LAS
VEGAS — Nine months of nearly daily speculation about Carmelo Anthony’s
future came to an end Saturday when he agreed to re-sign with the
Knicks, according to a person with firsthand knowledge of the
negotiations.
Anthony, one of the N.B.A.’s elite scorers, made his decision one day after LeBron James sent tremors across the league by agreeing to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The two players were the top free agents on the market this summer,
with the ability to alter the landscape of the league depending on where
each wanted to play.
It
was not immediately clear if Anthony had signed a contract, or what the
terms of a new deal were. By agreeing to return — a move first reported
by The Daily News and Yahoo — Anthony positions himself as the
cornerstone of the franchise for years to come. The Knicks declined to
comment.
Anthony
was eligible for a contract that would pay him nearly $130 million over
five years, more than any other team could offer, according to league
rules. Such a lucrative deal comes fraught with risk, though. Anthony,
30, is banking on the notion that Phil Jackson, newly installed as the
team’s chief decision-maker, can help turn the Knicks, one of the
league’s perennial underperformers, into a contender with the clock
ticking on Anthony’s career.
The
Knicks, too, are making a substantial investment in a player who has
not always elevated the play of his team. Anthony, an elite scorer and a
seven-time All-Star, has appeared in 13 playoff series over the course
of his 11-year career, with his team winning just three of them.
Late
last month, Anthony opted out of the final two years of a contract that
would have paid him more than $23 million next season. On July 1, he
officially became a free agent, enabling him to be courted by several
teams, including the Chicago Bulls. And now, after days of deliberating,
he has decided to stay put.
Kenyon
Martin, a free agent who played for the Knicks last season, said he was
not surprised to learn that Anthony was re-signing with the team.
“He
wants to win a championship in New York,” Martin said before the
Knicks’ summer league team faced the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday
afternoon.
Earlier
this week, Jackson was optimistic about Anthony’s remaining with the
team. Speaking with reporters at the Knicks’ summer league practice in
Las Vegas, he said that he felt “really good” about the meeting he had
with Anthony in Los Angeles on July 3.
“We
really struck a chord,” Jackson said Thursday. “The two of us, I think,
feel really passionately about what we’re trying to get accomplished.”
Last
season, Anthony assembled one of the finest statistical seasons of his
career. He averaged 27.4 points and a career-best 8.1 rebounds while
playing 38.7 minutes per game, the most in the league. Yet the Knicks
finished with a 37-45 record, out of contention for a playoff berth in a
weak Eastern Conference.
The
team was hindered by injuries, and Mike Woodson, who was dismissed as
coach after the season, had made a series of questionable decisions. But
even before the season began, Anthony had stated his desire to test
free agency — a story line that ballooned into a distraction,
overshadowing a season that quickly turned sour.
As
a free agent for the first time, Anthony embarked on a three-day,
four-city tour of potential destinations. The Bulls pitched him on the
notion of joining Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, making an elite
threesome that could vie for championships. It was much the same message
from the Houston Rockets, with Dwight Howard and James Harden in the
fold. Anthony also visited with Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas
Mavericks, before meeting with officials from the Los Angeles Lakers.
Before
he began the process, Anthony emphasized that winning was most
important to him at this stage of the career. So the Bulls figured to be
a favorite for his services. They would have been a ready-made
contender with Anthony, but one problem was money: They could not offer
as much as the Knicks, as they were restricted by the collective
bargaining agreement and by their payroll. Barring a sign-and-trade
deal, which would have required Jackson’s cooperation, the Bulls could
offer Anthony only a contract worth a little more than $70 million over
four years.
Ultimately,
the Knicks still proved to have the most allure, and the most available
cash for Anthony, who met with Jackson and other team officials after
his meeting with the Lakers. In the end, Anthony, who has a home in Los
Angeles, took more than a week to weigh his options before settling on a
return to New York.
Jackson
had been making moves that he hoped would appeal to Anthony and the
rest of the team’s players, hiring Derek Fisher as coach (after losing
out on his first choice, Steve Kerr, another potential protégé who went
to Golden State). Jackson also acquired the veteran point guard Jose
Calderon in a trade with the Mavericks. In Calderon, the Knicks have a
player who is pass-first, a quality that appeals to the offense-minded
Anthony.
The
Knicks could endure some growing pains this season, even with Anthony —
a reality that Jackson has gone out of his way to acknowledge. But they
will have cap space in 2015, and Jackson has been targeting that period
as his first real opportunity to chase free agents who could join
Anthony.
There
will be questions, of course, without many guarantees. Will Anthony buy
into Jackson’s renowned triangle offense? Will Fisher be able to
navigate the choppy waters of the N.B.A. in his first season as a coach,
at any level? Will the team’s complementary parts — Iman Shumpert and
J.R. Smith among them — play at a more consistent level than they did
last season?
There
are also concerns about Anthony’s durability. He has absorbed plenty of
contact in his career, a product of his playing style as much as
anything else. He will be 35 by the end of his new deal, well past the
age when most elite players see their skills begin to diminish. Consider
Dwyane Wade, 32, whose troublesome knees slowed him considerably in
recent seasons, which may have played a small role in James’s departure
from the Miami Heat.
However,
it was money, not age, that seemed to make Jackson reluctant to
initially offer Anthony a maximum contract because, he said, it would
limit the team’s financial flexibility. He publicly challenged Anthony
to take less, pointing out that it was Anthony himself who, last
February, had raised the idea of taking a pay cut from James L. Dolan,
the team’s owner, if it would help “build something stronger.”
In
the end, Anthony appeared to get the deal he wanted, and the Knicks
held onto one of the elite scorers in the game. For both sides, it was a
marriage worth saving.
