Carmelo Anthony is visiting Texas

Carmelo Anthony spent yesterday in Chicago. He got the tour, he got the Photoshops, he probably did *not* get a private workout from Derrick Rose (sounds like the workout was actually prior), and he ate some dinner. It went well. All these meetings will go well.

The fallout rumoring has the Knicks unwilling to take Carlos Boozer back in a sign-and-trade (via Broussard and Herring), which is exactly what the Knicks should put out there to build leverage if the time comes to make such a trade. They're also saying Melo would want Taj Gibson to stick around if he joined the Bulls, which is also something the Knicks can use to their advantage (if you're not going to give us Gibson, give us other stuff!) if and when a trade comes up.

Cool. That's how these meetings will go, and that's already how it's going in Houston, where Melo's making the first of today's two Texas visits. Melo will meet with execs, prospective teammates, and legends, he'll get a tour, he'll see Photoshops of himself taking Jeremy Lin's jersey number, and then everyone will say it went well and he'll head off to Dallas, where they'll do a lot of the same stuff. Perhaps a bit different because it's Mark Cuban.

This is the fun part for Melo. Alan Hahn wrote a good piece on the tour (good reminder in there, too, about the trade exception the Knicks hold). Melo and family may really want to stay, but getting courted is a rewarding experience. I doubt we'll have any sense of where things are headed until next week.

More as it comes.