National Basketball Association

Carmelo Anthony not interested in rebuilding, told Phil Jackson 'the time is now'

Published Nov. 15, 2016 2:52 p.m. ET

Brett Pollakoff

Carmelo Anthony is entering his 14th NBA season, and as we saw this summer at the Rio Olympics, he's still an All-Star caliber player with plenty of basketball left in the tank.

The Knicks have missed the playoffs three years straight, however, and Anthony can't carry the team all by himself. In an offseason meeting with team president Phil Jackson, Anthony wanted to make sure that New York wasn't thinking about going through a slow rebuilding project, and essentially demanded that the Knicks shift to win-now mode as long as he's on the roster.

“I never came in here to Phil and said, ‘I want to be out of here,’ ” Anthony said, via Newsday. “I did say, ‘The time is now. I’m pretty sure you want to win too.’

“It’s a conversation we’ve been talking about for the past year and a half about how we want to move forward, what we want to do, whether they want to win now or rebuild.”

The Knicks traded for Derrick Rose during the offseason, and signed Joakim Noah, Brandon Jennings and Courtney Lee in free agency -- none of which would have happened if New York was thinking about rebuilding from scratch.

It's worth noting that it's not entirely up to the Knicks whether they want to completely blow up the roster, which would include sending Anthony elsewhere. He's one of only two active players to have a no-trade clause as part of his contract, which has an early-termination option in its final season but could potentially keep Anthony in New York through 2019.