Carmelo Anthony said he’d be quiet this weekend about his upcoming free agency but he was pretty chatty yesterday as he revealed some very interesting information.
One of the Knicks advantages over other teams is that they can offer Anthony more money. They can offer him a five year $129 million contract. The only problem there is the Knicks will remain heavily over the salary cap and unable to add additional pieces to help Anthony in his quest for a title.
Anthony said pretty clearly that he wants to stay with the Knicks and would take less money if it would help things.
via Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com:
Carmelo Anthony says he is willing to accept less money to re-sign with the Knicks if it helps the team attract big-name free agents, according to published reports.
“Without a doubt,” Anthony said Friday while in New Orleans for All-Star Weekend. “Any opportunity I have to build that up in New York, I’d do it. I told people all the time, always say, ‘If it takes me taking a pay cut, I’ll be the first one on [Knicks owner] Mr. [James] Dolan’s steps saying take my money and let’s build something strong over here.’”
Unfortunately Anthony taking less money won’t help the Knicks until 2015 as they’ll still have Andrea Bargnani and Amare Stoudemire’s expiring deals on the books.
It’ll be interesting to see how this all works out.
