Carmelo Anthony is a year removed from his little tour around the league in free agency. A lot of teams were ready to offer tons of money to acquire his services, but in the end he decided to go back to the New York Knicks. Ever since he made that decision, his college coach, Jim Boeheim, has thought he should have gone a different way. (via ESPN)
“Everybody knew that [the Bulls offer a better situation]. Me saying that, everybody gets mad at me. But it’s the truth,” Boeheim said at Team USA minicamp in Las Vegas. “The New York Knicks owner should say that, if he was being truthful.
“But I think [Chicago] was a better situation to win. But he loves New York. I see that. I’m fine with that. There’s always hope they’d turn it around. But I know some college teams that have been in last place for 30 years. Every year they hope that they’re not going to be in last place.”
Boeheim has been reiterating this for a while now, and while he says that he is in the minority with his opinion, I tend to disagree with him. The part that I disagree with is the fact that he thinks he’s in the minority. I have talked to a lot of people that believe Melo should have gone to Chicago or even Houston. Both of those teams are built a lot better for a championship sooner rather than later.
Melo could have been deadly alongside Rose, Butler, and Noah. If they stayed in the same seed with Melo, it also would have made for an even more interesting playoff series against LeBron and the Cavaliers. He also would have been lighting up the scoreboard with Harden and Howard in Houston and all of their playoff matchups this past season would have been filled with crazy offensive highlights.
Melo decided to take the bigger contract however, and that means having to be patient with a rebuilding process and helping teach some young guys the ropes of the NBA. His decision wasn’t necessarily a bad one, but it is definitely the one that will cause him to wait longer for a shot at the Finals.
