Carmelo Anthony Opened Up And Laid It All On The Table Today On First Take

With NBA rosters pretty much filled, we live in a world where Carmelo Anthony has been exiled to open runs in summer workouts. He’s still not on an NBA roster, the Knicks thought about bringing him back but pussied out, and while the last few years haven’t exactly been prime Melo years, he clearly doesn’t want to hang them up just yet. We haven’t really heard much from Melo about his thoughts on why he isn’t on a roster or what went down in any of his previous spots over the last few years, but that changed today when he went on First Take with Stephen A.

The farewell tour

Now we’ve heard this from Melo before. He said this same shit when he first joined the Rockets and said he was open to coming off the bench after things flamed out in OKC. Maybe this was the wake up call he needed to finally accept the fact that he’s a bench player. On the long list of issues Melo had in his previous two spots, that was a big one.

On teaming up with LeBron and Wade

This is a pretty good NBA what-if. LeBron was always ahead of the curve when it came to his contract lengths and really what we see today from guys can be traced back to how LeBron always structured his contracts, so it was interesting to hear that they were trying to get Melo to do the same so that one day they could all play together but he took the 5 year deal instead. At the time it wasn’t all that crazy, it’s probably really hard to turn down that money when you never know what could happen. Now all we’re left with is wondering what may have happened if Melo did take that shorter deal and joined forces with his fellow 2003 draftees.

On Chicago

Pray for the Barstool Chicago boys. Sounds like Melo was a done deal before he started hearing stuff behind the scenes. Now I need to know who was filling Melo with that type of information. That Bulls team would have been NICE if Melo joined up with DRose. Maybe he doesn’t get hurt again, maybe the entire landscape of the East changes. That’s one big matzah ball.

His reason for not being on a roster

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Are we sure it’s not basketball related and is all politics? I’m sure that has something to do with it, but maybe the whole lack of defense and severe drop in shooting plays a factor too.

Chauncey Billups’ comments

Remember when Chauncey said the reason Melo isn’t in the league was because he cared more about scoring 30 than winning? Not exactly a crazy statement that I’m sure that has some level of truth to it. To be honest Melo sort of agreed with it when he talked about what his mentality was at the time. Personally I have no problem with that version of Melo because in the end it’s why he’s a HOF level scorer.

Melo also made a fair point that saying shit like that at a time when he can’t find a team is sorta fucked up, especially since Billups immediately tried to then say he meant no harm by those comments. Well then why say anything?

The break up with the Rockets

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Of this whole thing, his Rockets situation is what’s most fascinating to me. It came out of nowhere that after just 10 games the Rockets were out on Melo. Remember the Rockets struggled early, CP3 got suspended and it felt like maybe they were looking for a scapegoat. Sounds like HOU did Melo pretty dirty with how they handled that whole situation. Feels pretty fucked up that Melo travelled with the team and had no idea what was about to happen. Obviously this is one side of the story, but you had to admit it does sound like they sort of screwed him over.

All in all it was a pretty interesting interview. Again we haven’t really heard Melo open up about his situation publicily like this before, and I have no idea if this is going to help him land on a roster or not, but like I said yesterday there are some shitty teams in the NBA that could do worse than Melo. I can’t remember another HOF caliber player get exiled like this so the whole thing fascinates me. Even if you hate Melo or think he’s a bum, after watching him be that open and honest you really can’t help but root for him a little bit.