Carmelo Anthony had been shunned from returning to the NBA, seemingly in a hole too deep to come back from after the Houston Rockets elected to waive him after 10 games last season. Now that he's found a home with the Portland Trail Blazers, Melo explained why so many teams with open roster spots and opportunities kept themselves from bringing him aboard.
“Honestly, I think it was more of, not intimidation, but it was more so teams not wanting to put themselves in that situation of having to deal with what role I was going to accept and questioning if I was going to accept my role and the media [attention] that's behind it all,” Anthony told Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. “Just everything that comes along with bringing me in. Nobody knew where I was at, as far as what I was thinking. I think it was more so of everything else outside of basketball. I don't think anybody thought, ‘Oh, he can't play anymore. He can't do this.’ It was everything that had to do with outside of basketball.”
Anthony played pickup games all summer long, thriving playing next to and against other NBA stars. Many who participated vouched for his return to the league, but teams were scared of the constant media circus that would involve bringing in a player of his caliber in a lesser role.
“Having success in those games, that was hard, man,” said Anthony about his summer runs. “It was one point in time, I was like, ‘I don't even want to go.’ Man, honestly. I felt embarrassed, you know what I'm saying? So, I had to get over that, and once I got over that and the guys were like, ‘I'm playing [great] and it’s OK.’ Once I'm in the gym, I’m in the gym. That’s second nature. So I was just like, ‘Let me just get back in the gym,’ and all the guys were in there. I treated that almost like it was a season for me, like training camp the way that I went in and approached it. And I think guys saw that. Guys saw my level of focus at that point.”
Melo patiently waited until the Blazers kept calling and now he's coming off two starts in his first two games, providing some solid contributions with Damian Lillard out with back spasms.
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