'Me7o' Texted Kristaps Porzingus To Welcome Him To The Knicks And The Result Was Just As Strange As Expected

“Carmelo Anthony reached out to me after I got drafted,” Porzingis said. “He said, ‘Congrats, welcome to the team.’ I didn’t have his number, so I texted back, ‘Who’s this?’ And then a few minutes later, he said, ‘This is Melo’ with his No. 7 as the ‘l.’ I met him actually when I came for my Knicks tryout for the first time. We’ve talked a couple of times since then.”


I know people are going to hate on Carmelo for this, and rightfully so. It's an unbelievably cocky move to just shoot off a text to someone that you have only met in passing and expect them to know who you are. On the other hand, when do you think the last time Carmelo Anthony had to introduce himself was? I'm talking over the phone, in public, through email. It's probably been years. 'Me7o' is so used to being recognized that he is just assumes that the first order of business from the Knicks front office was entering his digits into Porzingus' contacts. Next blog you will be reading about Anthony will be how he feels disrespected that the entire franchise doesn't have him on speed dial. Come on Dolan, you got to be better than this. You know Carmelo Anthony is too famous for introductions. He can't be taking time away from his precious clothing line to identify himself. Greetings are for non-franchise players. Hell, they are probably lucky 'Me7o' was feeling generous enough to even send a second text. He probably sighed so loud when he got the 'who is this?' text that it would have made an overly flamboyant gay man blush. Don't get me wrong, the awkwardness of this exchange is definitely on Carmelo for being a self involved prick. However, if you do, or don't do, a certain behavior for long enough it becomes second nature, and Carmelo stopped doing salutations when he left Syracuse.

Second order of business, does Carmelo have his own marketing team, or has he taken that responsibility on his own shoulders? You would think when he was hanging out with 'King James', 'D-Wade', and 'CP3' they could have helped him conjure up something better than 'ME7O'. I'm still trying to figure out what's wrong with marketing yourself as 'Melo'. Seems like a cool enough name to me. Though if the players outfits are any indication I have no idea what constitutes 'cool' in the NBA anymore. Regardless, this whole inserting numbers into names phenomenon is getting a little out of hand. Especially when it doesn't even come close to fitting. I think Anthony spent a little too much time obsessing over the 'RE2PECT' craze during Jeter's final season. I bet you part of him thinks that the only thing that separates him and Derek is having his number somewhere in his slogan. Championships and historical significance to the sport be damned. Jeter didn't start getting hat tips until he had his number in a word, that can't possibly be a coincidence. If he really wanted to keep it a hundred he would have went with 'Mel0' and the 0 could stand for how many time he has legitimately challenged for a championship. Not only does it make more sense, but it's way more aesthetically pleasing. But hell, I don't know, maybe underwhelming athletes have a thing for the number 7...

h/t BSO