The Nets had their chance to pitch Camp Carmelo on their plans for the future when the two sides met at a Los Angeles restaurant, per ESPN.

Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and minority owner Jay-Z spent the 40-minute session informing Anthony of the club’s short-term and long-term vision, centered upon their scheduled move to Brooklyn for the start of the 2012-13 season and their confidence in building a championship-caliber team around him, largely through free agency.

Sources said Anthony was noncommittal after hearing the Nets’ presentation, declining to say whether or not he would sign the three-year, $65 million contract extension that New Jersey has established as a prerequisite for completing a trade with Denver.

According to Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski, the Nets were not confident after the meeting.

After Carmelo Anthony sit-down with New Jersey ownership, “The Nets didn’t come away very confident,” a source briefed on meeting tells Y!

Wojnarowski also published a column early Sunday morning that outlines the growing influence that Isiah Thomas — yes, Isiah Thomas — has over owner James Dolan, who has taken over the Knicks’ trade negotiations with the Nuggets.

“Isiah is calling the shots for New York,” said one front-office executive with knowledge of the Anthony trade talks. “It’s a disgrace. Donnie should walk.”

Dolan has overruled Walsh in these trade talks and undermined his authority. Walsh has never wanted to give away Raymond Felton for an aging Chauncey Billups and throw Danilo Gallinari into the package, too. This is all Isiah, all his influence.

This all comes down to Carmelo. While most stars wouldn’t want his future team to be gutted in order to acquire him — remember those Kobe-to-Chicago rumors from a few years ago? — Carmelo just wants the Knicks to give the Nuggets enough to get this deal done before Thursday’s trade deadline. He wants to play for the Knicks and he wants his three years and $65 million in security. A supporting cast is a distant third on his wishlist, apparently. Unless he’s suddenly willing to re-up with the Nets, he’ll be a Knick by the end of the week.

As for the reemergence of Thomas as the de facto GM in New York — well, that’s just disturbing. Isiah can evaluate talent and had a pretty good run of drafts when he ran the Knicks, but in every other area of the job he was a complete disaster. Knicks fans have to be troubled by these recent developments.

Ric Bucher says that any deal won’t get done until Monday because the league does not want the awkward situation of Carmelo playing in Sunday’s All-Star Game for the West, when he actually belongs to a team in the East.

Frank Isola of the NY Daily News reports that Knicks owner James Dolan has taken over negotiations with the Nuggets for Carmelo Anthony.

Carmelo Anthony’s future is now in James Dolan’s hands.

Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden, could decide as early as Saturday whether to agree to a blockbuster deal with the Denver Nuggets or risk losing the All-Star forward to the Nets.

Isola’s piece isn’t specific about the parameters of the trade because it doesn’t sound like the Knicks have decided who they are (and aren’t) willing to give up.

Dolan apparently included Danilo Gallinari in the latest version of the trade, but Ray Felton, Landry Fields, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mosgov and Anthony Randolph have also been mentioned in these trade talks.

GM Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni are apparently against doing the trade, so if Dolan does pull it off, look for the Knicks to give up Gallinari and Felton, along with two or three of Fields, Chandler, Mosgov and Randolph. If Felton is included, the Knicks would likely get Chauncey Billups in return.

The Nuggets feel like they have some leverage since they have agreed in principle to a trade with the Nets, but if Anthony isn’t willing to sign the extension with New Jersey, it won’t matter. He’s reportedly irritated that the Knicks haven’t done more to get the trade done, and that irritation could lead to a sudden willingness to play with the Nets if he’s faced with playing for the Nuggets the rest of the year.

Per ESPN…

Carmelo Anthony and New York Knicks owner James Dolan met on Thursday night in Los Angeles, the New York Daily News reported on Friday afternoon.

The newspaper also reported that the executive of the Knicks and Denver Nuggets were set to hold a conference call on Friday afternoon to discuss a deal involving Anthony, who has been the subject of trade rumors to the Knicks and New Jersey Nets for the past several months.

As for the Nets…

Anthony, speaking Friday at a NBA Cares Day of Service event in Los Angeles, said “no meeting at all” is scheduled with the Nets. Calling it “news to me,” Anthony said: “If I was to meet with that guy [Prokhorov] to be honest I really don’t know what I would say.”

