Carmelo Anthony's free agency tour this summer saw him eventually decide against leaving the New York Knicks, and a new documentary obtained by the New York Post shows just how close Anthony was to leaving. Anthony saw a perfect cultural fit with the Chicago Bulls this summer but in the end chose his home over everything else, which led to the title of the documentary, "Carmelo Anthony: Made in NY."
Carmelo Anthony thought he was about to be a Chicago Bull
New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony came close to joining the Chicago Bulls this offseason.
Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports
From the Post:
“It came down to Chicago and New York,” Anthony said during the program.
“It was a perfect setup and perfect fit for me in Chicago. But also I had to think about just living in Chicago. Do I want to live in Chicago? Do I want to take everything I created in New York and move all of that? It came down to that. But there was one point in time I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going.”’
Instead, Anthony re-signed with the Knicks, taking a longer contract but for less than a max deal to allow the franchise to build around him.
The documentary, which will air on MSG Network on Tuesday, also covers Anthony's decisions not to sign with Houston or Los Angeles. Anthony didn't feel like he fit in Texas being an East Coast native, and though he expressed the desire to play with Kobe Bryant, the Lakers were ultimately in the same rebuilding process as the Knicks.
At the end of the free agency process, Anthony decided to take on the challenge of building the Knicks back into a contender. Nonetheless, it's fun to wonder just what the Bulls would look like with Anthony running alongside Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.
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