The theatre around Carmelo Anthony at the New York Knicks made the headlines this summer. Eventually, Melo was traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder for which he dropped his no-trade clause. But he would also have done this for the Portland Trail Blazers.
According to older reports, Melo wanted to drop his clause only for trades to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets or the Oklahoma City Thunder. Accordingly, those responsible at Knicks were only allowed to talk to these teams.
According to Marc Berman of the New York Post, Anthony would have been willing to join the Portland Trail Blazers if no deal had been made with the other three teams.
Adrian Wojnarowski (ESPN) had reported during the off-season that Melo was quite taken with Portland. Especially the attempts of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum Melo to bring Melo to Oregon are said to have pleased the forward.
In the end, however, the trade came about with OKC, who brought Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott and the Bulls’ 2018 pick to New York and Melo to the Thunder.