OKC Thunder acquires Carmelo Anthony:
The presence of this trade on this list may come as a surprise to a lot of fans. In hindsight, this trade turned out to be pretty much universally considered a bad one, however, let’s take a look at how it landed on this list as one of the 11 best acquisitions.
Let’s be honest guys, almost all OKC Thunder fans were excited about this trade when it happened. You can talk about how bad of a trade it was or how bad Carmelo Anthony was in OKC all you want, but you know deep down that you were excited when the news of this trade broke.
So this trade mainly lands on this list from an excitement standpoint. This created the Thunder’s first “big three” since the Durant-Westbrook-Harden days and really didn’t require them to give up much.
OKC got a future hall of famer who was averaging 22 points and 6 rebounds and shooting 43 percent from three at the time and only gave up Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, and a second-round pick. Kanter was a fan favorite but was a backup center who was slightly overpaid (maybe not as much as Anthony, I know) and McDermott wasn’t getting a lot of minutes anyway and was about to be strapped to the bench even more frequently with Paul George coming to town.
The second-round pick became the most valuable part of this trade as it later turned into Mitchell Robinson. Meanwhile, Anthony and the Thunder didn’t end up being a great partnership, but it was an exciting time and for what they gave up it wasn’t really as bad of a deal as many Thunder fans make it out to be. The eleventh spot on this list seems like a fair ranking for this A for effort trade.