This is the picture of Carmelo Anthony that stays with me, almost exactly 10 years later. He is sitting in a chair in the visitor’s locker room at Indianapolis’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse. It is late on a Saturday night, May 18, 2013. The Knicks, winners of 54 games and the only postseason series the franchise will claim between 2000 and last month, have lost to the Pacers 106-99.
The series is over.
The season is gone.
And Carmelo Anthony looks as destroyed as any professional athlete I have ever seen.
Part of it is the choking quiet of a loser’s locker room. Part of it are the ice pillows wrapped around his shoulder, his elbow, his knee. Mostly, it is the glassiness in his eyes: he so badly wanted to bring the series back to the Garden for Game 7, for what he probably knew — even then — would be a referendum of both this team and his tenure as a Knick.
“We were right there,” Anthony whispered, his voice newly losing a battle with his soul before hanging on. “And then we weren’t.”
This game had been a little something for everything, for both polar-opposite camps of Carmelo Anthony, who during his time as a Knick was one of the singularly polarizing athletes New York has ever seen.
For his supporters — and there were always more of those, even if they weren’t as loud as the other side of the aisle — Anthony had spent the game’s first three quarters being everything a superstar is supposed to be in an elimination game. He’d score 39 points for the game and in the third quarter he’d almost single-handedly kept the Knicks’ season alive, teaming with Iman Shumpert to score 31 of their 34 points.
But in the fourth — well, the other side of the aisle had their day. He missed his first five shots. The Pacers took the lead. The Knicks took it back, up two, late, and Melo drove to the basket, leapt for a dunk that would’ve doubled the lead and strengthened the Knicks’ hopes. Instead, at the rim he was met by the outstretched hand of 7-foot Pacer Roy Hibbert. It was a poster moment for Melo, and not the good kind. The Knicks expired soon thereafter.
“That block,” Melo said, “changed everything.”
He sniffled. He cleared his throat. He limped off to the showers.
From that moment, it was impossible for me to ever tolerate the anti-Melo faction that grew with each succeeding year, as James Dolan began systematically taking a wrecking ball to that team, to the GM, to the coach, to the roster. The chief complaint was always this: Melo was more about himself than the team. He cared more about scoring than winning.
Did Melo shoot a lot as a Knick? He sure did. You don’t average 24.7 points across 412 NBA games by being bashful. Was he a ball-stopping iso hound? Sure he was. Sometimes. But here’s a question for you: on just about all of the six Knicks teams he played on excepting 2012-13, who would YOU rather have seen shooting the ball, Kyle O’Quinn? Langston Galloway?
The Knicks failed Melo a lot more — a LOT more — than Melo ever failed them, which is the worst of all basketball sins that Dolan has committed under his stewardship. He was the one who demanded his basketball people acquire Melo, and was grotesquely outbluffed by the Nuggets instead of waiting a few months for him. And yet only once did he allow his people to give Melo any help. That was 2012-13. The result was 54 wins and a third-place finish in the MVP vote.
Within a year, Phil Jackson had arrived with his bullhorn and his blow torch and that was that.
Was Melo a perfect superstar? He wasn’t. He could’ve been more gracious in handling the Linsanity craze that took over New York in the winter of 2012 but it must also be remembered that the Knicks made Lin a strong offer to return — but Lin instead chose a poison-pill deal with the Rockets the Knicks couldn’t match. And, as it turned out, seeing the balance of Lin’s career, that was one of the few things they got right.
Perfect, no. But still damn good. Still the increasingly rare athlete who not only enjoyed New York but wanted to be here, and stay here. There is some talk now about his No. 7 going to the rafters, and what I’ll say is this: I’ll hold that debate the moment after the Knicks do right by Bernard King and retire No. 30 first. Come see me the day after that and we can talk about Melo and 7.
For now?
We can hope time will be kinder to Melo than his years in New York were. It seems headed that way. When he sat courtside during the Heat series he received either the first- or second-loudest ovation out of every celebrity-row denizen, with only Patrick Ewing’s cheers maybe ringing richer. Maybe.
Which is as it should be. Melo was a terrific player, a terrific Knick, and for many sad years at the Garden the only reason to part with the price of admission. And if you think it didn’t destroy him to not win more here? Let me take you back to a quiet room in Indiana 10 years ago. I’ll show you different.
