Jul ii, 2013

  • Ian O'ConnorESPN Senior Writer

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      Ian O'Connor has won numerous national awards as a sports columnist and is the author of four books, including The New York Times bestseller "Belichick." Follow Ian on Twitter »

Chances are, Carmelo Anthony was being 18-carat when he used the occasion of his nigh recent playoff emptying to declare his long-term delivery to the New York Knicks.

Anthony said he wasn't going anywhere, sort of, after the Indiana Pacers took him out in six in the 2nd round, and you could see why. He forced his way from Denver to Madison Square Garden in the wintertime of 2011, forced his hometown Knicks to transport everyone only Clyde Frazier back to the Nuggets, and he understands how any proffer he might flee equally a free agent adjacent summertime might make him look similar the me-centric diva many thought him to be.

With George Karl and Mike D'Antoni as roadkill in his rearview mirror, Melo did too much this by flavor to repair his image -- playing relatively selflessly, defending the ball, even emerging as a leader -- to throw it all away with a threat about opting out of his contract a twelvemonth from now.

"I know I'm going to be here for a long time," Anthony said on exit-interview solar day, otherwise known as baggie day.

The quote played better than the one virtually what might be the most scrutinized New York opt-out clause since your favorite Charleston RiverDog, Alex Rodriguez, all but jumped onto the field during Game four of the 2007 World Series betwixt Boston and Colorado and shouted for someone to show him the money.

"When that time comes," Melo said of his own contractual escape hatch, "I'll deal with it."

Merely how volition he deal with it if next flavour shows what many already suspect, that the Miami Heat, Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers, and Chicago Bulls volition demote the Knicks from a ii- to a 5-seed in the E and leave them a likely first- or second-round knockout victim all over again?

As much as the Brooklyn-born Anthony loves Broadway, loves existence the big star in the big city, he knows he'll be judged on whether he ends the kind of championship drought for the Knicks that Mark Messier concluded for the Rangers.

Messier, Eli Manning, and Derek Jeter are franchise players forever remembered for the parades they delivered and the champagne bottles they popped. Patrick Ewing? Though he'southward remembered as a smashing Knick, people never let him forget that he didn't win the big one, even if he never had the requisite help to win the big one.

Anthony should be afraid of meeting that aforementioned fate in New York. In fact, he should exist very, very afraid.

Miami has a Big 3 going for a Large Three-peat, and the Bulls and Pacers return Derrick Rose and Danny Granger. Brooklyn added Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce to a starting v that features at least four players better than the Knicks' likely No. 2 choice, J.R. Smith or Andrea Bargnani.

Knicks full general manager Glen Grunwald appears to be take hold of-bagging information technology now, overspending a combined $28.two million over seven years on Steve Novak and Marcus Camby one summer, then shipping them off for a failing prospect on a losing team the adjacent.

Bargnani can score from the outside, and he's better than Novak and Camby, no question about that. Simply he's a former No. i overall choice who isn't anything close to what he was supposed to be in Toronto. In other words, fifty-fifty at the toll of a offset-round option in 2016, Bargnani doesn't move Melo any closer to that parade.

Ewing is surely feeling Anthony'due south pain. Back in the day, he tried to escape New York by taking an arbitration instance to the Knicks, arguing the squad had violated a clause in his deal ensuring that he own i of the league's top four salaries. His bid for costless agency denied by the arbitrator, Ewing spent the residuum of his prime waiting for Pat Riley, Dave Checketts, and Ernie Grunfeld to find him a Scottie Pippen to call his own.

Knicks direction could never exercise better than Charles Oakley, John Starks, Anthony Bricklayer, Derek Harper, Ro Blackman, Md Rivers, and Charles Smith. Allan Houston, Larry Johnson, and Latrell Sprewell were brought in for Ewing's twilight years.

"I would've loved to take played with a bona fide superstar," Ewing told ESPNNewYork.com in March before rattling off the names of the teammates who were practiced-simply-not-keen sidekicks.

"I had very good players on my team. ... But they all the same weren't Carmelo Anthony."

Ewing and Anthony would've won one together, peradventure when Michael Jordan was off playing the kind of minor league baseball A-Rod was playing Tuesday dark in Charleston. Ewing got to a Game 7 of the Finals without a Melo; Melo has yet to achieve the championship round without a Ewing.

Just as Ewing's GM, Grunfeld, tried (and failed) to work the problem, Melo's GM, Grunwald, has scrambled in vain to detect the difference-making bargain. He gambled away the coin once meant for a Chris Paul bid, put it on Tyson Chandler, and watched Chandler turn up sick and injured and ineffective for 2 postseasons running.

And yes, information technology was hard to knock the Chandler deal at the time. The guy was a pro's pro who helped Dirk Nowitzki win information technology all and who played with relentless intensity on both sides of the floor. But the move has to be judged on the results, and Chandler has proven yous tin exist the Defensive Player of the Yr in the NBA without being a legitimate star.

You also don't take to be Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, vocal critic of the lesser lights assembled around his guy, Anthony, to empathise why Grunwald's attempt to mirror the 2011 Dallas model (i franchise player, not two, surrounded by an opportunistic supporting cast) did not piece of work. The Knicks didn't take plenty skilled size in the post, and they relied besides heavily on the unreliable J.R. Smith.

Grunwald has to realize at present that yous simply tin can't win a title when Smith is your second-best offensive player.

Just the capped-out, taxed-out Knicks have niggling choice only to try to sign back Smith, and hope Iman Shumpert develops into next season's Paul George (minus a few inches). They need to hope that Amar'e Stoudemire finally remains healthy on express minutes, and that Bargnani somehow re-emerges as a forcefulness worthy of being the height selection in the draft.

It's an awful lot to ask for, especially at present that the Knicks are reduced to pursuing the remains of Elton Brand, not to be confused with the remains of Camby, Rasheed Wallace, and Kurt Thomas. The Knicks can't sign any major complimentary agents, and unless they're willing to package Chandler and Shumpert, they can't convince another squad to give them a potential Pippen for Melo.

"I think the Knicks are in quicksand now," said one longtime NBA dealmaker who has done business with them. "They're not going to win 54 games again with this grouping, and they're probably a five-seed in the E. Brooklyn has definitely passed them past."

The new Nets of Garnett and Pierce could encounter their own issues with age and mileage, merely for now they certain don't lack the kind of firepower needed to challenge Miami. The Knicks? They'll nonetheless have a winning team and the league's premier scorer in Anthony, enough reason to go along filling upwards the Garden.

But when they fail to reach the conference final again next summer, will Melo start looking at the Knicks the way Ewing looked at them during his failed bid for free agency in 1991? Volition he exist next July'due south Dwight Howard? Will he run off to Hollywood with another pending free agent, LeBron James, and join a Lakers team that will take only one contract (Steve Nash's) on the books if Howard leaves?

Chances are, Carmelo Anthony is telling the truth when he swears his allegiance to the Knicks. That doesn't hateful their roster won't change his mind, and eye, this fourth dimension next year.