Knicks' Anthony reveals extent of surgeries
By MARC BERMAN
Last Updated: 8:28 AM, October 13, 2011
Posted: 1:43 AM, October 13, 2011
Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony revealed the severity of his left elbow and right knee surgeries yesterday and confessed he didn’t want it out in the public after they were performed in early May.
Anthony said he had loose chips removed from his left elbow and a broken-bone fragment cleaned out from his left knee.
“Something I like to keep off the radar,” Anthony said on WFAN’s “Boomer & Carton” show on why he kept it secret until late September. “I just wanted to go in there and get it done and not have a big movie surrounding that. Eventually it came out. It came out when I was healthy.”
Apparently, Anthony prefers promoting his new shoes — the $135 Melo M8 — than own up to bad news.
Yesterday, Anthony did a whirlwind sneaker tour in Manhattan — his last stop Harlem’s House of Hoops.
When a student from Brooklyn’s Eagle Academy asked him about the lockout, Anthony said commissioner David Stern’s wish for a hard salary cap to promote 30-team parity is misguided.
“You got to be reasonable,” Anthony said. “We don’t want to change our system, but the owners want to change the system and want competitive balance across the whole NBA. Do I think it’s possible for all 30 teams to be competing at the same level? I don’t think so.”
The Knicks normally announce their players’ surgeries. But the club needed permission from Anthony because of recent medical disclosure laws, and got denied.
The Post and Newsday reported Anthony’s two surgeries Sept. 25, when Anthony disclosed it following a barnstorming game in Philadelphia.
The Post reported in June, a week before the lockout, that Anthony secretly was rehabbing his left elbow at the Knicks’ training facility and was not allowed to lift weights or shoot. At the time, the Knicks would not confirm Anthony had elbow surgery.
“The Knicks knew,” Anthony said. “I felt they were the only people who should know at that point. I needed surgery for a long time. They didn’t know how I was playing with an elbow injury.”
During exit meetings in late April with Knicks management after getting swept in the playoffs by Boston, Anthony agreed to surgery, feeling he would have extra time to heal because of the lockout.
“I told them I wasn’t feeling right throughout the whole season,” Anthony said. “They agreed with me. I personally thought it was a great time. I knew of the lockout and I would have some [extra] time.”
Anthony says he feels “110 percent.”
Training camp would have begun on Oct. 2.
The first two weeks of the regular season already have been scrapped.
Anthony has played a handful of barnstorming games and said Saturday in Miami he was arranging an All-Star-fest for New York City for November.
According to a source, Anthony’s JordanBrand wants involvement and organizers have run into
a conflict because Michael Jordan is the Bobcats
owner.
“It is New York, the game would have to be that much bigger,” Anthony said.
Contrary to a report
yesterday, the Nov. 16 game in Denver — Anthony’s return — is not the
Knicks’ season opener if no more games are cancelled.
With the first two weeks scrapped, the NBA has misled the public by keeping original schedules on team websites starting with Nov. 16.
As previously reported, the NBA has several contingency schedules that are completely reshuffled. Anthony said yesterday he was afraid the Denver game will get canceled, which is possible.
But that’s because sources said in the shorter schedules, the inter-
conference games are first to go.
marc.berman@nypost.com
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/anthony_reveals_extent_of_surgeries_atMkqE0ASiDtb1lc7nnmWJ#ixzz1afUIAIex
