Melo thought he was dealt twice over summer
Carmelo Anthony twice thought he was traded this past offseason before Saturday’s deal to OKC. Once, he thought he was headed to Cleveland to create a team of super forwards.
In an interview with Sirius XM NBA Radio, Anthony detailed an unbelievable scenario in which both he and Paul George were traded to the Cavs — only to have it pulled back on draft night.
“Me and PG have a very close friendship,” Anthony said of his new OKC teammate. “Actually, it was funny because me and PG was supposed to be in Cleveland on draft night. We were communicating about that. The deal was actually done and it got called off on draft night, so me and PG He can do everything at 7-foot, 3 inches. But what about his durability? The question has hovered over Kristaps Porzingis since he was drafted in 2015, and it hasn’t dissipated after two years in the NBA with 27 games missed — with most of the absences due to small lower-body injuries. So it was a little more alarming Thursday, on the third day of training camp, that Porzingis left practice because of a sore right knee. Coach Jeff Hornacek described it as minor but had no details about how the injury occurred. “I think his knee just got a little sore there, so we wanted to stop him from running at that point,” Hornacek said. It could be nothing, of course, as Hornacek suggested. But it’s not a good sign. Porzingis was off to the side as the Knicks scrimmaged, slightly favoring his knee. After he put up a few shots with teammate Courtney Lee, Porzingis left the court for treatment. He did not speak to the media. “I can’t tell you (what happened). I don’t know,” Hornacek said, adding that he thinks the 22-yearold will practice Friday. “All they told me was it was a knee. I don’t know left or right.” Naturally, the injury transitioned into stayed connected throughout the course of the season.”
There was never much buzz about such a deal, although the Cavs acknowledged they tried to acquire George to play alongside LeBron James. After that fell through, George was shipped to the Thunder and Anthony thought he was headed to Houston.
As the Daily News reported in July, a trade sending Anthony to the Rockets was at “the 2-yard line.” But Anthony said it was actually in the end zone.
“A deal was done with Houston early. Then for some reason, whatever happened behind the scenes, and it didn’t go through, it fell through,” he said. “Then we had to really start paying attention and thinking about other options. But then believe it or not, I felt like I was going to be back in training camp questions about Porzingis’ decision to play in the European championships over the summer. In the previous two offseasons, the Knicks recommended Porzingis skip international games — including Olympic qualifiers — because, to quote Kurt Rambis before the summer of 2016, “Sometimes players the way they play, they’re playing too much.”
Porzingis followed the Knicks’ advice. But this year, he skipped his exit meeting with Phil Jackson and never consulted the Knicks about playing for Latvia. The forward played seven games and averaged 27.2 minutes in the European tournament, and Hornacek said the Latvian national team purposefully held Porzingis back in practices and exhibitions.
“I didn’t have a problem with it,” Hornacek said. “That’s experience. I think it was a great step for him to be the leader of that team, and experience that, and have some success and get the accolades that he did for the Euro basket. That’s fine. The only adjustment for us was to try and monitor him.”
Porzingis has dealt with knee issues in the past, but nothing was as serious as the lingering sore Achilles that derailed his projection to the All-Star team. In both of his first two seasons, Porzingis’ production dipped around the midway point.
Hornacek hopes that the stretched NBA schedule — which has reduced the number of back-to-backs by starting the season two weeks early — will keep Porzingis productive and healthy without rest.
“The way the NBA has now scheduled games I think they’ve made it so you’re not having to decide if you have to rest a guy or not,” the coach said. “So there’s going to be plenty of every other day games and it’s on us to figure out if the guys are getting worn out. Sometimes if they’re too tired that’s when they might get injured. Some of that’s with age. Some of that’s with his size. But he’s worked hard this summer to get bigger and stronger and to be able to battle through that, and he wants to try and do that. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that he plays as many as possible.” and I would show up to media day in New York.”
What happened was the Knicks hired Scott Perry as GM and changed their stance on taking back Ryan Anderson from the Rockets. Fearful that he’d have to report to Knicks media day on Monday, Anthony said he decided to open his options to OKC. As The News first reported Friday evening, the Knicks were also negotiating with Cleveland, which was another team on Anthony’s accepted list.
“Me and my team sat down on Friday night and was like, ‘Man, we best prepare for going back to media day on Monday and training camp that week.’ And then we got the call that said, ‘Would you open it up to OKC?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, at this point yeah,’” Anthony said. “I don’t think it would have been beneficial for me to come back to media day after everything that was going on in the offseason. For me to have to deal with that it would have been unfair for the organization, the Knicks, to have to deal with that. It would have been too much noise, too many questions to answer and I don’t think either party wanted to deal with that.”
Anthony, who was traded for Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott and a second-round pick, also described his misery in New York while enduring four consecutive seasons out of the playoffs.
“My motivation is just different now. I kind of lost that motivation a little bit in New York. But I was still able to go out there and play. But when you’re teetering in that motivation, it’s hard to wake up in the morning. It’s hard to deal with that. So now I feel refreshed, I feel relieved. …I feel born again.”