Carmelo Anthony believes the New York Knicks had a legitimate chance to sign LaMarcus earlier this offseason. And then they blew it.
While working out with Aldridge at Team USA training camp this week, Anthony says Aldridge told him that he ended up not meeting with the Knicks because the team envisioned him playing strictly center. Carmelo was shocked.
“I didn’t know that. When he told me that, I didn’t know that,” Anthony said, per Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. “I took my headband and threw it across. . . . I honestly didn’t know that,” Anthony said.
Carmelo was supposedly “playful and smiling” while he made the headband comment, but that would seem to indicate that there is some disconnect between him and Phil Jackson. Anthony insists that is not the case.
“I didn’t go to the meetings but I knew everything that was going on,” he said. “Phil (Jackson) went out there and did their job. I tried to do my job on my end, we kept it at that, if it was time to sign somebody. But Phil’s the president. He do what he want to do.
“I think we could have gotten LaMarcus. I believe, the conversations me and him had, it was a big chance that he was going to end up in New York. So I don’t really know where the playing the center position came in. I know from when I was talking to him we had a greater shot of getting him.”
Aldridge was open about the fact that he didn’t agree with New York’s plan for him, though we highly doubt he would have signed with the Knicks over the San Antonio Spurs. A more recent report also indicated that Aldridge was about as pleased with New York’s first-round draft pick as Anthony was.
I highly doubt Aldridge was going to sign with a team that won 17 games last season. He is already 30, after all.
