Psst. Have you heard? Carmelo Anthony hasn't signed a contract extension with the Nuggets yet. Rumor has it he wants out of Denver and that he's eyeing New York, New Jersey and Houston as potential trade destinations.

Of course, nothing is certain yet...and this saga could drag out well into next summer (the deadline for Anthony to sign an extension is June 30, 2011). And according to the Denver Post, 'Melo's being totally chill about this:

"I'm just taking my time with it. Obviously, everybody knows I'm loyal to the Denver Nuggets community and to the Denver Nuggets. I've shown that over my seven-year stint here. I don't think anybody can question that. But at this point in time I have to do what's best for me and my family. I'm just taking my time, figuring out if I want to take that extension or not."
Loyalty is a word that gets thrown around an awful lot by athletes...usually right before they mention the welfare of their family. And you know what that means. To wit, let's harken back to what LeBron had to say right before he rammed a knife in the back of every Cavaliers fan both living and dead:

This is tough. This is very tough, because you feel like you've let a lot of people down. You've raised a lot of people's expectations also. But it was a tough decision, because I know how loyal I am.

And one thing my mother told me when I was going through this process and what ultimately helped me make my decision is you have to do what's best for you and what's going to make you happy at the end of the day, because no one can live with the consequences or anything that comes with your decision besides you.

And once I heard that from my mother, the person that I always look to for guidance, [the decision to leave Cleveland] was easy.
Mind you, this was after he said "I never wanted to leave Cleveland. And my heart will always be around that area." So...yeah.

All I can say in response to all this loyalty talk is:

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28 Comments:
Blogger Will said...
LeBron and Carmelo are loyal? INCONCEIVABLE!

Blogger Dan B. said...
Damn you, Will. You beat me to the punch with that obvious but very, very necessary joke.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I guess Loyalty means loyalty to themself?

So LeBron has already made an impact on Wade:

http://vimeo.com/14128850

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
While this post is true and all, you're forgetting that LeBron's never had a commercial like this made for him, and that's true loyalty. A testament to human potential, if you will.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I'm totally loyal to this site.

See you at Hardwood Paroxysm!

Anonymous JJ said...
Nice! By their logic, I can gain 200 lbs but still say I'm fit if I had been fit for past few years before that.

Blogger Wormboy said...
@Will: Gah! Well done.

Any blog that quotes Rob Reiner's masterpiece The Princess Bride is alright by me.

Blogger Unknown said...
Can't hate on Carmelo for wanting to go to New York. He's from Brooklyn and played at Syracuse. So Denver drafted him, so what? They'd trade him for Lebron if they had the chance, and fans would rejoice at the idea. How can we expect these players to be loyal when they're disposable by fans and by the ownership?

Him saying that he's loyal is what any employee would do to not piss off his boss (or in this case, fans of the team). I was loyal to Togos when I worked there, but that didn't stop me from finding another job...at Subway! BTW: Eat fresh.

Anonymous Barry said...
I came here to say "Inconceivable!" but I was beaten to it.....in the very first post!

Anonymous Heretic said...
CP3 and Anthony will probably want to team up like the super friends did in Miami. All they need is a good third semi superstar like bosh. Maybe this is the new NBA, backroom deals made by players to consolidate their power.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
JJ - Also now known as the Boris Diaw logic!

Blogger Dan B. said...
Good news everyone! The guy who did the fantastic "hastily made Cleveland tourism videos" has finally decided to weigh in on the LeBron situation with this great song. (Language is NSFW)

Blogger Will said...
It really helped that Bawful posted this earlier than usual and that I have to get up ass-early in the morning.

Anonymous The Other Chris said...
Gotta agree 100% with what Chris Bosh said in an interview on cnnsi.com:

SI.com: What place should loyalty have in free agency, from the perspective of the team and the player?

Bosh: It should have none. Loyalty is an added bonus. It's great that some guys want to be loyal, but you can be unhappy trying to be loyal, and there's no reason to bring loyalty into the business room. [...] People have to look at it as a business. Fans get very wrapped around it because it's a sport. And sports are a little different but they're businesses first and that's how we have to choose sometimes. Sometimes people understand, sometimes people don't.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/paul_forrester/08/18/bosh.qa/index.html#ixzz0x5bG8LYv


Yes, people like Carmelo and LeBron shouldn't toss the word "loyalty" around. But bottom line, these are people are paid a lot of money because they are ASSETS. *They* are the ones who create value, not some disgustingly rich owner.

It's like when I quit my job and my old boss threw a temper tantrum in the meeting he subsequently had with the other, dwindling employees - "they'll never work for me again!!". Like I give a shit, asshole. I don't owe you anything; the company employed me because I'm good at what I do (uhhh, posting long-winded comments on a somewhat obscure basketball blog?). If I wasn't, if I wasn't considered an asset, I would have been laid off with all of the other retards in our various rounds of layoffs.

Anyways, that's my "loyalty" rant. Owners expecting "loyalty" from employees, who are paid a small fraction of the immense, top 0.1% in the world-wealth, that these people possess, is downright laughable.

And that's as a Raptors fan. Chris Bosh played hard while he was here. He doesn't owe Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan (corporate overlords of the Raptors), or Bryan Colangelo a goddamn thing.

Blogger Unknown said...
I came here to say "Totally conceivable!" but someone knock me down to the ground....in the very first post!

Blogger RPK said...
Speaking about swatting kid's shots.

Have you guys seen Ricky Rubio and Rudy Fernandez done it? And he wore nothing except a pair of shorts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPtA6Eoky8E

Blogger Mintz... said...
@Anaconda

That was great. I just went to the France game against team Canada and he looked quite round...

Anonymous Axel Foley said...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1121440/index.htm
An awesome article on Hubie Brown. It should be read by all. I wasn't aware that old Hubie was so volatile. He pretty much called every coach in the NBA at the time garbage with the exception of Dick Motta and Jack Ramsay. He also called Bill Russell a moron.

Blogger Bing said...
I hope he goes east. Anything that makes the west a little easier for LA.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
@ The Other Chris

completely agree
I just wish players didn't fake loyalty ahahhahah
AND I wish a player someday would just say what you just said to reporters
THAT would make my day

Blogger b r christensen said...
You can clearly see that Krstic was grabbing the chair to defend himself and it fell from his hand grazing the other guy on it's way to the floor.

Blogger Unknown said...
Next time Krstic throws a chair, Mankind needs to be on the receiving end of it.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
@Mintz and @Anaconda,

see Diaw at USA v. France. He's been hitting the croissants pretty hard. And the macarons.

Blogger Unknown said...
Curious what you guys think of Mike Krzyzewski's take of Durant for Team USA:

"He's been overpassing because they want to please one another, but he's a scorer, and I told him 'When you get the ball, they expect you to shoot it. And a pass should be more of a bailout for you.'"

Oof! Don't we want our star player to be unselfish?

Having watched the USA exhibition games, part of me thinks he's right and part of me thinks that Durant is just a team player--a guy who wants to make his teammates happy. Durant's not running the point or anything, and his primary function is as scorer, but I hope he doesn't develop some "shoot first" tendencies, which can kill teammates' interest in games in the process (a la Tyreke Evans).

Anonymous Geert said...
RE: Greece vs. Serbia

Poor Milos Teodosic. I wouldn't want to be on the recieving ends of a Sofoklis 'baby Shaq' Schortsanitis punch.

WV: pressess. Krstic pressess his point by throwing a chair.

Anonymous Pistoletti said...