‘LeBron makes the trades’: Carmelo Anthony speaks out on chances of Lakers dealing LeBron James

Amid chatter about the future of 20-time All-Star LeBron James with the Los Angeles Lakers, The Athletic’s Jovan Buha reported earlier this week that L.A. isn’t interested in trading James to another team unless he asks out.

James’ longtime friend and former Lakers teammate Carmelo Anthony was asked if there’s a world where the NBA’s oldest player gets traded from Los Angeles, and he offered an interesting response.

“LeBron makes the trades,” Anthony said. “So, if he wanna get traded, he’ll get traded. … I think that window closed shut. It was a point in time — maybe last year or a little bit time ago — where it was, there was a thought, like, ‘Damn, this could be a possibility. … Are you interested?’ And it’s like, ‘Could y’all pull this off? See if y’all could pull this off.'”

Anthony spent the final season of his NBA career — the 2021-22 season — playing with James and the Lakers. He averaged 13.3 points per game while shooting 44.1 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from deep across 69 games (three starts).

Unfortunately, the Lakers enjoyed a limited amount of collective success in the lone season with Anthony on their roster. Los Angeles won just 33 of its 82 regular-season games and didn’t make the playoffs.

James has been linked to the Golden State Warriors on more than one occasion since the start of last season, something that has caused quite a stir in the basketball world at times. However, such a trade doesn’t appear to be very likely right now.

The Warriors seemingly could benefit from shaking up their roster considering the slump that the team has been in lately. Golden State has lost all but two of its past 10 games played and is riding a three-game losing streak.

The team is also on the heels of an embarrassing loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday. The Warriors lost by more than 50 points, and star guard Stephen Curry had one of his worst performances ever. He finished the game with just two points and missed every one of his seven field-goal attempts, six of which came from behind the 3-point arc.

James landing with the Warriors might be far-fetched right now, but it’s a safe bet that people are going to keep talking about it.