I'm convinced that Carmelo and the Nets have not been anywhere close to meeting.
Think about it. We keep hearing about the Nets being in play for this, the Nets being in play for that.
And the two times Carmelo has been asked about this, his responses:
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Reporter: So it's basically official that you're going to be traded to the Nets tomorrow?
Melo: "The who?"
Reporter: "The Nets, tomorrow"
Melo: "I haven't heard that one. I don't know, dawg...that's new."
Second time:
LOS ANGELES — Carmelo Anthony said Friday "no meeting at all" is scheduled with the New Jersey Nets and didn't know what he would say if one does happen.
Speaking at an NBA Cares community service event, Anthony said a reported meeting that Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov was seeking with the All-Star forward was "news to me."
"I haven't heard it," Anthony said.
That's not the second time that's happened. Sources reported a meeting when the Nets-Pistons-Nuggets three-team deal was abuzz that Carmelo had granted Prokhorov permission to talk to him. Of course, the meeting never happened, and Carmelo basically refused it.
Call me an idiot or overly optimistic if you want but I'm convinced that Carmelo Anthony has never come
close to anything even
remotely resembling an extension with the New Jersey Nets.
I believe that the Nuggets are making the Nets trade talks seem far more over-blown than they are in order to pressure the Knicks into throwing Landry Fields into the deal.
There is
no other reason for news sources to report that Carmelo and Prokhorov have agreed to the meeting and for Carmelo to subsequently deny it and claim that there's no meeting.
I'm going to put all my chips in one basket and say: Carmelo isn't going to the Nets. Carmelo, at no point, has ever seriously considered going to the Nets. Carmelo, right now, wants to play playoff basketball in Madison Square Garden, not 30-win basketball with Brook "I grab 6 rebounds per game even though I'm 7'1" Lopez and coach Avery "what happened to my PG, my PF, and my SG?" Johnson. Carmelo, right now, cannot stand the idea of watching the Knicks play basketball in the playoffs while he himself sits in an apartment in Newark (lol) wondering when the Nets are ever going to become good enough to make a push at the 8th seed.