Things have not been going well for the Oklahoma City Thunder, basically all season. They’re playing just .500 ball in their last 10 games and currently sit in ninth place in the Western Conference playoff hunt.
The expectations going into the 2017-2018 campaign, obviously, were a lot higher than this, and with the season barreling toward the midway mark, the pressure to right the ship is starting to become overwhelming for everyone involved. Paul George has voiced his frustrations, saying their poor play has “gotta stop” and in general no one in OKC seems too happy at the moment.
Following their latest head-scratching loss to the Hornets on Monday night, everyone was on edge once again, and Carmelo Anthony was conspicuously absent for his postgame media duties. But Melo doesn’t want you to read too much into that. On Tuesday, as he explained to reporters, he had a perfectly reasonable excuse for bailing early and skipping his postgame availability.
Carmelo Anthony says he left early without speaking to reporters last night because he had a FaceTime session with his son: pic.twitter.com/44uJmCAsTm
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) December 12, 2017
“I’m sorry. My bad.” Anthony said. “I had a FaceTime session with my son, so I skipped out on you guys yesterday. I apologize. It’s true, though. That’s true.”
True or not, Melo didn’t even begin to try and hide the knowing grin from his face. The Thunder have been given a great deal of leeway this season to make their disparate pieces coalesce, but time is definitely not on their side. This isn’t a situation where they can have a full year of learning to work together, as the clock is ticking with George a free agency in July.
If OKC can’t turn things around by the February trade deadline, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the front office tries to cut their losses instead of risking losing George for nothing next summer when he hits free agency. Ducking the media isn’t going to make any of this go away and the time for preaching patience is running out.
