Carmelo Anthony wants to sit down and chat with Knicks president Phil Jackson later rather than sooner.
“I don’t think right now. Right now we’ve got to sit down and kind of finish these games and go back down to the drawing board after this season. But not right now,” Anthony said about hashing out all things Knicks with team brass.
So after the season, “I’m pretty sure we’ll sit down and talk.”
When the trade deadline passed and Anthony changed neither uniform nor zip code, as he suspected all along, it seemed logical to assume the drama was done.
“Nah, this is New York. There’s always drama,” Anthony said.
Witness Monday. The Knicks, who play in Orlando on Wednesday, waived Brandon Jennings, announced likely season-ending arthroscopic knee surgery for Joakim Noah, then lost another final-possession gut punch to Toronto, 92-91, with Anthony misfiring at the buzzer. Enough drama?
After the trade deadline passed Thursday, Anthony admitted he didn’t see Jackson’s vision for the team. Monday, he also noted he was unencumbered by clue about the waiving of Jennings. But he wasn’t upset with no prior knowledge.
“Not really. That situation doesn’t bother me,” Anthony said. “I still don’t know if it was more Brandon or the organization or a mutual agreement.”
Anthony realizes as a player, he has no part in such decisions.
“Not when you’re talking about waiving somebody. As players we don’t really know what happens behind closed doors unless they bring it to us. That wasn’t something that they brought to us,” Anthony said.
But he wasn’t the only one who learned of Jennings after the fact.
“It’s tough. Brandon was a big part of the team, not only on the court but in the locker room,” said Kristaps Porzingis. “He’s a great veteran, great guy. But you could tell that he wasn’t himself lately so that’s probably the best thing for him. Because he loves basketball, he loves playing basketball, he wasn’t happy here.”
So the Knicks reworked the roster post-trade deadline. Jennings, gone. Noah, likely done for the season. Chasson Randle was brought back. It’s not the team the Knicks went to war with at the outset.
“We don’t have a choice but to continue going to war out there. We can’t let that stagger what we’re trying to do while playing games,” Anthony said. “We’re just trying to win basketball games. We can’t let the Brandon situation deter us from that or the unfortunate situation with Joakim with his surgery move us off what we’re trying to do.”
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