Carmelo Anthony hadn’t played with the Knicks for three seasons by the time Tyrese Haliburton declared for the NBA Draft in 2020, but he still wanted his former team to select the Iowa State star.
The Knicks selected Obi Toppin at No. 8, and four picks later, the Kings took Haliburton, who eventually blossomed into an All-Star guard and one of Anthony’s favorite players to watch.
“Haliburton would be someone I always like,” Anthony said during the first episode of his new “7PM in Brooklyn” podcast. “I was trying to get him with the Knicks like years ago, like, ‘Yo, draft him. … I wasn’t even on the Knicks, but like, ‘Yo, y’all better draft him.’”
The Kid Mero, who’s co-hosting the podcast with Anthony, then added he wanted the Knicks to take Haliburton, too.
“That’s crazy because you got way more juice than me and I’m just like, I’m just screaming at the TV like, ‘Take Haliburton,’” he said on the episode, which was recorded Thursday.
Anthony, who at the time of the 2020 NBA Draft had just finished his first of two seasons with the Trail Blazers, groups Haliburton with Celtics star Jayson Tatum, Kevin Durant, Anthony Edwards, Malik Monk and De’Aaron Fox as current NBA players he enjoys watching — “guys that go get it,” he said.
When the Knicks selected Toppin in that year’s draft, the pick initially earned reviews as a reunion — Toppin grew up in Brooklyn — filled with potential, given that he won the National Player of the Year award that season with Dayton.
“As one of the highest ranked players on our draft board, Obi was someone we really coveted,” Knicks president Leon Rose said in a statement at the time. “He’s an explosive athlete and one of the most dynamic players in college basketball.”
But Toppin never developed into a regular starter across three seasons with the Knicks, and they traded him to the Pacers in July — making him Haliburton’s teammate after he was dealt to Indiana in February 2022 — for two second-round picks.
Haliburton logged 56 games last season before signing a max contract extension with Indiana worth five years and $160 million.
