Carmelo comments create even more questions

It was just a month ago that Carmelo Anthony was smoking cigars and telling the New York Observer he wanted to become a free agent at least once before his career was over.

So take this pill with a spoonful of skepticism, but Anthony said Thursday night on TNT's broadcast that he wants to retire as a member of the New York Knicks.

"They pulled all the strings to get me here, and I wanted to be here, you know," Anthony said. "And I want to retire in New York, let's be quite frank. I think a lot of people jumped the gun when I said I wanted to be a free agent. And yeah, I want people to come to play in New York. I want them to want to play in New York. I want New York to be that place where guys want to come play."

Becoming a free agent and retiring as a member of the Knicks are not mutually exclusive ambitions, of course. But it does make it sound like Anthony either is trying to stuff the smoke back in the cigar or doesn't know what he wants to do and simply has a hard time ducking questions.

After the game, he pulled it together enough to dodge everybody's attempts to get some clarification.

"I don't want to talk (about that)," Anthony said. "I said what I said, I believe that. That's my goal, that's what I want to do. I don't want to talk about that. David (Aldridge) asked me a question, I answered. No disrespect to you, I just don't want to talk about that."

Good thing that's all cleared up and in no way will be brought up again for the rest of the season.