Don't Count on Carmelo Anthony, Enes Kanter Returning to Blazers

Neil Olshey suggested changes are coming to Portland's bench next season.

Terry Stotts made it seem like his hands were tied, and in a way, they were.

When Neil Olshey coaxed Carmelo Anthony to Portland with the promise of protecting his legacy, it was abundantly clear the future Hall-of-Famer would be guaranteed playing time and touches that didn't necessarily reflect his on-court value. The 2020-21 season would have been the perfect time for Zach Collins to cement himself at center behind Jusuf Nurkic, but injuries meant Enes Kanter had to play major minutes, well-known and widespread defensive foibles be damned.

Still, Stotts' contention that he essentially had no choice but to play Anthony and Kanter – often together – was overly reductive. It didn't help matters that his remarks came in the thick of Portland's April nadir.

"Nurk is gonna start, Enes is our backup center," Stotts said after a dispiriting loss to the Utah Jazz on April 9. "'Melo is our backup four-man. So they will play."

Stotts is already gone, and Olshey suggested on Monday that Anthony and Kanter will soon be following him.

Portland's roster, he insisted during a combative season-ending media session, wasn't the cause of a historically porous defense or fourth first-round exit in five seasons. Olshey seemed quite comfortable indirectly throwing Stotts under the bus for those depressing developments.

One of the only aspects of the Blazers' collective failure for which he took responsibility? The makeup of Portland's reserves tilting far more towards offense than defense.

"I do think that our bench this year gave me a window into knowing we have to have more impact defenders coming off our bench," Olshey said, "as opposed to just more scorers."

Anfernee Simons isn't going anywhere; he's even up for a contract extension. Nassir Little is still on his rookie deal. Derrick Jones Jr. will likely pick up the second-year option on his contract, but it's unclear how much he'll play next season. All the hand-wringing about his late-season benching conveniently neglected the fact that Jones fell out of favor with Erik Spoelstra during the Miami Heat's run to the 2020 Finals, too.

That leaves Anthony and Kanter, both free agents, among Portland's incumbent bench personnel. The latter proved so unplayable against the Denver Nuggets that Rondae Hollis-Jefferson took his place as the Blazers' backup center midway through the first round – hardly a shock. 

Easily lost amid Portland's team-wide defensive struggles was Anthony getting targeted in pick-and-roll by Denver's guards over and over, sometimes getting torched. Switching small-ball units don't work if just one imminently exploitable defender is on the floor, and that's what Anthony was for the Blazers not just against Denver, but all season long.

A complicating factor here? Portland's cash crunch. The Blazers have early Bird Rights on both Anthony and Kanter, meaning they can exceed the salary cap to bring them back on contracts up to 175 percent of their previous salaries – a mechanism not available to Portland for players of a similar caliber.

Maybe the taxpayer mid-level exception, approximately $6 million for 2021-22, will be enough for the Blazers to find a stretch 4 to replace Anthony who isn't such a bull's eye defensively. Perhaps a non-descript, defensive-oriented backup center will take the bi-annual exception from Portland, ensuring Olshey can part ways with Kanter without having to rely so much on the health of Zach Collins.

It's at least somewhat encouraging that Olshey knows the Blazers would be better off if they replaced Anthony and Kanter, regardless of who's roaming the sidelines. But Portland's financial constraints don't make it easy as simply cutting them loose and scouring the open market for successors.

Olshey knows what he needs to do – at least with respect to the bench, of course – to help the Blazers' defense. Whether he's actually able to cut ties with both Anthony and Kanter, unfortunately, could prove a different story altogether.

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