Former New York Knicks president Phil Jackson was so desperate to get rid of Carmelo Anthony, that Melo thinks the Zen Master was willing to trade the perennial NBA All-Star for a “bag of chips.”
A candid @NYTSports conversation with @carmeloanthony on the eve of his OKC debut against a certain team from NYC -> https://t.co/tGStT9je1N
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) October 18, 2017
Anthony says his son wanted him to join the Thunder long before OKC pulled the trigger on a blockbuster trade this summer.
Melo expects to thrive in his new environment.
Per the NY Times:
“When I signed back with the Knicks, I wanted to be in New York and I believed in Phil,” Anthony added in reference to the $125 million contract with the no-trade clause that he agreed to with Jackson in July 2014, a deal that kept him from departing as a free agent.
“Then last year it went to: I was being pushed out. There were things being said about me that I didn’t know where they were coming from. And I still had to go in that gym and play and practice and deal with the media, answer all those questions every day.”
The delay to find a workable trade, in Anthony’s view, stemmed from the fact that Jackson was willing “to trade me for a bag of chips,” while Scott Perry, who became the Knicks’ new general manager after Jackson’s departure, took a harder line in trade talks with Houston and Cleveland that eventually fizzled.
“They went from asking for peanuts to asking for steak,” Anthony said with a laugh.