Carmelo Anthony has three Olympic gold medals, an NCAA championship, nine All-Star berths, a scoring title, six All-NBA appearances and a retired college jersey.
So you'll forgive him if he doesn't want to spend his mid-30s scrapping his life for an NBA ring.
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Anthony told the Knicks that he wants to stay with the franchise for the duration of his contract, the New York Daily News first reported. That's a right he earned when afforded a no-trade clause on top of his near-maximum deal in 2014. Yet that's probably not what Knicks president Phil Jackson — the same guy who gave Anthony that contract — wanted to hear, with longtime confidant Charlie Rosen writing about how much the Knicks needed Anthony gone. (Rosen says he's not Jackson's media mouthpiece, which is exactly what Jackson's media mouthpiece would say, right?)
You know who's fault that's not? Carmelo Anthony's. He wants to fulfill his contractual obligation to the team that is paying him all this money, and somehow that's not enough. He wants to stay in his birth city, the hometown of his wife, and somehow he's the bad guy. He is willing to commit to a team in transition that makes mistake after mistake around him, and somehow kicking him off the team would solve problems.
Anthony didn't trade for Derrick Rose, didn't sign Joakim Noah to a massive contract, didn't attempt repeatedly to get ill-fitting coaches to commit to a system that doesn't seem to work without the right players or coach. And Jackson, who did all those things, isn't entirely to blame here, either. Of course, all issues with the Knicks trickle down from owner James Dolan, but you can't fire the owner.
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But this isn't a decision about Dolan or Jackson or even the Knicks. This is a statement about 32-year-old Carmelo Anthony, a player unquestionably bound for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame upon his retirement. He's not as great as Charles Barkley or Karl Malone, but he has an image every bit as public as them and therefore faces accountability questions about why he doesn't have a ring — or, since arriving in New York in a blockbuster 2011 trade, even a conference finals appearance. The main reason is because he hasn't had the teammates; his best veteran cohort in the Big Apple was Tyson Chandler.
But like Barkley and Malone, Anthony is still a great player. Like Patrick Ewing, whose popularity grows in New York with each year, as people cast fewer and fewer aspersions about his lack of a championship, Anthony has made his mark on the Knicks franchise. He should finish this season seventh in career points as a Knick and could end up as high as second, behind Ewing, despite playing out most of his 20s in Denver.
Much of the angst Anthony faces now is about how much he makes. But he was worth that max contract in 2014. He was coming off a season of 27.4 points, 8.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 77 games, and his 40.2 percent on 3-pointers was the best of his career. Other teams — starting with the Lakers — would have been happy to lavish max deals on Carmelo, though they couldn't offer as much as the Knicks.
His performance since signing the contract may leave something to be desired. His scoring efficiency fell back to earth, and he essentially skipped half of the abysmal 2014-15 season (though it is worth noting that had he played, the Knicks might have been too good to get the pick that became Kristaps Porzingis).
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But the criticism of Anthony's play is largely unfair, too. He's never been a plus defender, and he's always had a score-first mentality. That's true for many NBA scoring legends, and those players — including Carmelo — can easily be built around by a savvy front office. The Knicks' 54-victory 2012-13 season was not the product of Anthony playing above his head as much as him being surrounded by Chandler, Jason Kidd, J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and even minimalist point guard Raymond Felton, which is to say a cast of role players who understood how to accentuate their star's strengths.
The current roster puts Anthony in a rough position. Porzingis is a better player now, and he should be getting more shots. Anthony's best pairings have always had him as the featured scorer, even when on the court with two to four better players for Team USA. (Replicating Team USA by moving Anthony to power forward would be a start, as has been suggested by many for years.) Complicating that is Rose, a singularly score-first point guard, is running the offense and often the only player able to create off the drive. Noah would have been a great complement to Carmelo before injuries stole his prime over the past two seasons, but now he seems to be an anchor on a contract far more onerous than Anthony's.
In 2018, Anthony can opt out of the final, $27.9 million season on his contract. If he doesn't, he'll hit unrestricted free agency in 2019 anyway. He'll be 35 by that point, teetering on the top 10 all time in career points. Maybe he'll want to leave New York by then. Maybe the Knicks (and Nets) won't give him a choice, even if he's willing to take a pay cut.
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Few players in the NBA come across as steadfastly confident as Anthony. Unlike Rose, he's not callous about how his words are perceived, yet he also seems to embrace his role in the soap opera of backpage tabloid covers and postgame interview videos that comes with being in New York. He loves being in New York. He wants to stay in New York. And no one's going to bully him out of New York.
