Cole Anthony’s stint with the Suns ended almost as soon as it started. Over the weekend, the Suns waived the 25-year-old guard less than three weeks after acquiring him at the trade deadline, a move first reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Anthony never appeared in a game for the Suns, and his time with the team was defined more by bookkeeping than basketball: The Suns’ deadline shuffle was built to duck the luxury tax line, then clear another roster spot for a more preferred fit.
Anthony arrived in a multi-team deal as an expiring contract after posting 6.7 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in 15.1 minutes per game this season with the Bucks, shooting 42.4% from the field and 30.6% from three.
That profile is useful depth, but it was never central to the Suns’ plan. The decision was made as a flexibility play, with the Suns recently converting Jamaree Bouyea from a two-way to a standard contract.
Now Anthony hits the market at an awkward point of the calendar, but also with a clean runway: he’s healthy, he’s cheap, and he still has the burst to win second units if the landing spot is right. Here are three realistic options for him after clearing waivers.
1. Miami Heat
The Heat are one of the most injury-prone teams in the league at this moment. With a 32-29 record, running 8th in the Eastern Conference, the Heat have been missing many on-ball creators for long stretches and direly need a bench spark.
Tyler Herro has barely logged 16 games so far, with their backcourt needing Davion Mitchell, Pelle Larsson, rookie Kasparas Jakucionis, and a recently injured Norman Powell to put pressure on opposing defenses.
The Heat desperately need another creator that can put up shots, run pick and roll reads, set the table for Bam Adebayo, and, for a tiny stretch, become one of the main point producers in messy, clutch games.
The Heat have one of the best second units in the entire league (ranking 4th in bench scoring), but they’ve lacked the firepower to compete at the top of the conference this season. Cole Anthony doesn’t change that outcome, but at least he can land on a team that will give him credible minutes, a chance to shine for stretches, and probably a great scenario to earn a bigger contract in the offseason.
Anthony’s game is all about scoring in stretches. With the Heat needing another creator and scoring option with Herro, Powell, and Terry Rozier all out at times, Anthony could find a big market in Miami, and a stage where he can produce like a starter for the first time in years.
2. Boston Celtics
This is the clean “role upgrade” landing spot if the Celtics want to replace what they lost when they moved off Anfernee Simons. The front office already chose its direction at the deadline: it turned Simons into frontcourt help by acquiring Nikola Vucevic for a frontcourt upgrade. That trade sharpened the roster, but it also removed the one guard built to be a pure microwave scorer who can run offense for a bench group without the whole unit having to play through Jaylen Brown.
The Celtics are 39-20, and second in the East, and contenders tend to value role certainty over “more talent.” Derrick White is carrying heavy responsibility as a two-way connector and late-game organizer, and Payton Pritchard is the primary bench guard. The issue is that those two are more valuable when they are not asked to do everything. White is at 17.1 points and 5.7 assists, but his efficiency is not elite this season, and the load shows up in the shot profile. Pritchard is a strong tempo guard, but he is at his best when he is attacking tilted defenses, not when every second-unit possession is a self-created look against a set defense.
Cole Anthony fits the sixth-man scorer archetype that the Celtics no longer have. The selling point is narrow and practical: he can take on the “get us a shot” possessions that otherwise end up with Brown forcing late-clock pull-ups or Pritchard trying to create off the dribble against switches. If Anthony gives them 12 to 16 minutes where the offense does not stall, that is enough in a playoff rotation.
It also fits how the Celtics win. They are defending at a high level, and they do not need Anthony to be a stopper to justify minutes. What they need is bench juice that does not break their structure. The Celtics can hide a smaller guard for stretches because their perimeter defense is organized, and their lineups usually have size behind the play. That is why this is realistic: Anthony’s minutes can be framed as “score-first, keep the ball moving, survive defensively,” not “run the team.”
The case against it is also simple. A contender will not hand him usage for free. If Anthony wants a true featured role, this is not it. But if the goal is credible minutes, a defined sixth-man lane, and a platform that matters in May and June, the Celtics are one of the few teams where his skill set maps directly onto a roster need created by the Simons trade.
3. Houston Rockets
The Rockets are a strong landing spot because the team is already winning at a contender level, but the rotation still has one obvious soft spot: second-unit scoring that can hold up when possessions slow down.
The Rockets are 37-22 and third in the West, which means the priority now is playoff-proofing. Their baseline is real. They sit fourth in defensive rating (111.7), and they also rank third in points allowed (109.2 per game). That defense travels, but it also creates a specific expectation: the offense does not need to be elite every night, it just cannot disappear when the starters sit.
That is where the numbers get uncomfortable. The Rockets are only scoring 28.7 points per game from the bench this season, which is bottom-tier production for a team with legitimate postseason goals. In practical terms, that shows up as long stretches where the second unit struggles to generate advantages. The first action gets stopped, the ball sticks, and the possession turns into a contested jumper late in the clock.
Cole Anthony’s fit is simple and narrow, which is exactly what contenders want. He is a shot-creator who can manufacture paint touches without needing the entire possession built around him. The Rockets have plenty of athletes and finishers who benefit from a guard who can bend the defense, not just swing the ball. If Anthony can consistently force a help rotation, it creates easy reads for rollers, dunkers, and corner shooters. That is the difference between a bench group merely surviving and a bench group actually winning minutes.
The guard depth also makes the case more logical than it sounds. Amen Thompson can shoulder a lot of the on-ball workload, and Reed Sheppard has had real opportunities, but it is still a lot to ask a young group to provide every ounce of half-court creation for 48 minutes. Adding a second-unit scorer reduces the burden on stagger patterns and gives the Rockets an option for the possessions that otherwise end in late-clock bailouts.
The Rockets have flirted with adding point guard help, but decided not to at the deadline. Even with their improvements in the last month, this could be a great chance to upgrade that bench spot. Their defense is already built to win ugly. The missing piece is a bench guard who can reliably create something out of nothing for 15 minutes, without forcing the rest of the lineup out of its roles.