“If I was to meet with that guy…”

Wow.

So both Prokhorov’s spokeswoman and Anthony are denying that there’s a meeting scheduled, yet there are reports that the Nets and Nuggets have come to terms on a deal.

I can’t wait for this to be over.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that the Nets and Nuggets have agreed to terms on a deal that would bring Carmelo Anthony to New Jersey/Brooklyn.

The Nets and Nuggets are discussing a deal that would send Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Melvin Ely, Renaldo Balkman and Shelden Williams to the Nets for Derrick Favors, Devin Harris, Troy Murphy, Ben Uzoh and four first-round draft picks, league sources told Yahoo! Sports on Thursday night.

The Nuggets are expected to move Murphy and his $12 million expiring contract to a third team and sweeten the deal with one or two of the Nets’ draft picks.

Here’s how the trade looks in the ESPN Trade Machine. (Click the picture to see it at ESPN.)

Keep in mind that in addition to Harris and Favors, the Nuggets would get four first round picks from the Nets. They’re expected to send one or two of those along with Troy Murphy to a third team to get rid of his salary. If they’re successful, they’ll shave $20 million off of this year’s payroll (though most of that money has already been paid to the players).

It will be interesting to see how the Nets come up with four first round picks. They currently own the 6th-worst record in the league, so their own pick could be very valuable, but the Warriors’ 2011 pick that they acquired as part of the Marcus Williams trade is protected through 2013 before it turns into a pair of second round picks.

This looks like the best deal available for the Nuggets, who apparently covet Favors. The only thing that seems to be standing in the way is Anthony agreeing to sign a three-year extension to play for the Nets. If he does, the Knicks will be out of the running. If he doesn’t, then I think the Knicks and Nuggets will get something done before the trade deadline. The Nuggets are truly at Carmelo’s mercy at the moment.

Marc Stein sifts through the latest Carmelo trade buzz for ESPN:

Although details of a formally scheduled meeting have yet to emerge, Denver officials are operating under the assumption that Melo and Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov will finally meet face-to-face during All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles, according to sources close to the process. The Nuggets encourage that meeting, sources say, because trading with New Jersey has always been more favorable to Denver than dealing with New York and because the Nuggets — who still like New Jersey’s Derrick Favors better than any player who’s been made available to them in the months-long Melo trade saga — know that the Nets remain unwilling to participate in a trade unless Anthony also commits to an extension in New Jersey.

This is the same billionaire who pulled out of the Carmelo trade talks earlier this season because he felt like his team was distracted and was potentially being used to spur negotiations with the Knicks. That may still be the case, but the trade deadline is fast approaching and if Prokhorov can sell Carmelo on the idea of playing in Brooklyn, the Nets and Nuggets may be able to make a deal because the Nuggets want Favors. Keep in mind that Prokhorov’s spokesperson says that nothing has changed with regard to the Nets’ non-pursuit of Anthony.

Meanwhile, Knicks GM Donnie Walsh is dealing with owner James Dolan, who may be more willing to gut the roster to acquire Anthony before the deadline. Carmelo’s meeting with the Nets has to be putting the pressure on Walsh to make a deal, though the Knicks are also expected to meet with Anthony in Los Angeles.

If Prokhorov is smart (and he is), he should bring part owner Jay-Z to help sell the Nets franchise. Who knows, maybe Carmelo will be as impressed by Prokhorov as LeBron was last summer.

Chris Broussard of ESPN is reporting that the New Jersey Nets and Denver Nuggets have reignited the Carmelo Anthony trade talks.

While Anthony would prefer playing in New York, sources say he has grown frustrated with the Knicks’ inability to pull off the trade, especially when reports out of New York suggest the Knicks are hesitant to exchange a collection of role players for him.

Sources close to Anthony have long said he would be willing to go to New York as a free agent this summer and thereby risk losing tens of millions of dollars under a new collective bargaining agreement, but as the trade deadline has drawn near, Anthony’s willingness to leave that type of money on the table has seemed to wane. That’s what New Jersey is banking on.

