Clutching the latest pair of shoes which bear his signature, Carmelo Anthony beams with the air of a Cheshire Cat who has just seen his lucky six numbers come up.
A £15 million per year contract with the New York Knicks goes a long way. Add a splash of cash from Nike and assorted others who want to associate themselves with Brand Melo, and he need not worry about where his next Maybach is coming from. "I'm in a good place right now," he confirms. Until, that is, he steps onto a basketball court.
The Knicks, despite their own legend and the A-List Manhattanites regularly attracted to Madison Square Garden, have become the laughing stock of the entire NBA. In London for tonight's overseas detour against the Milwaukee Bucks at The 02, they have won only five games all season despite a playing budget which is, at rough approximation, 687 times bigger than that of the entire Glasgow Rocks squad.
To quote a Big Apple term, they are now to blow up the bus. The fire sale has begun. Everyone, Anthony excepted, can be made available for an acceptable offer in an acceptance that, with this season a write-off, the re-build should immediately begin. "As a competitor," Anthony, a regular All Star, revealed, "you'd be like: 'aw man.' It's tough to hear that. But that was one of the reasons I came back to New York. Because I believed there was a plan and there was a future."
New York's architect-in-chief knows success better than any. Phil Jackson coached the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers to a total of eleven championships. The two he added as a player while with the Knicks gives him more rings than anyone else in history. Yet the latter of those, in 1973, was the last one the city has witnessed. So far, the jury is out on whether the 69-year-old has the smarts to restore a glory long lost.
For his primary star, the current slump weighs heavily. "I can't even put it into words," Anthony declared. "I'm kind of sore right now. People expected us not to have a good year but not like this. As a competitor, it hurts me that this is not what I foresaw when I saw our team. But I know it gets better. So for me, it's about coming to work every day, smiling, being happy and not letting this get me down."
This evening, with the NBA throwing its marketing might at seducing a European audience, is unlikely to significantly brighten his mood. Milwaukee, traditionally mediocre, have risen away from the bottom and into the middle of the pack, meshing a group of young prospects that includes the raw but fast-improving Greek forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Knicks, Anthony promised, will do their best to put on a competitive show. And after a stint in the UK during the United States run to Olympic gold in 2012, he senses that the league's foreign outreach is earning a payback.
"It's a big football town," he claimed. "But I was able to come here during the Olympics and I was able to come here a couple of years ago with the New York Knicks. And now we're back here again. And that's saying something about the British fans, how they respect the game and want the game. It's becoming bigger. And we'll continue doing that."
- Carmelo Anthony was speaking at the launch of his Brand Jordan M11 shoe.
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