REPORT: The Knicks still plan to trade Carmelo Anthony to the Rockets

I knew it was only a matter of time before the Carmelo Anthony trade rumors pendulum swung back the other way—because that’s what a pendulum does, thus the analogy, jeez, I don’t know why I had to explain this to you all—but it happened more quickly than I thought.

When Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Melo trade talks were on hold last week, one of the common theories was that the Knicks simply wanted to give Scott Perry a few days to settle in before resuming talks. Well, tonight’s report from Frank Isola of the Daily News all but confirms that was the case.

Here’s the meat of the article:

The Knicks remain as committed as Carmelo Anthony to finalizing a deal that would send the All Star forward to the Houston Rockets.

According to a league source, new Knicks president Steve Mills informed Anthony's representatives last week that the team wanted to wait until after introducing Scott Perry as general manager before addressing Anthony's future.

So they’ll be picking up right where they left off, with Houston seemingly Melo’s inevitable destination. Oh, and that whole “the Knicks are gonna try to convince Melo to stick around” thing? Yeah, not so much:

It appears that the idea of the Knicks trying to convince Anthony to stay in New York were overblown. Mills wants to rebuild and the thought of having a 33-year-old Anthony on the roster doesn't make sense.

Looks like the teams are still operating in a three (or four) team framework as well:

The parameters for a deal are already in place but the final stumbling block is finding a third team to take Ryan Anderson, who is owed $60 million over the next three years.

The Rockets have tried to recruit the Portland Trail Blazers as a trading partner. In that scenario former St. John's forward Mo Harkless would be traded to the Knicks.

The Blazers have resisted and according to ESPN, Portland would prefer to acquire Anthony for themselves as opposed to helping a conference rival.

There’s some interesting stuff in that last excerpt. First of all, Isola confirms for the second time that the Knicks and Rockets have pretty much agreed upon the return for Melo, but that they’re having a bit of trouble bringing in the extra team(s). Second, I’m fairly certain this is the first official mention of Mo Harkless as a player New York is targeting if Portland is involved in the trade, even though we’ve all been assuming that would be the case. It is not, however, the first time Harkless has been connected to the Knicks recently, as he was mentioned as a target for the Knicks if they had decided to trade back in the draft (h/t our good pal Alex Wolfe). Finally, Isola confirms that Portland is still hoping to acquire Melo themselves. He mentions later in the article that the Knicks would be open to dealing directly with the TrailBlazers, but that Anthony refuses to budge on his Cavaliers/Rockets demand.

Ultimately, things stand about where they did last week at this time; oddly enough, that’s progress. So strap in, because we’re heading straight for that two-yard line once again.