Carmelo Anthony said Tuesday he believes the Knicks are a better team than they were last season and called the Nets rivalry now the best in the NBA.
Anthony, a guest speaker at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit in Midtown, also indicated he would have even more of a scoring mentality than he did last season, when he won the scoring title. Anthony also cracked up the audience by joking about rumors he would sign with the Lakers as a free agent.
“We were the top two seed last year,’’ Anthony said. “I think nobody expected that. This year we expect to do the same thing. I actually see this team be better than last year’s team. I won’t get into all the details [why]. But we feel that. We feel we have improved as a unit.”
The Knicks went 54-28, winning the Atlantic Division, but petered out in the second round, losing in six games to the Pacers. The Knicks drafted Tim Hardaway Jr. and added Metta World Peace, Andrea Bargnani and point guard Beno Udrih. Their losses were Jason Kidd, Steve Novak and Marcus Camby, all three of whom barely played in the playoffs. Still, some are predicting the Knicks to drop to fifth in the East.
The restocked Nets, with Kidd as their coach, are getting all the hype, and Anthony, a Brooklyn native, is savoring it.
“I love it,” Anthony said. “I think it’s a great for sports. I think it’s great for us as a Knicks organization. To have somebody we can compete with on a consistent basis four times a year, I think it’s going to be the best rivalry in basketball for a long, long time.’’
That Anthony, who can opt out of his contract after this season, was talking in the long term appeared a good sign for Knicks fans, though the Lakers surely will try to woo Anthony next summer with their cap space.
Anthony was on the panel to talk about building a “billion-dollar brand’’ and spent time promoting his companies such as PowerCoco — a coconut water sports drink. The panel’s interviewer, Matt Miller of Bloomberg TV, teased Anthony that Los Angeles was a good place for coconut-water drinkers and the Lakers were “a strong brand.’’
Anthony shot back, “I would love to sign the Lakers up to be one of the sole teams in the West that drinks PowerCoco.’’
The crowd of sports business executives erupted in laughter.
The Knicks being training camp Sept. 30 and kick off the season Oct. 30 against the Bucks. On opening day of last year’s training camp, Anthony declared he wanted to be less of a scorer and more of an all-around player. He sang a different tune Tuesday after leading the NBA in scoring last season (28.6), perhaps realizing his output is even more vital this season.
“When you can do something so great, that’s the only thing people see you as,’’ Anthony said. “When you do something good, people don’t see that. People expect me to go out and score 30. If I score 15 points and we still win the basketball game, people look at that and say, ‘Oh, he’s not on his game today.’
“There’s a fine line. My thing is to go out there and be great. If I score the basketball and can be one of the best scorers in the world … Yeah, I can do other things and I do other things. But when you do something so well, people overlook everything else.’’
But Anthony said scoring titles mean nothing compared to his first NBA title. His playoff resume is rocky, having gotten out of the first round twice in 10 seasons.
“For me now, the only thing I need is a championship,’’ Anthony said. “I think I proved to everybody the type of basketball player I am. Everyone in the world knows I can score the basketball — to separate myself is a championship. I can count on one hand the amount of people that won a national championship in college, a gold medal and an NBA title. If I can do that, that kind of separates me from some others.’’