The Oklahoma City Thunder have decided to allow Carmelo Anthony to meet with other teams. So far Anthony and his representatives have met with the Rockets and the Heat. The Rockets might have a difficult time recruiting Anthony as their coach, Mike D’Antoni, had an unstable relationship back when Anthony played on the Knicks and D’Antoni was the coach. The Rockets lost forwards Trevor Ariza and Luc Mbah a Moute to free agency so they are looking to fill that need on their team.

The Thunder are massively over the salary cap and have a financial need in trying to unload Anthony’s contract as they will be paying a large sum in luxury tax. They could waive Anthony and use the stretch provision in the bargaining agreement to take what would be a 9.3 million dollar hit over 3 years. This would effectively save the team $91 million luxury tax this year. The problem is it could hamper their ability to get Paul George and Russell Westbrook the help they need to compete for a championship over the next few seasons.

All of these problems stem from the teams horrible trade of James Harden. Giving Harden a max contract would have put them in luxury tax territory, to avoid that they traded him. He has since blossomed into one of the best players in the league and this year won his first MVP award. One of the great NBA what ifs is what might have become of the Thunder had they managed to keep Harden and Durant with Russell Westbrook.  Those 3 players have won 3 of the last 5 NBA MVP awards with Steph Curry being the only other winner in that 5 year span.