Carmelo Anthony wasn't taken by surprise when he first heard his former teammate Chris Paul was traded by the Houston Rockets and reportedly blindsided by the move. A little bit more than a year ago, it was Anthony getting the boot from the Rockets, exiled into limbo 10 games into the 2018-19 season, as he wouldn't set foot in an NBA hardwood for the rest of the campaign.

Having been given a well-deserved second wind by the Portland Trail Blazers, Melo reflected on his exit from the Rockets and the conversation he had to have with Paul after he was told his services would no longer be needed.

“No, I wasn’t surprised at all,” Anthony told ESPN's Nick Friedell after a 108-96 loss to Paul and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night. “When my situation happened in Houston, he was the first person that I called to come to my room. And we had to clear some things up and I wanted to know if he had anything to do with it. And that was the first thing that I wanted to know and he told me, ‘No.’ And from that point on I told him, looked him in his eyes and said ‘Look, just be careful.’ You know what I mean? Just be careful. And damn sure if [the same situation] didn’t happen to him.”

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Melo was blindsided by GM Daryl Morey's decision to put his stint to a stop, forcing him to get some answers from Paul, one of the two lead veterans in the team. Paul was just as shocked by the decision, and it wouldn't take much longer for him to receive the same treatment after he was traded for Russell Westbrook in the summer.

Houston has developed a reputation of winning at all costs and being willing to move anyone at any point, with just about every player but James Harden having had their name in trade rumors at some point in their stint in Clutch City.