Phil Jackson Offers Carmelo Anthony $129 to Stay with Knicks

Carmelo Anthony

For those who speculated regarding Phil Jackson's offer to retain recently free agent Carmelo Anthony, the wait is over last Thursday night during the final meeting between Jackson and Anthony. Jackson was all in when he offered a maximum contract of five years for a staggering $129 million eclipsing all other offers made by other NBA teams to re-acquire the superstar.

However, Anthony has not yet provided anything certain for Jackson. Perhaps, Anthony is still weighing things whether to catch the fat Jackson bait or to go with the small paycut offered by Knicks, or go with other NBA teams. 

In this decision of Jackson to give Anthony the maximum contract, Knicks would be left with a small salary space to acquire additional talents for the club and make Knicks a winnable team. However, Jackson seems not willing to give up the star player.

Another consideration that Anthony should take is the offer of Lakers president Jeanie Buss. Lakers is offering Anthony $96 million for four years. Anthony is set to talk with Kobe Bryant regarding the offer of Lakers. If Anthony will be lured by the persuasive tone of Bryant, he will joining a team with no head coach or a strong bench.

Last Tuesday, Anthony also visited Chicago Bulls, but Bulls is hampered by the cap-scape issues. Houston Rockets is the best team to be considered with a max cap room if Jeremy Lin is traded to Philadelphia, but it seems that Anthony won't be moving to Texas even if he has the possibility of playing with Dwight Howard and James Harden.