Melo plans to recruit Rondo, others in free agency

Carmelo Anthony largely took a backseat during last summer's silly season, allowing New York Knicks president Phil Jackson and general manager Steve Mills to run point and orchestrate meetings with free agents.

Though they've fallen on hard times in recent weeks, the Knicks are a vastly improved outfit, and their offseason retrospectively looks like a success, if only because it involved drafting rookie phenom Kristaps Porzingis. On the free-agent front, Jackson and Co. largely came up empty, watching prime targets like LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Monroe reject their advances and head for smaller markets.

Hoping for a different result this summer, Anthony aims to be more active in the free-agent pitch process come July 1.

"Put me at the head of the (meeting) table," Anthony told reporters Monday, according to Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. "And let's go to work."

Anthony specifically cited Sacramento Kings point guard Rajon Rondo as a player he plans to recruit, pooh-poohing Rondo's recent claim that the Knicks' triangle offense is "not really a good look for me."

"I think Rondo - just me personally, I don't want to be tampering - but I've heard he said he wouldn't thrive in a system like this," Anthony said. "I think he'd be perfect in a system like this."

While Rondo's floor-inverting penchant for probing drive-and-kicks doesn't make him an inherently ideal fit for the triangle, Anthony believes the point guard-starved Knicks could use much of what the four-time All-Star brings.

"Some of the keys of our offense is penetration, getting in the paint," Anthony said. "Pushing the pace, transition. Creating in the paint for bigs, for yourself, everybody else. I think a point guard would love that. Especially a point guard who can penetrate, create for yourself, create for others. I think it's a perfect opportunity for him."

Perhaps the biggest hindrance to the Knicks' recruiting process last summer was that they were coming off a franchise-worst 17-65 season, while Anthony himself was coming off knee surgery.

With Porzingis now in tow and Anthony enjoying a healthy and productive season, New York should look far more attractive to prospective free agents. And Anthony sees adding his voice to the mix as more duty than privilege.

"I don't really have a choice," he said. "If we want this team to be better, if we want more pieces of this team, I don't have a choice but to go out there and do my job and try to get people to come. And for them to see it from my perspective than anybody else's perspective. See it from a player's perspective."