Carmelo Anthony visited ESPN’s First Take on Friday for a one-on-one interview with Stephen A. Smith, and spoke out on a variety of subjects, from his failed stint with the Rockets to his future NBA prospects.
Anthony is still a free agent and believes he can contribute to an NBA team, but it’s unclear if any organization will give him a roster slot after his awkward exit from the league last season. Anthony, a 10-time All-Star and Hall of Fame lock, last played in the NBA on November 8th, 2018, scoring two points for the Rockets in a loss to the Thunder. After the game, Anthony’s 10th with the team, Carmelo says he was informed by Rockets general manager Daryl Morey that he was no longer needed in Houston, and that he needed to “figure out something to do.”
Anthony was not immediately released, but sat out three games before leaving the team. The Rockets kept Anthony on the roster, and eventually traded him to the Bulls in January. Anthony said he was blindsided by the move.
“I was actually in San Antonio, in my room, getting ready for the game. Me and Daryl were supposed to speak that night, because I had reached out to him previously about just a heads up meeting. What’s going on? Let me know what I can do. I’m here to help the team, like, let me know what I gotta do. But he came in and was just like ‘look, basically your services are no longer needed.’
And I’m like, hold up, what the hell are you talking about? But he’s like… ‘things are just not working out, and you’ve got to figure out something to do.’ I’m like ‘how the hell am I going to figure something out to do? I got a game tomorrow!’”
According to Anthony, he was willing to do whatever he could to help the team, but the Rockets simply gave up on him amid a slow start to the season.
“It went from ‘oh, this is the piece that we want. This is the piece that we need.’ Mind you, we’re even talking for three years, four years, they were trying to get me to come to the Houston Rockets. And I finally went there, they finally said ‘OK, this is the piece that we need.’
So I get there and I’m thinking that everything is good, I’m doing everything I got to do. Never missed a practice, did all my work. I was real professional about it there. I don’t think there is one person that could say I wasn’t a professional there. I did what I had to do…. And then the 10th game comes, I just didn’t understand where that come from.
I actually reached out to Daryl [Morey] first and said ‘can we talk about how we can make this better? What can we do to fix this? What can I do to fix this?’ But then he had in mind that he wanted to come talk to me too, about releasing me and letting me go. I didn’t like how that went down.”
