Is Knicks' Carmelo Anthony Responsible For Bucks' Damian Lillard Trade?

The New York Knicks may have old friend Carmelo Anthony to thank when they face Damian Lillard as a Milwaukee Buck on Saturday afternoon.

Carmelo Anthony and Damian Lillard have a lot in common.

Not only were they teammates together with the Portland Trail Blazers, but they are both future Hall of Famers who requested trades from their original NBA teams in their relative primes. Anthony was moved to the New York Knicks from the Denver Nuggets while Lillard finally took the plunge after 11 seasons in Portland and transferred to the Milwaukee Bucks over the summer. 

It turns out Anthony might have had one more assist in store for Lillard, whose Bucks face the Knicks on Saturday afternoon in Manhattan (12:30 p.m. ET, MSG). On the latest edition of his podcast "7PM in Brooklyn," Anthony claimed to be the one who encouraged Lillard to move on from the Pacific Northwest.

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"I was telling Dame, ‘Man get the (expletive) out (of Portland),” Anthony recalled. "It wasn’t like a knock to Portland but it was, ‘Champ, you in the same situation I was in, in Denver. Our loyalty going kill us, It’s going to kill us!’ What do we have to see or know to make the decision? For me, they had to hit rock bottom for it to be like, ‘All right, I’m gonna go.’"

Anthony spent each of his first seven full seasons in Denver but requested a trade prior to the 2010-11 season. It was granted shortly before that year's trade deadline and the Brooklyn native Anthony wound up spending the next six full seasons in New York, reaching the All-Star Game each time but winning only one playoff series.

Lillard was well-known for his loyalty to Portland, but the Blazers likewise struggled in the postseason. As Anthony implied, things bottomed with consecutive postseason misses, the first since the Lillard era began in 2012-13. 

"They better put a statue of Dame in Portland. It’s that deep of a connection," Anthony said. "But (I) was telling him, ‘You gotta go’ because I knew what was going to happen.”

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The 33-year-old Lillard was moved to Milwaukee over the summer, joining a group that has gone all-in on chasing a championship. Working alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and fellow offseason arrival Jrue Holiday, Lillard has averaged 26.3 points and seven assists while the Bucks (21-7) remain stationed at or near the top of the Eastern Conference. 

Anthony's Knicks have felt his wrath in the early going, as Lillard has scored 58 points in two meetings, both Milwaukee wins.