Trail Blazers: 3 reasons why signing Carmelo Anthony was a smart move

1. Injuries have ravaged the roster

No team in the NBA has had quite as much misfortune in regard to the health of their frontcourt rotation than the Portland Trail Blazers. Jusuf Nurkic, Zach Collins and Pau Gasol are all missing significant time due to injuries.

This has forced the Blazers hand, trying out an assortment of new additions on minimum contracts to hopefully fill that hole. Well, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Both Anthony Tolliver and Mario Hezonja have big flaws in their game that have been and will continued to be exposed by better teams.

While Nassir Little has shown promise in very little time on the court, he would be undersized at the four, further weakening Portland’s post presence.

The Trail Blazers clearly needed to bring in some backup, but their options were very limited. Kenneth Faried was possibly the best available power forward on the market, but he recently signed a lucrative deal to play with the Zhenjiang Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association.

Even at 35-years-old with over 40,000 minutes played in the NBA under his belt, Carmelo has enjoyed a long career with relatively few significant injuries. While he can’t guarantee that he will play well, he will play. In the modern NBA, availability is a true skill. Let’s just hope he’s kept himself in basketball shape during his hiatus from the league.