After two seasons alongside Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, Carmelo Anthony left the Portland Trail Blazers this summer to join LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in Free Agency, During his time with the team, Melo proved to be a key piece in their success and recently spoke on why he ended up leaving the Blazers.
Unfortunately, it didn't really seem like they wanted to keep him around but he was still waiting to see hear from Portland before talking to other teams. Via Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports:
“Well to be honest, I was just waiting to see what Portland does, you know, I was talking to Dame, talking to CJ, you know, are they going to call, are they interested? I hadn't heard anything like do they wanna bring me back, do they want me to move on, there was a new coach…so there was just a lot of things happening over there that weren't clear.”
When asked if the Blazers ever contacted him, Carmelo Anthony had a rather surprising answer:
“They didn't get back to me like the way i thought they were going to get back to me. There's no loyalty in sports but that's just the way it is and I felt loyal to Portland. I didn't wanna leave Dame, I didn't wanna leave CJ but I know this is just the business of the game.”
Nevertheless, Melo knows this is just how the cookie crumbles in the NBA. The Blazers didn't exactly make a lot of noise in the offseason either and could've definitely used Anthony back on their roster. Aside from locking up Norman Powell on a big extension, they haven't added many pieces around Lillard, who is hungry for the chance to win a championship.
During his time with Portland, Anthony averaged 14.3 points, 4.6 rebounds on 40% shooting from downtown. The Blazers will surely miss him, but now, the veteran will be ring-chasing with LA.
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