At the very least, New Jersey’s re-entry into trade discussions would seem to drive up the price for the Knicks. Denver likes Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Landry Fields and Timofey Mozgov and wants two, if not three, of those players in a deal, as well as point guard Raymond Felton in exchange for Chauncey Billups. Any deal between the Knicks and Nuggets is also likely to include a first-round pick from Minnesota that the Timberwolves would give up in exchange for New York’s Anthony Randolph. But the Knicks are reluctant to part with two, much less three, rotation players.

Knicks owner James Dolan, however, badly wants to acquire Anthony before the Feb. 24 trade deadline, and sources say he has been pushing team president Donnie Walsh to get a deal done. Walsh and head coach Mike D’Antoni do not want to decimate their roster to get Anthony, especially since they’ve been confident that Anthony would sign with New York as a free agent this summer. But now that New Jersey is back in the mix, the Knicks’ leverage has declined.

This could turn out to be a savvy move by Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov. He felt like his team was getting played by the Nuggets and/or Carmelo, and he ordered management to back off. Now that the trade deadline is quickly approaching, he sees that the Knicks may get Anthony for nearly nothing, and by reentering trade talks, at the very least he should be able to drive the price up on any forthcoming Knicks/Nuggets trade, hurting the rival Knicks long term. The best case scenario is that he acquires Carmelo and convinces him to sign that much-ballyhooed three-year extension worth $65 million.

As for Carmelo’s frustration that the Knicks haven’t already gotten a deal done, Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni only want to ensure that there’s a supporting cast present once New York’s new star finally walks into the Knicks’ locker room. Most stars wouldn’t want to be traded to a team that is decimated by the trade, but I think at this point Carmelo just wants to play in New York, supporting cast be damned.

In the end, New Jersey definitely has more to offer, but it’s not clear how willing Carmelo is to play for the Nets long term. Without that commitment in place, the Nets are unlikely to move forward since there’s no point in renting Anthony for a playoff run. The Nets may have more to offer, but no deal will get done without Anthony’s three-year commitment.

The ESPN writer says that the Knicks are not a shoe-in to land Carmelo, but still thinks that he’ll land in New York.

The guess here is that if the Knicks acquire Anthony, they will give up Chandler or Gallinari (not both), Fields, Walker, Anthony Randolph (or a No. 1 obtained through a Randolph trade), Eddy Curry, plus an additional No. 1 pick (perhaps New York’s own 2014 pick), with the Knicks getting back an additional big body — something they’ve been scouring the league for throughout December and the first half of January. And I’m not necessarily saying the Nuggets would be taking on all those pieces, because a three-team trade might make it easier for everyone to walk away satisfied.

Sheridan also mentions the possibility that Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke, who is reportedly still irked about Chris Paul’s now-infamous toast at Carmelo’s wedding last summer, may be stubborn enough to not trade Anthony, and leave the three-year extension on the table until June 30 to see if Carmelo is really willing to leave all that money on the table. Anthony is up against the clock — if he doesn’t sign this extension with the Nuggets (or the Knicks or the Nets, or any other team), he stands to walk away from an estimated $83 million in guaranteed money, and it might result in a contract under the new CBA that is $30-$40 million less. The kicker is that he has to be traded by Feb. 24 to re-up with a new team. Otherwise, he’ll be under contract with the Nuggets.

Is he willing to sacrifice all that money to play for the Knicks instead of the Nets (or the Nuggets)?

We may find out.

If their first game after owner Mikhail Prokhorov announced the team was backing out of negotiations is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes. Devin Kharpertian of NetsAreScorching writes that last night’s Nets looked confident in an upset of the Utah Jazz.

Now that the stink of the Melo saga has finally rolled off their shoulders, the Nets can focus on playing as a complete team instead of worrying about who might not be in practice the next day. It’s only one game, but the difference between the scurrying team on the floor during the previous 12 games and the confident one against Utah was staggering. Without Anthony, the Nets still have a young, solid core, which includes former All-Star point guard Devin Harris, cornerstone center Brook Lopez, 3-point machine Anthony Morrow and, of course, the prize of the no-deal, Derrick Favors.

Kharpertian goes on to discuss Favors’ progress in his rookie season:

Favors, the youngest player in the NBA, still has skyscraping upside and is playing surprisingly efficient basketball despite his inexperience and the swirling cloud of rumors. In just more than 18 minutes per game, he’s shooting 55.1 percent from the field while grabbing almost 16 percent of available rebounds. There has never been a teenage rookie in the history of the NBA who played up to that level. The closest? Some guy named Dwight Howard. Favors may never have the game-changing impact that Howard has, but that’s a pretty solid start to hang your hat on. I know the Nets are impressed.

