New York– The New York Knicks have acquired Carmelo Anthony in a blockbuster fifteen player deal which included Chauncey Billups coming to New York.
The Nuggets acquired Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton and draft picks in exchange.
The Knicks beat out the rival New Jersey Nets to win the Anthony sweepstakes by agreeing to a trade with the Denver Nuggets on Monday, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.
ALSO: 25 Reasons We Loved Michael Jordan
ALSO: Top 9 Black Basketball Players of All-Time
The deal that would finish the season-long trade speculation involving Denver’s All-Star forward and send him to his desired destination can’t be finalized until Tuesday during a conference call with the NBA office. Assuming it goes through, it puts Anthony alongside Amare Stoudemire in a potentially explosive frontcourt — at a heavy cost to the Knicks, who hoped in July to sign two top stars but came away with only one.
All trades for coaches are sad, there’s happy and sad. I’m glad it’s over, I’m glad it’s an opportunity to reinvent,” Denver coach George Karl said as he got into his SUV outside the Pepsi Center on Monday night. “I think everybody handled it as classy as you can handle it. There’s some sadness to it, there always will be. In the same, it’s time to move on, reinvent.”
The Knicks would hope Anthony could be in uniform Wednesday when they host the Milwaukee Bucks.
Anthony led the Nuggets to the playoffs in each of his first seven seasons in Denver after winning a national title at Syracuse as a freshman and had them positioned for another playoff run this year. But Denver advanced out of the first round just once in that time.
