NBA: Indiana Pacers at New York Knicks
Carmelo Anthony impressed his new boss, Phil Jackson with 34 points and even added 3 steals. Reuters

In his first interview since re-signing with the New York Knicks, star forward Carmelo Anthony defended his decision in returning to the Big Apple saying that he just wants to win and doesn’t really care about the contract.

Anthony or popularly known as “Melo” is one of the best small forwards in the NBA, and definitely the franchise player for New York, but with this recent statement, he might just be one of the best liars in the league as well.

“I want to win. I don't care about the money," Anthony said via ESPN. "I believe Phil will do what he has to do to take care of that.

The celebrated decision was documented in the 2014 offseason. Aside from New York, teams of interest were the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets.

If Melo wanted to win he would have identified that two of four teams chasing him had better chances to be a contender than the other two who are in complete rebuilding mode.

The contenders of course are the Bulls and Rockets. Chicago has a core of Joakim Noah, 2014 NBA Defensive Player of the Year; Derrick Rose, former NBA Most Valuable Player and Taj Gibson. Houston has Dwight Howard and James Harden.

Conversely, Los Angeles has Kobe Bryant and his $48M contract while New York has Amare Stoudemire, J.R. Smith and Andrea Bargnani.

To add, New York also took a step back this season after dealing away veteran center Tyson Chandler, one of the few players who played defense in previous seasons in New York.

The Knicks will also be bringing a rookie head coach in Derek Fisher, a proven NBA player but who has zero experience in running an NBA team from the sidelines.

Still, Anthony chose the Knicks over the Bulls and Rockets— a respectable decision since he wants to stick with his team. It came with a price of course— on a huge $124M deal.

"I don't think we're that far away," he also added in the same interview.

Not only is Carmelo Anthony lying about preferring “wins” over money, the Knicks’ franchise player is also clearly delusional if he believes that the Knicks should contend anytime soon.