Carmelo Anthony: Phil Jackson Willing ‘to Trade Me for a Bag of Chips’

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.”

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.