Carmelo Anthony says he wishes the Oklahoma City Thunder situation “would’ve worked out” and that it “wasn’t handled right.”

Anthony played just one season with the Thunder. He averaged 16.2 points while shooting 40.4 percent from the field and 35.7 percent from beyond the arc during the regular season.

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OKC won 48 games, but lost to the Utah Jazz in the first-round of the playoffs in five games. The Thunder traded Anthony to the Atlanta Hawks after Melo opted into his player-option worth over $27 million for the 2018-19 season.

“It wasn’t until after the season when all this talk had started. Would he come back? Would he take a pay cut? Would he come off the bench? None of this stuff was ever discussed with me, as far as me coming off the bench,” Anthony told Stephen A. Smith on ESPN's First Take. “All I needed was somebody to communicate that with me. And I think people was afraid to stand up and communicate.

“If you sat down with me man-to-man and said, ‘You know what, look, what’s best for this team is for you to come off the bench,' I probably would have fought it a little bit. But then I would have stepped away from it and said, ‘You know what? This is what’s best for the team.' I went to Billy Donovan himself and said, ‘What do I have to do? What do you need from me?' And everybody can vouch for that. And he told me. And I said, ‘Look, thank you. I appreciate it. This is what you’re going to get from me.' I really honestly wish the OKC situation would’ve worked out. I thought it was going to work out.

“I think it was bigger than basketball. I think it was a tax situation. But I think they knew that for me coming in there. They was trying to get me to kind of revamp my contract. And at that point in time, I just felt like the situation wasn’t handled right. I felt like it was just a one-and-done situation in OKC. And I didn’t respect that. I didn’t want that. Because I went in there to fight.”