3.
