Many years later, Carmelo Anthony's time in New York still oscillates between a dream and a nightmare. A moment of excessive hope at the right time was quickly buried by more disappointing years and a complicated exit. Especially for Milo himself. The former player sat down to talk with Dwyane Wade on the latest episode of the podcast Why. In which he details his cruel abandonment of the Big Apple. “When I left New York, I didn't leave it. “Phil Jackson made me quit,” says Anehone.

“It was very difficult for me to leave,” says Melo of the city, the team and the fan with whom he always felt at home. Although he admitted at one point in the same interview that if the Nets had been in Brooklyn when they tried to sign him before he came to the Knicks, he probably would have accepted. The fact is that overnight, Anthony had to search for equipment. Although, he says, it was Sam Presti who found him. “I will always support him. He called me at dawn and told me they would do it for me. “They believed in me and that I was the piece they needed,” he recalls.

As is well known, things did not go quite as expected for the Thunder. Anthony had a hard time adjusting to playing alongside Russell Westbrook and Paul George. He wasn't finished finding his game, which was particularly bloody in the playoffs that ended in a first-round loss to the Blazers. Next came Houston and the notorious drift that caused him to stay away from the slopes for more than a year. In New York, Phil Jackson, the general manager since 2014, is still enduring a few more seasons without pain or glory. Now, Melo returns to Madison Square Garden to standing ovations every night.

(Cover photo by Maddy Meyer/Getty Images)