I've seen this movie before....

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/lupica-summer-melo-opt-out-season-tips-knicks-watch-article-1.1839193

On the first weekend of summer, this officially becomes the summer of Carmelo Anthony.

He goes or stays. He stays on the stage and in the city he very badly wanted the last time it was his turn to make a move, and get paid. Or he leaves for Chicago or Houston or Miami or somewhere else. Unless, of course, the actual market for his services is something that has been wildly overblown, by his own people, by the media, by everybody.

But if he does beat it out of here, you wonder if more Knicks fans than not will be telling him not to let the door at the Garden hit him on the way out. And wonder if Phil Jackson will feel exactly the same way; wonder if in Phil’s heart of basketball hearts he doesn’t believe the Knicks can ever build another championship team around Carmelo, so goodbye and good riddance if he leaves.

It is why, more than anything, the most fun question in Fun City isn’t the one about whether Anthony goes or stays, it’s this one for Knicks fans:

Do they care?

Phil keeps saying he wants him back, he’d be a fool not to. But does he really? Or is he willing to let Melo walk and make his big play for Kevin Durant in a couple of years?

Oh, you know that when it comes to Carmelo Anthony, with whom Knicks fans have the same complicated relationship that Yankee fans once had with Alex Rodriguez (even before he came up an unrepentant juicer), there is the constant debate about how much they really love the guy.

And you really do wonder about Jackson, now that Opt-Out Weekend has finally arrived for Melo. We know what Jackson has said, how he seized on some comment Anthony made about perhaps taking less money and then mildly challenging him to back that up — as if Phil has ever left 20 dollars of his own money on the table — and also suggested that Anthony could opt back in and essentially waive his player option to leave and stick around for one more year.

What we don’t know, because only Jackson knows, is whether he would actually be quite happy to rebuild the Knicks without No. 7. Phil keeps saying he wants him back, he’d be a fool not to. But does he really? Or is he willing to let Melo walk and make his big play for Kevin Durant in a couple of years, as the Knicks begin to set their sights on Durant the way they once did, in vain, on LeBron James?

One former NBA player said last week, “Phil’s telling people he’s going to get Durant.”

Maybe so. A few weeks ago, the name you heard was Kevin Love, who apparently is on his way somewhere else. And once it was LeBron. And Chris Paul. George Clooney is a big star and loves basketball, and seems to have a little game. Maybe the Knicks will eventually go after him, too, even though Clooney is more age-appropriate for the Nets.

In sports, there are always two storylines that can trump all the others: Big guy wins, big guy loses. But in the summer of Carmelo in basketball New York, we are about to discover, and maybe sooner rather than later, if a big basketball star goes or stays.

You know the various options for Anthony, even the possibility, rather remote, of him agreeing to a sign-and-trade. You know he could defer free agency for a year, even if that involves way too much risk, and makes little sense. You have heard the rumors about the Heat, about the moves the Bulls are making to clear cap space, and you know that Anthony has professed admiration for Tom Thibodeau, the Bulls’ coach. There has been all the talk about the Rockets.

There was even the Hail Mary suggestion about a sign-and-trade with the Cavaliers, of all people, and LeBron joining him there instead of Carmelo joining LeBron in Miami, if LeBron decides to stay in Miami. And by the way, Pat Riley was big and loud on the record this week about how if you’re a really tough guy, you stay with your current team after a heartbreaking loss in the playoffs. Yeah, like Riley did with the Knicks in 1995, at least until Micky Arison, the Heat owner, started throwing money at him.

You know all the math here, starting with this math: Carmelo Anthony turned 30 a few weeks ago. So whatever kind of deal he makes for himself, he knows the real deal, that he is signing up for the last best part of his basketball prime. A prime that will likely be ending well before his next contract does.

You know that if he opts out and signs with another team, he will be leaving $30 million on the table, because the Knicks can pay him more than anybody else can, those are the rules. For all the truth-and-beauty rhetoric about how much he wants to win, and even though Carmelo is playing ball at a time when there is such an obsession about championship rings you’re surprised the Hobbit movies weren’t about those kinds of rings, we are still talking about him walking away from an awful lot of money, even for someone in his tax bracket.

Anthony wanted New York when he left Denver. Not as much as he wanted to get paid, not with a lockout looming. But he wanted the city and all its possibilities, even though the Knicks had to trade half a playoff team to get him.

We are about to find out whether he still wants the city, the stage, the Knicks. But now that Opt-Out Weekend has arrived for Carmelo Anthony, ask yourself once and for all:

How much do the city and its basketball fans — and Phil Jackson, the savior of us all — want him?

"phil tells his people......."

And the media tells us!!!!!

We've seen the movie the Media shows us. Forget the noise and just deal with the roster as it formulates.

Lupica equated Melo to ARoid!

Maybe its best Melo be used as tool to acquire other assets. We won't get 100 cents on the Dollar, but that was never to be anyway. Besides, we spend $1.20 to get him!

Does Phil have the stones to cut Melo Loose? Encourage his departure? Is it all be orchestrated "melo loves being a knick" and perhaps he's been encouraged to find employment elsewhere at the same time? The Anti-Starphuch!

Do these reporters just slide this stiff in and hope it adds to the chaos and swirl?
Phil had begun telling people? What people? Do we really think Phil would broadcast what he wants to do 2 years from now?

lol

So that's how it works