NEW YORK — You weren’t the only one surprised by the news of the James Harden trade this morning.
The Knicks were shocked, too.
“I saw that trade,” Knicks center Tyson Chandler said Sunday after practice at MSG. “The league is shaking up. Things are changing, players are moving. It’s excitement. Brings more excitement across the board to other teams. But that’s in a different conference.”
Carmelo Anthony won Olympic gold this summer in London with Harden and two of his former Oklahoma City Thunder teammates — Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
“It happened very quick, man,” Anthony said of the trade. “I reached out to [Harden] and wished him all the luck. I talked to him for a minute and we’ll see happens.
“I think it was kind of unexpected. Houston does it again. They do it again, man. It’s just sad to see that trio over there in OKC break up, especially for me to be with them this offseason spending time with them to know how close knit they were. To see one of them gone was kind of a sad story.”
Oklahoma City reached the NBA Finals last year before losing to LeBron James and the Miami Heat. So does the loss of Harden, the reigning NBA Sixth Man of the Year, significantly hurt their chances of getting back there?
“I mean, that’s a big piece,” Anthony said. “Losing Harden is definitely losing a big piece of that team and what they had going on over there. I don’t know how [Kevin] Martin is going to fit in. So we shall see, but I know losing James is definitely losing a big piece.”
One big winner in the trade could be former Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, who loses Martin and former UConn star Jeremy Lamb as teammates but gains Harden and his sharp-shooting skills.
“James is a flat-out shooter,” Anthony said. “He can definitely shoot the ball, he can play the one, two and three, and relieve some of that pressure off of Jeremy over there. So we’ll see what happens with that.”
