Words by Qadriyyah Marie Brown
“You Watched Me Walk Through Hell, Now Watch Me Walk Up Out It” Carmelo Anthony tweeted Thursday ahead of the hugely anticipated matchup between his former team, the New York Knicks, and his new team, Oklahoma City Thunder. The OKC hosted Melo’s debut at 8pm EST last night on TNT and boy was he sort of ready. Anthony scored 22 points in the game but for his standards, it was just an average game despite the Knicks being outplayed by the Thunder. Maybe his nerves or pressure to do well this first game got to him, but he definitely looked better off last night than he had in a long time with the Knicks.
“You Watched Me Walk Through Hell, Now Watch Me Walk Up Out It”#STAYME7O pic.twitter.com/w9h0LgAqv4
— Carmelo Anthony (@carmeloanthony) October 19, 2017
Carmelo had them scared straight before this game though! Anthony had a recent interview with Marc Stein about how poorly he was treated during his last season with the Knicks.
Via The New York Times‘ Marc Stein,
“There was no support from the organization,” he said. “When you feel like you’re on your own and then on top of that you feel like you’re being pushed out …”
His voice trailed off, but his implication was clear. Anthony’s long-held determination to outlast Jackson in New York had eroded, and even after Jackson’s departure from the Knicks in late June he no longer wanted to stick around.
“I think at that point it was too far gone,” Anthony said. “I already had in my mind that I wanted to win, that I wanted to move on. We didn’t think it would take as long as it did, but my mind was already made up.”
The delay to find a workable trade, in Anthony’s view, stemmed from the fact that Jackson was willing “to trade me for a bag of chips,” while Scott Perry, who became the Knicks’ new general manager after Jackson’s departure, took a harder line in trade talks with Houston and Cleveland that eventually fizzled.
“They went from asking for peanuts to asking for steak,” Anthony said with a laugh.
The Jordan brand also launched an official “Hoodie Melo” sweatshirt last night on Nike.com before Carmelo’s OKC season debut. The font itself was inspired from the vintage Air Jordan box font. The hoodie sold out in seven minutes…go Melo!