Carmelo Anthony made two crucial career moves that ultimately led to him retiring ringless. First was not joining the Miami Heat Big Three and the second was joining the New York Knicks after a trade from the Denver Nuggets.
During the recent episode of his “7PM in Brooklyn” podcast, Anthony explained his reasons for making those two big decisions.
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“The reason why I wanted to come to New York and the reason why I didn’t take that deal is because, for one, I was a little uneducated on how the business of basketball worked, so I’ll own up to that, but for two, I wanted my own sh**. I was in Denver with my own team, my own organization. Like I didn’t to go be third, fourth fiddle with somebody else,” explained Melo.
Melo liked the New York energy
Carmelo, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade first discussed joining forces when they played for Team USA in the 2004 Athens Olympics — that’s why James and Wade signed three-year deals in 2006. Meanwhile, Melo signed a five-year deal that same year, effectively leaving him out of a possible team-up in Miami in 2010.
Meanwhile, Anthony decided that New York would be the ideal landing spot for him when the Nuggets chose to rebuild rather than build a team around him after they reached the Western Conference Finals in 2009. Joining New York meant coming home and teaming up with Amar’e Stoudemire.
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“So I came to New York. This is my type of energy. This is my sh**. This is my homegrown family. If I wanna go anywhere, I want to be in front of that energy because I know what I was chasing at that point in time. If I can do it in New York, with something that he’s jumpstarted, if I could come here and help this sh**, and we do it together, oh my gosh, that was all that we used to talk about,” the legendary forward added.
Stoudemire in Miami?
Not only did Melo miss out on joining the Heat in 2010, but Stoudemire also revealed that before the Heat signed James and Bosh, Miami reached out to him first. The conversations stalled once LeBron committed to signing his deal. So S.T.A.T. signed a five-year $99.7 million contract that reunited him with head coach Mike D’Antoni.
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“Miami called me first. And I was almost going to Miami and they was waiting on ‘Bron because ‘Bron was already thinking about signing with Miami. But D-Wade and Chris Bosh had the same agent. So there was a sidebar conversation, and I’m like I’m not sticking around for this; see what’s happening, what’s going on. I know where I want to go. And that’s when I got to New York,” said Amar’e
Anthony and Stoudemire led the Knicks to their best regular season since 1997 when they won 54 games in 2012-13 but injuries caught up with the latter and the two never made it past the second round of the playoffs.