Miami Heat Rumor: Team Targeting Carmelo Anthony To Create ‘Big Four’

The Miami Heat are rumored to be going after New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony in a bid to turn their Big Three into a Big Four.

While the Heat are focused on digging themselves out of a 2-1 hole in the NBA Finals, behind the scenes the team is reportedly working on a plan to bring Anthony on board for next season.

Sources told ESPN.com that the Heat are looking into freeing up the cash to go after Carmelo Anthony this summer in free agency. The report, from Brian Windhorst and Marc Stein, notes:

Sources say internal conversations within the Heat organization about pursuing this course have run concurrently with Miami’s bid to win a third consecutive championship, with sources adding that James in particular is likely to try to recoup potential salary sacrificed through fresh off-court business opportunities if the Heat’s new dream scenario does come to fruition.

But if the rumors is true, the Miami Heat have a lot of work to do. In order to afford Carmelo Anthony, the Heat would need all of the big three — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh — to opt out of their contracts and then take a pay cut. The Heat would also need backup Udonis Haslem to decline a $4.6 million player option for next year.

Miami has pulled off the near-impossible in the past, however. In 2010, the team made some deft moves in order to free up the space to go after LeBron, and the prospect of playing with scoring machine Carmelo Anthony might just be convincing enough for the players to go through with it.

The NBA could actually be the biggest thing standing in the way of the Miami Heat landing Carmelo. The new collective bargaining agreement makes it harder for so-called “super teams” to assemble. Asked whether it would be a success for the league to break up the Heat or Thunder, commissioner Adam Silver said he wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know if I would necessarily call it a success,” Silver said, via the Miami Herald. “Our goal was not to break up teams. But ultimately, any type of cap system in essence is a form of player sharing.

“So to the extent that James Harden leaves Oklahoma City and the Houston Rockets then become a competitive team, that’s a positive thing for the league. Part of the purpose of a cap system is so you don’t see too much talent aggregated in one market.”

There would still be a lot of work to do for the Miami Heat rumor to come true and the team to land Carmelo Anthony, but stranger things have happened.