With apologies to Jimmy Cannon …
You’re Carmelo Anthony, and this is the day you’ve waited for, when you get to feel 17 all over again, back at Oak Hill Academy, every famous college basketball coach in America chasing you like the greyhounds hurrying after rabbits at the dog track.
You wound up at Syracuse then, and that turned out well. Jim Boeheim has a championship thanks to that, and those who still insist you aren’t a winner, that your teams will never be big winners, somehow have to find a way to explain away that 2003 NCAA title …
Along with the 2008 Olympic gold medal …
Along with the 2012 gold medal …
“People who don’t think Carmelo is one of the handful of greatest basketball players in the world, and a winning player,” Boeheim said of you a few months ago, “aren’t worth having a discussion with.”
The hunt begins in earnest now, teams certain you’re the missing piece to their grand plans, their great ambitions. You’ll be in Chicago on Tuesday, then do the Houston-Dallas Texas two-step on Wednesday. The Lakers, they’ll make their pitch next week. And who knows where in the weeds Old Man Riles and the Heat may be lurking.
And, of course, there are the Knicks.
And in many ways, the next few weeks will tell us just as much about the Knicks — and, truthfully, about New York City as we who live here see it — as it will about you. Because we retain a certain conceit about our town, a fervent belief that any successful athlete worth his brand still feels as strongly about making it here as we do.
We feel this even though the Knicks never really moved the needle very much four years ago, when LeBron James was last in play. We feel this despite Cliff Lee picking Philadelphia, of all places, over New York a few years ago, and despite Peyton Manning wanting no part of New York a few years ago, and despite Robinson Cano selecting Seattle over New York a few months ago.
That’s the thing about you: You understood New York more than most. You wanted New York, pushed for New York, made it abundantly clear that your game, and personality, were perfectly attuned for New York. At a time when the old New York standby — come here and be in ads! In commercials! On TV! — seems as quaint as Don Draper’s hat, you bought into it.
What’s more: You lived it.
You’ve been a Knick for parts of four seasons. In that time, only Alex Rodriguez fueled more debate, more hand-wringing, more praise-laced-with-criticism and criticism-pocked-with-praise than you — and that’s primarily because he was a baseball scofflaw.
Talk radio buzzed daily based on your play. Angry email screeds would fill inboxes crushing your “ball-stopping” … and even angrier diatribes would follow from defenders asking where in the world the Knicks would be if someone besides you were shooting the ball.
You’ve gotten the full New York Experience.
And more than just about any other athlete we’ve seen around here, you got it. Enjoyed it, even. You answered every question after every game. You suffered as much as any fan during all the losing streaks. You demanded accountability, knowing well that nobody would be held more accountable than yourself.
And you played your ass off. Every game. Every day.
New York didn’t break you, as it’s broken some. Even the singular play that may have forever altered your legacy here — the would-be dunk that Roy Hibbert turned into a series-clinching block, Game 6 of the ’13 East semifinals — didn’t make you hide.
“He made the play, I didn’t,” you said that night. “It’s something I’ll have to live with.”
You did. Now, you have choices, and if you pick Chicago, maybe you play in your first NBA Finals next spring. Won’t happen here. Not next year. Not yet. Maybe you really do feel that’s more valuable than the $33 million extra the Knicks can pay you. If so, nobody with a conscience can crush you for that.
You’re Carmelo Anthony, and this is the day you’ve waited for, and maybe you can find what you’re looking for in Chicago, or in Texas, or in LA. But unless this was all a mirage, it sure seemed like you already found it.
Right here.