Is This Why Carmelo Anthony Didn't Go Play for Portland?

NYT basketball writer Marc Stein shares his reason for why he doesn't think Carmelo Anthony wanted to be traded to Portland.

Carmelo Anthony
Image via USA Today Sports/Mark D. Smith
Carmelo Anthony

It's hard to believe it's been less than a month since Carmelo Anthony waived his no-trade clause and landed with the Thunder, ending a year (if not years) of hypothetical transactions that swapped him out of The Big Apple to a market where he wouldn't get beat up as much.

Following this inevitable trade, Carmelo revealed a couple of organizations that he was nearly swapped to earlier in the offseason, which happened to be the Houston Rockets and the Cleveland Cavs; both of those fell through for unspecified reasons. Melo has also talked about his son playing a role in his eventual move to OKC.

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However, this week, we learned even more about potential Melo deals that will no longer happen, thanks to NBA/New York Times writer Marc Stein, who jumped on the Bald Faced Truth podcast that was published yesterday.

Stein, referencing a conversation he had with the ex-Knicks star during his own recent interview with him, said that the reason he opted not to go to the Blazers was because Portland is way the hell on the other side of the country (a.k.a. very f'ing far from his family in NYC).

"We had a fair bit of discussion about Portland," Stein said. "He did say that it meant a lot to him how badly those guys wanted him. I think it really was the distance (that caused him to not be interested). I don't think it was about Portland, the place... I don't think it was about Portland, I think it was about family... presumably his wife and son are going to stay in New York for the bulk of the year. He was in constant contact with (Damian) Lillard and (CJ) McCollum."

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This past summer, which was full of Melo trade rumors as we said earlier, both Lillard and McCollum didconfess that they tried to recruit the 10-time All-Star to join them in the Pacific Northwest, with the latter even posting this photoshopped IG post that is still up for some reason:

While OKC isn't exactly within walking distance of NYC, it's still only half as far from there as Portland is. I guess even after the trade, there's still speculation surrounding Anthony. Regardless, he is currently a member of the Thunder and scored 22 points in his debut, which happened to be a blowout win over his ex-team on Thursday night.

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