On February 22nd, 2011 the New York Knicks swung a trade with the Denver Nuggets that sent star forward Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks.

Since ‘Melo’s’ arrival in NYC, it’s been a lot of change. The Knicks have won 54 games in 2012-2013, then lost 65 in 2014-2015. Four different head coaches have coached the Knicks in Anthony’s tenure in Mike D’Antoni, Mike Woodson, Derek Fisher, and Kurt Rambis. It hasn’t been good for the Knicks lately to say the least.

New York currently sits at 28-41 on the season and at 5-10 under interim head coach Kurt Rambis. At one point in the year, the Knicks were 22-22. They then went onto drop their next four games before beating the lowly Phoenix Suns. What cost Derek Fisher his job with the Knicks this year was also the fact that the team lost their next five under Fisher, putting them at 23-31.

Despite all this turmoil in New York, it appears that Melo is staying loyal to his city, per Marc J. Spears on ESPN (at the time of this article, Spears was with Yahoo Sports):

“I guess I have all the power. If I really wanted to get out of this situation I could have waived that no-trade clause,” Anthony said. “But I’ve stuck with it and I’m still sticking with it. I don’t know, maybe my loyalty has come back to bite me in the ass. As of right now, I am sticking to it

Spears then asked Anthony why he is so loyal to the Knicks:

“I wanted to be here. This is a place I wanted to be. This is a place where I envisioned myself, winning in New York.”

In 62 games for the Knicks this season, Anthony is averaging 21.8 points, 8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game on 43% shooting from the field.

The Knicks have a promising young rookie in Kristaps Porzingis and cap space to work with this off-season. The Toronto Raptors or the Denver Nuggets will have their likely lottery pick come June, so it should be interesting to how the Zen Master Phil Jackson works the phones this summer.

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