REPORT: Carmelo Anthony expanded his trade destination list to include Cavaliers, Thunder

The Knicks’ brain trust have stuck to their guns in shopping veteran forward Carmelo Anthony—no trades to Houston involving Ryan Anderson—and it appears their conviction might be paying off.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski, Melo has expanded his list of acceptable destinations to at least three, including the defending Eastern Conference champion Cavaliers.

After the Knicks insisted that they were unable to make a deal with the Houston Rockets, his primary trade destination, Anthony and his representatives honored New York's request and furnished at least two more teams within the past 10 days, league sources told ESPN.

One of the known teams on the list, Cleveland, was part of Anthony's original group of preferred destinations prior to Chris Paul's trade to the Houston Rockets in late June. The Rockets remain Anthony's most desired location, but he's worked to accommodate New York to try and find a trade before the start of the season, league sources said.

Cavs superstar LeBron James is Melo’s best friend, of course. The Knicks called Cleveland on Monday, per Woj, but the two sides have not discussed any trade packages.

The third team remains a mystery, but it is not the Portland Trail Blazers, according to Stefan Bondy. A few unsubstantiated rumors from this past week had Melo going to Portland.

Melo’s people were said to be “cautiously optimistic” a deal would get done this weekend, which I thought to be a load of crap. Now that Melo has expanded his list, perhaps I was wrong.

UPDATE

The Thunder are the other team on Melo's list.