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Gilbert Arenas thinks Carmelo Anthony should join the Lakers

The Lakers have 14 guaranteed contracts on their roster and now need to go out and add another traditional center to the mix after DeMarcus Cousins tore his ACL. (Dwight Howard is in consideration for that slot.) The Lakers eventually can get a Disabled Player Exception for Cousins (saying he is not likely to play this season) to create another roster spot.

Gilbert Arenas thinks Carmelo Anthony should go to the Lakers as a 15th man.

Here is what Arenas told Landon Buford in a phone interview:

I remember the reports named Houston as a possible destination for him to land. I said ‘Hell no’ don’t go there it is going a disaster and it is not going to work. You just for the first time in your career played with two ball-dominant players and it made you the third option. So, to go right back to a team that is going to make you again the third option is a disaster.

Go to the Lakers where you might come off the bench, but you are going to be the first option in the fourth quarter because that is what they are going to need from Melo. They need a 6’9 guy that can open up the floor, play your iso basketball, and that helps the rest of the Lakers. LeBron passes to everyone else, and you play iso basketball it all works. He goes to Houston and after ten games he is gone. Melo needs to me in a position where the last five minutes of the game he is the go-to guy. If you are not the go-to guy what are you on the court for because don’t have any other skill to be used. You are a fourth-quarter last five-minute iso guy that is your skill.

A few things here:

On a team with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Arenas thinks ‘Melo would be the go-to guy in the last five minutes of a game? Um… no. Not exactly how that would work.

The reason Anthony is not on a roster is not a question of skills or if he can still get buckets — he can, no doubt — but if he could accept a role and do that on a team for 15 minutes a night coming off the bench? That’s where his game is now but is that where his head is? Would Anthony be happy in a Sixth Man role, or maybe a seventh or eighth man role? Anthony has said he can do whatever is needed to help a team, but that’s not what he showed in Houston last season. If teams believed Anthony could accept a bench role and not be disruptive he’d have an NBA contract by now.

Anthony will eventually get picked up. Somewhere. And if LeBron pushed for it that could happen in Los Angeles. A team will bet on him because he can still get buckets and at the end of the day putting the ball through the basket is the name of the game. But it’s just hard right now to see what team around the league is going to make that bet. Things will shift and some team will, but for now, Anthony will have to wait.