I can’t tell you how much Melo has left in the tank.
The wear and tear seemed to get to his body last year and he didn’t have the lift on his jumper as in previous seasons.
With that being said maybe a change a scenery will help him. He spoke to The Undefeated’s Jemele Hill on if he’s indeed washed and what Melo will we be seeing this season.
“To get bought out, to get waived, you were looked at like you’re done,” said Anthony, who was in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to attend a private Nike event. “Now, it’s just almost like the norm. If something doesn’t work, go ahead and get a buyout or go ahead and get traded. That’s the new norm in our society in basketball. I had to get over that. I had a conversation with my wife and family. I said to them, ‘I’m not taking no buyout, I’m not getting waived.’ And they said, ‘At the end of the day, nobody is going to know that. You have to do what you have to do. It’s going to be a blip on your radar. It’s on to the next chapter.’ It took me a while to get to that point where I’m like, OK, I’m going to accept it.”
Melo has never entered an NBA season with this many people writing him off. Forget about Hoodie Melo or Olympic Melo. We might meet Pissed Off Melo, should he go to Houston.
“I was more hurt because a lot of people just take the last six months,” he said. “That’s what you start to become. That becomes your story. For me, out of all the work I put in the NBA — wins, losses, points scored, whatever — to be judged off of six months of a year overshadowed 15 years of what you’ve accomplished. That’s the hurtful part.”
Anthony’s stint with the Thunder was just short of disastrous and Melo was who everyone pointed to as the real problem.
“At the end of the day, it wasn’t a good fit,” he said. “I think last year — and I haven’t talked about this before — everything was just so rushed, going to the team for media day and the day before training camp. Them guys already had something in place, and then I come along in the 25th hour like, ‘Oh, s—, Melo, just come on and join us. Like, you can figure it out since you’ve been around the game for a long time.’ That’s why it was so inconsistent. At times I had to figure it out on my own, rather than somebody over there or people over there helping me.”
“I know how to play this game of basketball,” he said. “I’ve been playing it for a long time. When I feel like I’m ready to take that role, then I’ll take that role. Only I know when it’s best for me to take that role. I’m not going to do that in a situation where I still know my capabilities and what I can do. And at the end of the day, the people who really matter know my capabilities and what I can still do. You start getting to the media and debates, it’s going to always be kind of back-and-forth.”
It is good LaLa had his back, no word on if this was before or after she went to dinner with Drake, but we will see soon if Melo truly is washed or not.