It was an otherwise calm, clear day when the ticker announced the breaking news: “The New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets agreed to a blockbuster three-team trade that sends All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony to the Big Apple.” First there was silence, steeped in blatant disbelief, followed by outright pandemonium.
The Knicks, already playing over .500 basketball in February of 2011 on the back of newly signed Amar’e Stoudemire and a group of young ballers, would now add Melo to the mix? Throughout New York City subway cars, suffocating apartments, bodegas and beyond into the suburbs, inner-cities, and Middle America where Knick fans across the country lived, a long, rumbling and deeply felt exhalation: He’s come home.