{"id":204877,"date":"2025-10-11T07:03:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204877\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T07:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T07:03:07","slug":"carmelo-anthony-weighs-in-on-whether-russell-westbrook-is-being-blackballed-from-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/204877\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmelo Anthony Weighs In On Whether Russell Westbrook Is Being Blackballed From The NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2025-26 NBA season is less than two weeks away, and future Hall of Famer Russell Westbrook<\/a> remains unsigned. There have been suggestions about Westbrook being blackballed from the NBA<\/a>, but his former teammate Carmelo Anthony<\/a> doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s the case. Anthony stated on his 7PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony<\/a> podcast, that you can make a better case that he himself got blackballed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not being blackballed,\u201d Anthony said. \u201cYou have more of a case of saying that I got blackballed\u2026 one person that knocked the domino down, right? He sent that message around to everybody. So I can say my issue was with one person, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear who this individual Anthony was talking about there. It could be Phil Jackson<\/a>, who was desperately trying to part ways with him during their time with the New York Knicks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cRuss ain\u2019t get waived,\u201d Anthony added. \u201d He ain\u2019t get cut. It was just a free agent. And now you got to go and see where do he fit into my roster. Where do he fit\u00a0into our system? Do we need what Russ can give us at this point in time in his career? What team needs that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sacramento Kings<\/a> have seemingly been the only NBA team that has had serious interest in Westbrook this summer, but the move hasn\u2019t come close to materializing yet. This has led to a lot of talk about how the 36-year-old made a big mistake by opting out of his $3.4 million player option with the Denver Nuggets<\/a> for 2025-26. He might have had a proper reason for it, though.<\/p>\n

Former NBA player Danny Green heard that the Nuggets weren\u2019t planning to play Westbrook at all this season<\/a>. Green feels the nine-time All-Star still should have picked up the option for the guaranteed money and then made the team trade him.<\/p>\n

Well, Westbrook, who averaged 13.3 points, 4.9 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 1.4 steals, and 0.5 blocks per game in 2024-25, might still get paid a lot of money, but he\u2019d have to go overseas for that. It has been reported that he may have an offer from China<\/a> that would pay him almost four times what the Kings could offer.<\/p>\n

While one can never have enough money, you\u2019d imagine a fat paycheck isn\u2019t a priority for Westbrook now, having already earned about $345 million in salaries in the NBA. He\u2019d want to play at the highest level, but the door might never end up opening for him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Carmelo Anthony Doesn\u2019t Want Russell Westbrook To Go Back To The Thunder<\/p>\n

Anthony thinks struggling teams like the Charlotte Hornets<\/a> are the only options for Westbrook at this stage of his career. He stated it\u2019s not an unfair situation but an unfortunate one.<\/p>\n

A team Anthony definitely doesn\u2019t want to see Westbrook go to is the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>. When co-host Kazeem Famuyide brought up the Thunder as an option, Anthony explained<\/a> why going back would be a terrible idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, he can\u2019t help them, no,\u201d Anthony said. \u201c\u2026 You can\u2019t bring Russell Westbrook back to OKC and not play him. He cannot go from the greatest player in your franchise history to maybe playing or maybe not playing. It doesn\u2019t work. You diminish that man\u2019s legacy by that. Let\u2019s protect the legacies of these players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthony believes Westbrook thinks he can still contribute, so going to the Thunder and riding the bench doesn\u2019t work for him, even if he can potentially get a ring by returning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2025-26 NBA season is less than two weeks away, and future Hall of Famer Russell Westbrook remains…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-204877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}