USA Basketball introduced its men’s Olympic team Monday, seating 12 NBA players in two rows on a makeshift stage inside a hot Harlem gym. And there among the Rio-bound back row was Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant, a twosome that would sure look great posing together in a Knicks team picture.
Anthony has been working on it, recruiting his longtime pal, who officially turns into the league’s most coveted free agent at 12:01 a.m. Friday. But Anthony hasn’t been pressing the 6-9, seven-time All-Star forward for Oklahoma City.
“At this point in time, we’re friends; we hang out,” Anthony said. “It’s magnified now because he’s a free agent and we’re in New York. But last year nobody was talking about us hanging out, going to work out, or going to dinner, or things like that.
“So, yeah, those conversations do come up, but it’s not something that I’m constantly on him, throwing at him, because I was in that situation before. And it’s a lot of things that’s going through his mind. There was a lot of things that was going through my mind.”
The Thunder and the 73-win Warriors are perceived as the top contenders. The Knicks are considered long shots to snag Durant. They weren’t on the original meet-and-greet list of six teams that has circulated.
But the Knicks can hope he will add them now that Phil Jackson has added marquee point guard Derrick Rose to the mix with Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis for new coach Jeff Hornacek. Durant didn’t rule out a meeting.
“Obviously, they have a good team now with D-Rose and Melo and Porzingis,” Durant said. “I’m going to talk to my team and we’ll figure things out.”
Durant, who owns a career scoring average of 27.4 and a 2013-14 MVP award, teamed with Anthony to win gold at the 2012 Olympics in London.
“He’s been my friend since I was in high school, so we talk about everything,” Durant said. “That’s like my big brother right there.”
Like Durant, Anthony is very pleased that Rose is coming to the Garden.
“Nobody expected that, so that was a good first step for us,” Anthony said. “ . . . I thought we had to step up to the plate and make a splash some kind of way.”
This will be Anthony’s fourth Olympics, unprecedented in U.S. men’s basketball. Striking gold for a third time would be unprecedented, too. These things ultimately won out over the 32-year-old forward’s Zika virus concerns. He had consultations with doctors about that.
“We can try to downplay the Zika thing, but it is what it is,” Anthony said. “I don’t think anybody has the answers as to how to control that.”
..... - Newsday