Kenyon Martin on Melo: 'He don't deserve to be a part of a rebuilding process'
Carmelo Anthony had 120 million reasons to re-sign with the New York Knicks at the end of the 2013-14 season.
Winning couldn't have been one of them.
Following three straight playoff exits in either the first or second round, the Knicks saw their win total plummet from 54 to 37 in just one year. That number continued to drop this past season, with a franchise-worst 17 wins.
Kenyon Martin, who played alongside Anthony on the Knicks and Denver Nuggets and recently retired from the NBA after a 15-year career, hates seeing his former teammate continue to compete for losing squads.
"I feel bad for him," Martin told ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk. "He cares and wants to win and to be put in a situation like that with that kind of talent, he don't deserve to be a part of a rebuilding process by any stretch of the imagination."
At one point, a common conception in NBA circles was that a star could carry a franchise to a deep playoff run by himself, with a prime example being LeBron James leading the 2006-07 Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA Finals on a roster with Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden as his top teammates.
While recent championship winners have proven that belief wrong, the thought process always appears to be brought up as ammunition when debating Anthony's greatness.
"Everybody has an opinion," said Martin. "Everybody got one and they all stink. I think I have spent the most time of anybody on one team (with Anthony). We spent like eight years of our careers together. He wants to win. One of the most competitive people I have been around.
"I was having a conversation with a few people the other day about going to the NBA is all about having dog in you and who has got that dog in him. And our list is very, very short. But he's on it. It's in him. He wants to win. The situation hasn't been ideal, but I hope they get it together."
Since being selected third overall by the Nuggets in the 2003 NBA Draft, Anthony, 31, has made it out of the second round just once, falling in the Western Conference Finals with Denver to the Los Angeles Lakers in 2009.
It's hard to imagine 2015-16 being the year the Knicks finally break through, despite the roster undergoing a major overhaul, with new faces like Robin Lopez, Arron Afflalo, Kyle O'Quinn, and rookie Kristaps Porzingis all coming aboard this summer.
New York should be more competitive, but to think the team can make a gargantuan leap in the standings with so many unanswered questions is expecting too much.
Perhaps Martin would be better off avoiding Knicks games from the comfort of his couch until Anthony and his new teammates win a few more games.