Mike Vaccaro

Mike Vaccaro

NBA

Melo’s status is drama for July; the Knicks have plenty already

CHICAGO — In a way, you have to hand it to Carmelo Anthony. At a time when athletes guard their honest thoughts and their true feelings as if they belonged in a safe-deposit box, he is always willing to share what’s on his mind — even as he’s changing his mind.

Or at least editing himself.

So this was what was on the tip of his tongue Thursday, when the TNT network asked him the question that has dominated the national conversation more than “Will this $#%^&% website ever load?”

“I want to retire in New York,” Melo said, asked for the umpteenth time about the option he holds at season’s end to escape his current contract and become a free agent for the first time. “I mean, let’s just be quite frank.’’

So the Knicks’ season is exactly two games old, and after this ugly-but-thrilling 82-81 loss to the Bulls the Knicks are now 1-1, and there really is an awful lot about the team that we could be talking about, that the fiercest and most fearsome Knicks fans could be fretting about.

Instead, what we’ve had thus far is something that can best be described as the Five Stages of Melo:

I. I’m not even thinking about the opt-out.

II. Actually, I am thinking about the opt-out.

III. Actually, I’m definitely going to opt out because I’ve never been a free agent and who among us, in their right mind, wouldn’t want to see what’s Out There?

IV. Though I’m going to opt out, don’t believe what you read because I have a Black Book with which I’m going to recruit my future teammates.

V. To paraphrase that old ditty from an earlier, glorious time, “I’m a Knicks man, and I gotta stay true, I’m down with the orange and the blue …”

Here’s the thing, too: in a time when athletes too often feel they are compelled to lie to our faces, or when they just do it because there is no consequence for doing it, it would be wrong to rip Anthony for telling the truth — at least that interpretation of the truth right now. Look, we’re all adults here. We know the particulars: of course he’s going to opt out. Of course the Knicks, who can offer him the most money, will offer him a boatload.

Of course he probably will take it.

Or maybe he won’t.

The point is: that’s a summer story. And right now, what we’ve seen across the season’s first two nights is the Knicks are capable of giving us a narrative in autumn and winter that’s every bit as interesting. The reason for that, as always, as it has been from the day he arrived, is Anthony.

This night was a splendid reminder of all of that.

A day after watching a fellow Syracuse Orangeman named Michael Carter-Williams fill up the stat sheet against the Heat in Philadelphia, Anthony decided to have a hand at the same mathematical trick — 22 points, six rebounds, six assists, six steals.

He still isn’t shooting well, missing 16 of his 24 shots — something that plagued him in preseason and has carried over to the first two games — and one more time he misfired on a shot that would have won a game for the Knicks, something that used to be so automatic in Denver.

“I got the look I wanted,” he said, shaking his head. “Just didn’t go in.”

So far, though, it’s clear Anthony is embracing the possibilities that exist within the current roster, before handing over even one phone number from that little black book of his. That’s what’s going to carry the Knicks as far as they’re going to go and, most relevant to Melo, it’s what’s going to only upgrade his value come next July.

Besides, it doesn’t matter what he says about his future right now, because nobody would hold him to it anyway.

“I said what I said and I believe that, but I don’t want to talk about it,” he said afterward. “No disrespect.”

None taken. Now it’s time to follow your own counsel.