Before we even knew that Danilo Gallinari had a torn ACL and not just a torn meniscus, rumors had emerged that the Celtics had "considered" signing Carmelo Anthony to provide some depth up front.
With Gallinari now set to miss possibly the entire 2022-23 season, the urgency to bring in another forward has only increased. And it appears that the 38-year-old Anthony is very much in play.
Steve Pagliuca joins MFM at Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon
Over the weekend, Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe wrote that Anthony-to-Boston "is starting to gain traction because Anthony may be the best shooting forward left on the market, and he has shown to be productive offensively despite his age."
Our Meghan Ottolini recently made the case for staying away from Carmelo, but there are plenty of reasons he could make sense for the Celtics as well.
Gallinari was clearly signed to provide some bench scoring and three-point shooting from the forward position. He wasn't going to bring the level of defending pretty much everyone else in the Celtics' rotation brings, but Brad Stevens and Ime Udoka seemed to be OK with that given the offensive trade-off.
Anthony fits a similar profile. He's no longer the player he was in his prime who expected to be the No. 1 scoring option and jacked up 20 shots per game. He has accepted a bench role the last two seasons for the Trail Blazers and then the Lakers and has taken 10.9 shots per game, only 1.7 more than Gallinari during that time. He may be fine taking even fewer given that the Celtics could present his last and best chance to win a ring.
Three-point shooting was once a weakness for Anthony, but he has actually gotten better with age. He has hit 39.1% of his threes over the last two seasons while taking 5.2 per game, pretty much right on par with Gallinari's 39.2% on 4.7 attempts per game during that same span.
The Celtics could sign Anthony to a one-year deal for the 10-year veteran minimum of $2.9 million, which is the same kind of deal he played on last year for the Lakers. The catch is that since the C's are already over the luxury tax, such a deal would add about $13 million more in luxury tax costs, according to Chris Forsberg of NBC Sports Boston.
Still, for a team that's in win-now mode and just lost a rotation player for the season, Stevens and team ownership may be willing to pay that bill if they believe Anthony can help them win it all.