Carmelo Anthony To New Jersey Nets Deal Dead: Denver Nuggets Need Plan B

Coming across the twitter wire at 3:47 pm MT was big news in the drawn out Melo-drama—Carmelo Anthony will not be going to the New Jersey Nets.

The team that looked to have the inside track on getting the disgruntled Denver superstar was instructed by it's new Russian billionaire owner Mikhail Prokhorov to call off the trade talks for Anthony.

It was so important to Prokhorov that he flew from Russia to New Jersey today and called a press conference regarding what would have been the biggest trade in NBA history.

"There comes a time when the price is simply too expensive. I'm instructing our team to walk away from the deal."

Prokhorov continued, "It's been too long and too expensive. I never met with Carmelo and I never spoke with him. Maybe he sent me an e-mail, but I didn't see it. Or maybe the carrier pigeon got lost. I never received any negative information. But there was no direct information. It's my feeling of strategy."

So, after a four-month long negotiation process with mainly one team, the Nuggets find themselves in a rather precarious position.

Anthony didn't meet with Prokhorov because he didn't want to go to New Jersey, even if it meant they would soon be moving to Brooklyn, NY.

Melo wants to go to New York, and the Nuggets have a difficult decision to now make.

They can either deal with the Knicks, and likely take a few players and possibly a pick if New York can pull a trade for one, or Denver can try to move Melo to a team that is willing to gamble on him as a part-time rental for the rest of the year.

Either way, it's impossible for the Nuggets to get anything close to equal compensation for Anthony like they would have with the deal to the Nets, and they have to work quickly as the trade deadline (Feb. 24) is quickly approaching.

Rich Kurtzman is a freelance journalist actively seeking a career in journalism. Along with being the CSU Rams Examiner, Kurtzman is a Denver Nuggets, Denver Broncos and NBA Featured Columnist for bleacherreport.com, the Colorado/Utah Regional Correspondent for stadiumjourney.com and a weekly contributor to milehighhoops.com.

Rich also heads up PR for K-Biz and Beezy, a Colorado-based rap group.

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