Carmelo Anthony says a warning from someone tied to the Chicago Bulls helped steer him away from one of the NBA’s biggest free-agent decisions in 2014, when he chose to stay with the Knicks instead of joining a Bulls team built around Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler.
Anthony revisited the failed pursuit on his podcast, 7PM in Brooklyn, twelve years after he opted out in June and entered free agency. He said the Bulls looked like the most attractive option on the table, but he believed the organization was close to falling apart and did not want to step into that kind of chaos.
The Bulls had tried to sell him on a roster that also included Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol, while Chicago’s offer and New York’s pitch stood as two of the most scrutinized paths of that summer. Anthony ultimately re-signed with the Knicks on a five-year, $124 million maximum contract, preserving a partnership that had already produced a fair share of disappointment in New York’s 2013-14 season, when heavy contracts and roster decisions never matched the team’s on-court output.
Anthony said a little birdie told him things were about to fall apart in Chicago. He pointed to problems with contracts, people leaving, coaches leaving and rumors floating around, adding that he did not want to walk into that kind of situation. Carlos Boozer, who had been waived by Chicago that same summer after coming off a solid and consistent season, was part of the backdrop that fed the sense of instability Anthony described.
The decision remains one of the era’s defining NBA what-ifs. Anthony was trying to find the best path to a championship after reaching the Conference Finals only once in his first 11 seasons, and the Bulls offered the clearest chance to join a contender. He instead stayed in New York, finished his career without an NBA title and left Chicago’s roster dream — Rose, Butler, Noah, Gasol and Anthony — unrealized.
