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Remember this?  Melo's coming home!

Today the most arrogant player in basketball, a guy who has been requesting a trade with less subtlety than I can remember, got his ultimate wish.  Despite having no personal power, no ability to veto or redirect a trade save for implied petulance, he's going to the Knicks.  He gets his extension and he even gets Chauncey Billups as a throw in to make the team competitive.  

That last part is just part of why this is so bad.  Carmelo wanted out, okay, but to do so he had to rip the hometown boy and fan favorite from his roots to suffer the New York media glare in his twilight.  

via cdn.bleacherreport.net

So instead of a feel good story about a local boy making good, as we did when Billups came home to Denver, we have a tale of a prima donna whining his way to the bright lights.  One of the most conceited men in basketball wed to the most inept franchise in recent memory and Isaiah pitched in!  Remember in this matter Melo had no real power, Anthony had no real position to argue with the Nuggets, only the ability to idly threaten his future absence.  Yet he made sure he was in the center of the maelstrom, all cameras and eyes on him as he shot down trade after trade for months.  New Jersey wasn't good enough.  He wanted all of New York, not just one borough.

I think maybe the positive spin on the story so far is just the collective sigh of relief that accompanies it.  Lebron destroyed his image after an hour of self indulgence, Melo distracted the basketball world for months to get what he wanted.  This story is proof of what's really wrong in basketball.  Free agency without some form of compensation creates a gambit state for small market teams.  Owners think of their players as property and will hold a city hostage for a season to get value.  These past few months have not been good for basketball in the rockies.  This will be a poster child for the upcoming bargaining sessions, of players gone wild and free, but in the end the real story is the owners.  He should have been gone forever ago.  At this point, now that Melo got his wish, who cares?

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Oh, right.