DENVER — Carmelo Anthony didn’t sound like a player ready to ask for a trade, but one eager to recruit free agents this summer and convince point guard Rajon Rondo that this system will work for him.
“Put me at the head of the table and let’s go to work,’’ Anthony said about summer free-agent meetings. “Put me in the board room.’’
Back at an old haunt, a practice facility in suburban Denver where he held his Anthony summer camps, the Knicks’ embattled star was in a gregarious mood, saying Rondo and former teammate Chauncey Billups are off base in thinking the triangle isn’t good for point guards. Rondo has said he didn’t believe the triangle was for him. Billups told The Post Sunday the Knicks may have trouble recruiting an elite point guard because of the triangle being “restrictive.”
“I don’t want to be tampering — I’ve heard he said he wouldn’t thrive in a system like this,” Anthony said of his fellow Oak Hill Academy alum. “I think he’d be perfect in a system like this. A system like this fits a guy like that. To have the ball in their hands and be able to run the offense, I think it fits well. I don’t know who’s telling him he don’t fit.
“It is a misconception about that. Some of our keys of offense is penetration, getting in the paint, pushing the pace, transition creating in the paint for bigs. A point guard would love that. It’s a perfect opportunity.”
Last summer, when the Knicks didn’t land a big fish despite $30 million of cap room, Anthony was excluded from free-agent meetings. This time, after another losing season, he plans to be there.
“Phil had it [last year],” Anthony quipped. “This summer is going to be interesting. I don’t have a choice. If we want this team to be better, we want to add pieces. I don’t have a choice but to go out there and do my job and try to get people to come here so they can see it from my perspective rather than everybody else’s perspective, seeing it from a player’s perspective.”
Anthony still made phone calls to players such as LaMarcus Aldridge, but the Knicks canceled their meeting when they realized they were all but out of the hunt.
“I did a lot of talking to guys seeing how they felt about the situation and being in this system,” Anthony said. “There were a lot of people very, very interested.”
Anthony admitted to being “worried” about the losing, and roster/coaching instability doesn’t help.
“You need to have something to look forward to year in and year out, not always changing everything when something goes bad,” Anthony said. “The rest of the league sees that. Guys see that, players see that, agents see that. Sometimes it makes it a hard sell, but for the most part, as players, our sources are other players.”
For his part, Knicks interim coach Kurt Rambis believes it’s rubbish to think the triangle isn’t meant for a traditional point guard. Asked about the Rondo/Billups sentiments, Rambis, for fear of tampering, only addressed Billups — not the Kings stud.
“[Billups] is more a traditional point-guard player,” Rambis said. “[Chauncey] would have tremendous success within the offense. … There’s no doubt in my mind. [He] didn’t participate in it, but the way [he] plays, the competitor [Billups] is, he’d fit very well into it.”
Though former coach Derek Fisher recently knocked Rondo as not “an elite point guard,” it’s known the organization feels Rondo would do well in the triangle.
Interestingly, Anthony credited Rambis for teaching the triangle with more clarity than Fisher.
“I believe we still run the same concepts with Kurt,” Anthony said. “Nothing to do with Derek, [but] it’s more understanding and being more clear on what we want [with the offense]. With Derek, it was more focus on the defensive end, focusing more on developing Jerian [Grant] and [Kristaps Porzingis]. I actually like that — two different styles of coaching.’’
Anthony is trying to get back to where he was in 2009, when he and Billups advanced the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals. Billups said he thought that had the club stuck together, it could have won a title.
“That’s something we talk about to this day,” said Anthony, who felt the Nuggets were in rebuilding mode and asked for a trade during the 2010-11 season.
The Anthony-Billups Knicks blockbuster hasn’t worked out well for either team. Anthony isn’t sure how he’ll be received Tuesday — with his most recent appearance here two years ago.
“A lot of things have changed,” Anthony said.