Last summer, the Los Angeles Lakers signed veteran forward Carmelo Anthony, allowing him to finally play on the same team as his close friend LeBron James.
Of course, the season didn’t go well at all, and as a result, L.A. has gotten much younger and more athletic in free agency.
But one NBA general manager still expects the 38-year-old to play another season in the Purple and Gold.
“One NBA general manager told Heavy Sports he expects Anthony to re-sign with the Lakers,” wrote Sean Deveney of Heavy.com. “‘They have a lot to sort out obviously,’ the GM said. ‘But as more things get set, they’ll probably get back around to bringing him in. It’s just, at this point, you don’t know what might happen with [Russell] Westbrook and whether you might need to take on players, so you see that around the league a lot—teams have 10, 11, 12 players signed and there’s no hurry to fill in the last spots until you see how the other stuff plays out.'”
Anthony gave the Lakers some scoring punch off the bench, and at times, he seemed to single-handedly swing games in the team’s favor with his outside shooting.
He also became something of a fan favorite, as crowds in L.A. would cheer loudly whenever he entered a game.
But Anthony was inconsistent with his shooting, as his efficiency at home was radically higher than it was on the road.
In addition, his inability to defend at a high level also contributed to the Lakers’ failure to reach the play-in tournament.
The team could use some more depth at the forward position, as its backup forwards are currently the young but still-developing Stanley Johnson and Wenyen Gabriel, plus Juan Toscano-Anderson, who may be better suited to playing the 3 than the 4.
Anthony played mainly the 4 this past season, and he could help provide some insurance at that position were the Lakers to re-sign him.
However, if they did so, they should cut down on his minutes. In the 2021-22 season, he played 26.0 minutes a game, far too many for a player who is at the stage of his career that he’s at.
