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Carmelo Anthony on Hawks: 'Nobody would want to go there'

Adam Hunger / REUTERS

The Hawks are beginning the process of turning the page on an incredibly damaging week for the franchise after racially insensitive comments made by owner Bruce Levenson and General Manager Danny Ferry came to light.

But repairing that damage is easier said than done, and in addition to losing the public's trust, the Hawks as an organization have lost respect among the league's players.

That could mean the Hawks' already modest hopes of attracting big name free agents just got worse, according to Carmelo Anthony.

"[There] ain't nobody [who] would want to go there," Anthony said Saturday at his Citi Carmelo Anthony Basketball camp, via ESPN New York. "At the end of the day, Atlanta, I think it puts Atlanta back even further now, from that standpoint."

"Atlanta is a great city, a great market, great people, great atmosphere," Anthony continued. "But as far as the comments [that] were made, I think it was uncalled for. From an owner, from a GM, those are not things you play with."

"As a player, as an athlete, we're looking for a job, we're trying to find a place where we can move our family, we can make our family comfortable, where we can be comfortable in a comfortable environment. But those comments right there, we would never look at [playing there]."

Anthony also mentioned that it will take a collective effort beyond an ownership and front office shake-up to change things for the Hawks.

"That's not going to change overnight. I don't think that just happened overnight. That's been an accumulation over the past couple years. A lot of people think that it just happened, but it's been going on for the past two or three years now."

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