The New Jersey Nets have been trying to construct a multi-team deal that would bring them Nuggets superstar Carmelo Anthony for months, and they now are even considering deals with record-breaking levels of complexity.
Mikhail Prokhorov's club is now working with the Detroit Pistons, a team looking to cut salary, on a deal that would provide the Pistons with cap relief while bringing Anthony, Richard Hamilton and Chauncey Billups to New Jersey and giving an adequate package of picks, Derrick Favors and Devin Harris to the Nuggets. One of the 20 scenarios for the agreement even features 15 to 17 players, according to the New York Post.
The current record for most players in a deal is 13, from the five-team, 2005 deal involving Memphis, Boston, Utah, New Orleans and Miami.
The deal would, of course, require Anthony to sign an extension with New Jersey — something that he has not said he would do.
Anthony has reportedly only agreed to such a stipulation were he to be traded to the Knicks, but New York has yet to produce a package of players that interests Denver enough to part ways with the All-Star.
The Pistons are currently the party in the three-team deal that has not been satisfied. While they are interested in dumping salary for expiring contracts, the current deal has them surrendering a draft pick and taking on the contracts of Johan Petro and Troy Murphy — terms that the team has trouble with, according to ESPN.
The teams, though, are still "going back and forth" and given the Nets' persistence thus far, it seems as though such will be the case until the Nets can get the deal worked out.
New Jersey is 10-26 this season.
