If the Portland Trail Blazers didn't sign him, Carmelo Anthony was prepared to retire from the NBA.

Anthony played in just 10 games with the Houston Rockets last season before the franchise exiled him and then traded him to the Chicago Bulls.

Chicago waived Anthony, who wasn’t able to find a new home for more than a year until the Blazers swooped in and signed him, giving Melo the second chance he needed to prove he's still an NBA-caliber player.

Melo was this close to walking away:

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“I was preparin' myself,” Anthony told ESPN‘s Rachel Nichols. “And I had prepared myself to kinda just walk away from the game — if the right situation didn't come about.

“I was ready to walk away, yeah. It was hard. But there came a point when I was, like, ‘You know what? I've given a lot to this game. I played 15, 16 years in this game. I'm ready to give it up, because I just knew that, at that point in time from a basketball standpoint, that narrative that it — it was already out there. So I'd been fightin' an uphill battle anyway if I didn't go to the right situation.”

Anthony signed a non-guaranteed deal with the Blazers. He is fresh off earning Western Conference Player of the Week honors.

Melo is averaging 17.7 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.2 assists in six games with the Blazers. The 10-time All-Star and future Hall of Famer is shooting 46.2 percent from the field, 37.0 percent from the 3-point line and 80.0 percent from the charity stripe.