Carmelo Anthony didn’t want to accept bench role in return to Knicks

Carmelo Anthony — who is one of the better scorers ever to don a New York Knicks jersey — alleges that the Knicks offered him a bench role in the summer of 2022, but Anthony turned them down.

“We sat down and had a real conversation,” Anthony said when looking back on the offer he received from the Knicks. ‘”Listen, here’s a spot. You can be on the team tomorrow, but this is the spot.’ I said, ‘Nah, nah, I can’t.’ The not knowing of when you’re going to play and not play—I’d rather not go through that. I’mma bow out gracefully. I just had a hell of a year, you know what I mean, in LA in my role. Basketball ain’t the issue. I can’t do that. That’s a hell of a decline. When I look at it overall, the overall big picture, that’s a hell of a decline. So I just had to stand on that. No disrespect, but I can’t accept that.”

At the time, the Knicks were fresh off a forgettable 2021-22 campaign. New York won just 37 of its 82 regular-season contests and missed out on the playoffs.

The Knicks debatably lacked a franchise player heading into the 2022 offseason. Julius Randle and RJ Barrett were New York’s top scoring options at the time, but neither scored the ball with great efficiency in the 2021-22 regular season.

But New York made one major signing in the 2022 offseason that has helped the team solidify itself as one of the better squads in the Eastern Conference in recent years. The Knicks inked guard Jalen Brunson to a four-year, $104 million deal, and that contract aged incredibly well for New York.

Brunson is not far removed from a 2023-24 campaign in which he was named an All-Star, finished fifth in the league’s MVP voting and earned a spot on the All-NBA Second Team.

It’s important to note that Brunson wasn’t widely perceived as one of the best point guards in the NBA back in the 2022 offseason like he is today. Before he signed with the Knicks, Brunson averaged 16.3 points per game for the Dallas Mavericks in the 2021-22 regular season, and he played second fiddle on the offensive end to Luka Doncic.

Perhaps the notion that the Knicks didn’t have a lot of star power at the time  — coupled with the fact that the team just recently missed out on the playoffs — swayed Anthony away from making a return to New York.

Anthony spent seven seasons playing for the Knicks and led the entire league in scoring in the 2012-13 regular season as a member of the blue and orange. He also averaged more than 20 points per game in every one of his seasons with the Knicks.