Carmelo Anthony has previously stated that his biggest motivating factor is winning, something he's been unable to do lately with the New York Knicks.
After three straight playoff appearances from 2010-11 to 2012-13 (a span where Melo also won his second gold medal with Team USA), the Knicks have been dreadful over the last three seasons. They saw a 15-win improvement this past year, but they really had no place to go but up; they finished 17-65 in 2014-15, earning them the dubious prize of having the worst record in franchise history.
All of the losing took a toll on Melo. He admitted to looking at list of upcoming free agents every day.
His relationship with president of basketball operations Phil Jackson has been up in the air as a result. He skipped out on Jackson's triangle offense seminar, but Anthony has since expressed his trust in Jackson to turn the ship around.
Now, with the addition of Derrick Rose, Carmelo is already prepared to lace his sneakers up for next season.
Jackson's comments, via ESPN's Ian Begley:
“We've talked about that a little bit. ‘Are we moving fast enough to accomplish goals that you have for yourself and your career?' Melo and I have talked about that: whether we're on the right time frame with him, is he disappointed or whatever? I think this is a positive move,” Jackson said. “He sees that as a positive move. I think that's reinvigorating for him. I think it's good.”
One of the big holes on New York's roster was a top-of-the-line point guard. Rose is far from the player he used to be, but he's still a big upgrade, if he can stay healthy, for the Knicks.
More from Begley:
“I felt the need to have a decisive attack guard moving forward and made this choice,” Jackson said. “It's obviously one that took three players off our roster, so it was a decision that we really had to think about it.
“I always talk about lead guard activity, and he's one of the guys you know that's decisive, aggressive and he has a very high competitive level to his game. So we felt our group needed to have some kind of aggressive play, full-court aggressive attack. This was one of the ways to get it done.”
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