Damian Lillard: Carmelo Anthony ‘didn’t seem opposed’ to joining Blazers

Star Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard has been pressing Carmelo Anthony to try and join him out west — and he thinks he’s getting somewhere.

Lillard told Marc J. Spears of the Undefeated that, by his reading, the forward could ultimately be talked into waiting his no-trade clause and approving a move to Portland, and that Anthony “didn’t seem opposed” to such a move when the subject came up.

“I didn’t want to press him,” Lillard said of Anthony. “I ain’t a big fan of doing all the extra recruiting and all that stuff. And I guess they call it tampering or whatever. It’s not against the rules for us to interact with each other. We all peers, we all play in the same league and everybody hints at playing with each other. ‘What you think about this?’ ‘What do you think about that?’ All that matters is whether it got done or did not get done. Or hasn’t got done, and it hasn’t got done. So, it is what it is.

“I’m not giving up on anything. I just think I’ve done what I can do. And camp is a few weeks away. And you have to focus on getting ready with who we are, plan on going in as we are. Whatever changes, the front office will be the ones making that change, with the Knicks and our front office or whatever. But I get my mind focused on what I can control at a certain point.”

Lillard has been quite obviously trying to talk Anthony into approving a deal, but all indications were that the Knicks forward wanted to go to the Houston Rockets to play with Chris Paul and James Harden. Perhaps something has changed, but there has been no indication that it has.