While Carmelo Anthony met with the Los Angeles Lakers today, he also met with the New York Knicks in LA, too. Though he is going to meet with Kobe Bryant last to conclude Thursday, Anthony did do some recruiting for his Knicks team even though he's still not guaranteed to re-sign with them.
Per Yahoo Sports, Anthony called free agent power forward Pau Gasol about joining the Knicks. Anthony also had the help of national Spain teammate, point guard Jose Calderon, and his former Lakers head coach Phil Jackson to help in the recruiting.
Gasol can make much more with some other teams on the open market, but he is considering to sign with contenders like New York, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Chicago Bulls and Houston Rockets for a bit less.
Gasol is searching for a $10 million salary on the open market, but the Knicks hope to convince the 33-year-old on taking about a $5 million salary to sign with them. If Gasol is willing to do that, the Miami Heat could jump on board as well. They are also very interested in the power forward.
It is pretty interesting that Anthony is recruiting Gasol to the Knicks, nonetheless. However, after reportedly "tremendous" talks with the Rockets and Bulls, he could court Gasol to join him to one of those two teams as well. There's also a chance of trying to make Gasol return to LA, a team Melo had a two-and-a-half hour meeting with.
Despite all of this talk, sources say Melo is likely to stay with the Knicks. But we'll just have to see.