Favors is averaging 6.6 points and 5.0 rebounds in just 19.0 minutes of playing time, which results in a slightly-below-average PER of 13.99. Considering he’s just 19-years-old and has a very raw offensive game, there is a lot of upside here. Maybe the Nets are better off seeing how he develops alongside the more polished Brook Lopez. The two could make a formidable power forward/center core in a few years.

This assumes, of course, that Carmelo was interested in joining the Nets in the first place. There have been mixed messages coming out of his camp and it sure seems like Anthony using the Nets offer as leverage to get the Knicks to make a move. If that’s the case, Prokhorov absolutely made the right move to pull out of the negotiations. He doesn’t want his team to be used that way.

Per ESPN…

“I’m not happy with the way … this deal has gone until now,” [Mikhail] Prokhorov said. “It has taken too long. It has been played out in public and it certainly has taken a toll on the players and I believe that it has cost us several games. I think management did a great job, but there comes a time when the price is simply too expensive. I’m instructing our team to walk away from the deal.”

It sounds like Prokhorov is frustrated with the pace of these negotiations and even went so far as to cancel a meeting with Anthony that was scheduled for Thursday.

I doubt this is posturing, since a meeting was supposedly already on the books. I suspect if Carmelo and the Nuggets come back to the table quickly, the Nets would listen. Prokohorov clearly doesn’t want to be played the fool and probably believes (like the rest of us) that Anthony really wants to sign with the Knicks. I respect this move, though it is surprising that he’s canceling a scheduled meeting with Denver’s star.

It will be interesting to see what kind of deal the Nuggets eventually get, and how it compares to the offer that the Nets just pulled from the table.

I missed this tidbit from a TrueHoop post from about a week ago:

The Nuggets have a great offer on the table now, but might see some merit in stalling, too. For one thing, it’s hard to see what could happen to make the Nets’ current offer disappear. Derrick Favors has spent much of the season playing behind Kris Humphries in New Jersey, and unlikely to increase his market value drastically. Then there’s some gamesmanship surrounding the Nets’ 2011 draft pick. Very high picks like that one, used skillfully, are nearly essential ingredients to winning titles, and they’re damned hard to find. As the Nuggets root for that pick to be as high as possible, they root, of course, for the Nets to lose. And every loss matters, as a heated battle is under way for the NBA’s worst record. The 10-27 Nets have the NBA’s fifth-worst record today, but they’re a mere two games out of the 8-29 Cavaliers’ first, or last — depending on your perspective — place. Of course, the Nuggets can’t do anything to make the Nets lose more … or can they? Giving them an All-Star like Anthony may well cause the Nets to rip off some wins. It sounds a little out there, but one thought is that the longer the Nuggets keep Anthony from the Nets, the better that Nets’ pick is likely to be.

Gamesmanship, indeed.

Let’s assume that on Jan. 7 the Nuggets decided that the offer of Derrick Favors, Devin Harris and a first round pick for Melo and bad contracts was an agreeable offer. The trade deadline isn’t until Feb. 24, so during that span, the Nets would play 20 games. If the Nuggets were to trade Carmelo on Jan. 7, it would almost certainly help New Jersey’s win/loss record during that span. The Nets are currently winning at a .244 clip. Let’s make another assumption: They start winning at a .500 rate once Carmelo is on board. So that means they would go 10-10 during the 1/7 to 2/24 span instead of 5-15.

Those five wins could be very important come lottery time for the Nets’ 2011 first rounder that will no doubt be included in the Anthony trade. As an example, at the end of last season only four games separated the team with the third-worst record (Kings) from the team with the ninth-worst record (Knicks). As a result, the Kings had a 15.6% chance of landing the first overall pick while the Jazz (who had the Knicks’ pick) had just a 1.7% chance of winning the #1 pick.

So assuming that the Nets aren’t going to pull the offer from the table (and that Carmelo is agreeable to signing an extension with the Nets), Denver stands to benefit by dragging its feet as long as possible.