Carmelo: Everyone should 'be at peace' with Durant joining Warriors
The New York Knicks weren't one of the six teams Kevin Durant granted a meeting to once NBA free agency got underway July 1, but regardless, nine-time All-Star Carmelo Anthony still put his best foot forward in recruiting the summer's biggest prize.
"I don't think you guys know the backstory, but I don't want to get into all of that, as far as not meeting with us, or meeting with us," Anthony said on Tuesday following practice with the U.S. Olympic squad, according to the New York Daily News' Frank Isola. "I don't want to get into all of those details. We talked. Me and him talked. We were in constant communication."
Durant ultimately took his talents to The Bay Area to sign with the 73-win Golden State Warriors on a reported two-year, $54-million contract. Certainly Anthony would have loved to have seen Durant shock the basketball world and align himself with the Knicks, but heading to a destination ready to contend for a title with a star-studded core in Golden State, Anthony can respect why he made the move, and feels as though everyone else should follow suit.
"I knew he was meeting with them," Anthony added. "I knew it was on the schedule. He had to make that decision. That was on him to make that decision. Just from talking to him and being around him, he's happy, he's at peace with that decision, and everybody else should be at peace with that decision. If he's at peace, everybody else should be at peace."
The two former scoring champions trained together in The Big Apple late last month, and even though Anthony acknowledged that he was acting on behalf of the Knicks in any potential recruitment, the league didn't lay the hammer down considering it was a player and not members of management getting into Durant's ear at the time.
"We were together, and he made his decision," Anthony said. "So for anybody to judge that, I think is wrong. He made a decision based off of what he felt was good for himself at this point in time in his career, and he made that."