The New York Knicks are hosting the Los Angeles Lakers at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night’s NBA action. That means that fan favorite, Carmelo Anthony, will be making his return to MSG donning the purple and gold in front of what will be a raucous crowd.
Anthony is looking to turn things around against his former team, as he is yet to win as a visitor at MSG since the Knicks traded him to the Oklahoma City Thunder. He has struggled mightily in those appearances but is coming into tonight’s game scorching hot.
Anthony is one of the best sixth men in the NBA, averaging 15.2 points per game, knocking down an impressive 46.1 percent of his 3-point attempts thus far. New York has struggled this season on the defensive end, so he will have a chance to get going.
Despite the defensive struggles, the Knicks are 9-8 thus far this season. Leon Rose, Carmelo Anthony’s former agent when he was with CAA, has done an excellent job.
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One that Melo believes is underappreciated, as he heaped praise on his former agent.
“What Leon and those guys have done, created, established here in New York needs to be more recognized,” Anthony said. “It’s very hard to come in and do what they started and did. As far as starting from the ground up, cleaning everything up. Bringing in the right people but not doing it in a frantic way. It was coming in talking to people understanding people.’’
Rose has helped turn the New York Knicks into a respectable franchise once again after spending so much time as the laughing stock of the league. Anthony knows the pressure of playing in New York as well as anyone, as he accepted the challenge of trying to turn around the downtrodden franchise but things got ugly toward the end of his tenure.
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He certainly would have loved having a player of Kemba Walker’s caliber joining him in the starting five during his time with the orange and blue. Walker’s acquisition was one of the moves Carmelo Anthony spoke very highly of.
“I love the signing with Kemba,” Anthony said. “I don’t know what took Leon so long to get that done. It was like perfect timing. He had an opportunity to get out of [Oklahoma City] and Leon jumped right on it and brought Kemba in. New York native, home, had a lot of success in the Garden in college. He’s from The Bronx. This is home. I know the feeling that he’s playing with. I know what he’s dealing with being from here and putting on the uniform. I’m glad Kemba is home.”
Rose and the New York Knicks were in the running to land Anthony this offseason, but he opted to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers hoping to win a championship with his good friend, LeBron James.
James won’t be on the court with the Lakers for tonight’s game, as he is serving a one-game suspension for his part in the fracas against the Detroit Pistons when he hit Isaiah Stewart in the face.
