In a recent segment on the ‘7 PM in Brooklyn’ podcast, NBA legend Carmelo Anthony looked back on the trade that sent J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to play with LeBron James. Carmelo still resents the Knicks for that deal and recently described his reaction after hearing the news all those years ago:
“F**k them! I told LeBron, I said ‘That’s what we doing?’ When it happened, the only thing going through my mind was LeBron. I know this is a chess game… I gotta get these guys away from him,” said Anthony. “Sh*t is f***ed up because I could have used Shump and J.R. to go win a championship. That’s why I flipped out like that in the locker room because you do not touch this nucleus right here! I don’t give a f**k what you do. I said ‘Y’all can’t say sh*t to me. Do y’all know what the f**k you just did? You’re gonna send them to him?”
The Knicks/Cavaliers trade happened back in January of 2015. It was a three-team deal that involved sending Dion Waiters to the Thunder, Shumpert, and Smith to the Cavaliers, while the Knicks received Lou Amundson, Alex Kirk, Lance Thomas, and a 2019 second-round pick.
The Knicks were not a championship team by any stretch, but many saw the deal as a step-down for the team, including Carmelo Anthony, who described how he went off in the locker room after finding out about the trade. The worst part about it for Melo is that they were sent to play with LeBron James, his biggest rival at the time.
At the height of his career, Anthony was competing with LeBron James for supremacy in the East. With career averages of 22.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game on 44.7% shooting, Anthony was an expert three-level scorer who often went toe-to-toe with some of the game’s top superstars. LeBron James, however, was arguably his biggest competitor.
The two were known to be close friends, and it’s a relationship that stands even now, but they were also rivals back in the day who played the same position in the same era of the game. When Carmelo forced his way to the Knicks in 2011, it put him in the same Conference as LeBron and he knew that it was going to take a massive effort to defeat him.
Sadly, Carmelo never got further than the second round in his Knicks tenure. He eventually left the team in disgrace after a falling out with Phil Jackson and his career took a rapid decline from here.
Meanwhile, LeBron James is still going strong to this day as a 4x MVP, 4x champion, and the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. He defeated a lot of people on his way to victory and Carmelo was just one of many of them.
Of course, the Knicks helped LeBron win all those years ago by gaining him the support he needed to beat the competition. If only they had done the same for Carmelo, his career might have taken a radically different turn.
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