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Melo: 'No support' from Knicks, Phil would've traded me 'for a bag of chips'

Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports / Action Images

It required an agonizingly long and drawn-out process, but Carmelo Anthony finally got traded last month to a team of his choice, removing him from the toxic situation that had festered in New York.

Anthony had hoped to play out his contract with the Knicks, but trust and communication deteriorated between him and then-president Phil Jackson, and Anthony ultimately found himself on an island.

"When I signed back with the Knicks (in 2014), I wanted to be in New York and I believed in Phil," Anthony told Marc Stein of the New York Times.

"Then last year it went to: I was being pushed out. There were things being said about me that I didn't know where they were coming from. And I still had to go in that gym and play and practice and deal with the media, answer all those questions every day. ...

"There was no support from the organization. When you feel like you're on your own and then on top of that you feel like you're being pushed out ... I think at that point it was too far gone."

Anthony also told Stein that Jackson was willing to trade him "for a bag of chips," but that trade talks with other teams stalled when Jackson stepped down and the Knicks' reshuffled front office took on a more stubborn negotiating tack.

"They went from asking for peanuts to asking for steak," Anthony said.

But things ultimately worked out. Anthony got dealt to the Oklahoma City Thunder - the team he says his son suggested he join - where he'll get a fresh start and a chance to contend alongside Russell Westbrook and Paul George.

As Raymond Felton, another one of his new teammates, told Stein: "He's been smiling ever since he got here."

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