He will opt out because … well, because of course he will. Because if Carmelo Anthony isn’t going to explore his options now, in the middle of his prime, with several teams viewing him as the missing piece of a championship puzzle, then what’s the point?
It’s his right. It’s his option. And when he officially notified the Knicks that he will explore his options, as had been anticipated for months, he is only doing precisely what he said he was going to do as early as last October.
“I want to be a free agent,” Anthony told the New York Observer eight months ago. “I think everybody in the NBA dreams to be a free agent at least one time in their career.
“It’s like you have an evaluation period, you know? It’s like if I’m in the gym and I have all the coaches, all the owners, all the GMs come into the gym and just evaluate everything I do. So yes, I want that experience.”
There may only have been one man who thought he could possibly persuade Anthony away from that vision, and yet it’s difficult to believe even Phil Jackson truly believed he would be able to convince Anthony to forgo his opt-out rights in order to give Jackson a year to prove his chops as team president.
Why would he?
When Anthony made that declaration in October, remember, he and the Knicks were still very much in the afterglow of a wonderful 2012-13 season, 54 wins in the bank, a first-round series win. In October, the Knicks absolutely believed they were a top-three Eastern Conference team, and Melo was among the most fervent disciples of that.
What followed, of course, was every bit as unpredictable as it was unacceptable, a fiasco of a season that hardly anyone — certainly not Anthony — could have foreseen. Basketball is a funny game. It doesn’t take much to shift the balance of a team from positive to negative (same as it doesn’t take much to alter the balance of power in a division, conference or league; sometimes only one man, in fact).
And there’s this: What if this is the year Anthony’s shoulder finally blows up? Or his knee? Or his ankle?
Again: Why would he possibly opt in?
So this is Anthony’s opportunity. But it remains Phil Jackson’s show. Between now and July 1, he has to commit to a plan, and rid himself of the passive-aggressive silliness that has thus far marked most of his public comments and private actions regarding Melo.
It was madness to think Anthony would hold off for a year on seeking his freedom, and it is every bit as disingenuous to believe — another Jackson idea flown up the flagpole of public opinion — that he would leave even one nickel on the table if he stays with the Knicks; that is the only advantage the Knicks have ever had here, the ability to pay him $129 million, max, instead of the $96 million he can command from a new team.
And $33 million isn’t a bad hammer to have.
But only if you’re committed to the player. From now on, if Anthony is a part of Jackson’s grand plan, that’s how the boss has to behave.
If he isn’t?
Look, there is a pathway back to prominence that involves shedding Melo, taking lumps this year, regrouping, and trying to turn the windfall of salary-cap space that will tumble off the books next summer (plus an almost certain lottery pick in next year’s draft) to start something good in Year Two of the Jackson Era.
Maybe that’s what his plan is; Jackson did, after all, insist that the Knicks would be in equally good shape with or without Anthony, and it’s certainly possible that his discount double-check whisperings were something between outright trolling and vague foreshadowing of his intentions.
Or maybe they aren’t. We’ll see soon enough. We’ll find out if Anthony has some mercenary in him. And we’ll find out if Jackson simply wants to hit the reboot button, and send the kind of message to Melo that Branch Rickey once sent to Ralph Kiner:
We lost a lot of games with you. We can lose just as well without you.