During his more than one-year exile from the NBA, Carmelo Anthony considered signing with the Denver Nuggets, the team he began his Hall of Fame career with.

Anthony is back in Denver on Thursday to face the Nuggets as a member of the Portland Trail Blazers.

“I was open to it,” Anthony said, via The Denver Post. “We talked about it. People in my circle were like, ‘Go back to Denver.’ If it was that easy I probably would’ve done it. A lot of things came into play when it comes to that, kind of out of my control at that time, the timing was off. Similar to Portland, the timing has always just been off. All of the sudden that window of opportunity was there.”

The Nuggets selected Anthony with the third overall pick in the legendary 2003 draft. Melo played 564 games for the Nuggets and averaged 24.8 points per contest.

The Blazers signed Anthony on Nov. 19. He has played in 11 games with Portland and averaged 15.9 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists while shooting 40.6 percent from the field, 39.5 percent from beyond the arc and 80.0 percent from the free-throw line.

Anthony used to get booed by the Nuggets crowd when he came back as a member of the New York Knicks. It will be interesting to hear the reaction Melo gets on Thursday.