Carmelo Anthony is now talking only in metaphor, expects to play Tuesday

With the Knicks’ season winding down and Derrick Rose out for the season, the eyes of many in the New York media have fallen to Carmelo Anthony. Will Melo play again in 2016-17? Will he finally give in to Phil Jackson and accept a trade?

New York’s star forward hasn’t exactly been shy of late, telling reporters that he intends to play the final five games of the season, starting Tuesday against the Bulls. But it is a little difficult to parse his true intentions now that he’s mostly given up speaking literally.

Here is Melo talking about his impending offseason meeting with Big Chief Triangle:

“The chips will be on the table,” a half-smiling Anthony said of his upcoming meeting. “The chips will be on the table in that meeting. I mean, I don’t know what to expect, but I got a good feeling. Chips will be on the table.”

OK, so we know the chips will be on the table. But what about the writing? It’s on the wall...but not a wall we can see.

“I see the writing on the wall,” he said. “You don’t know what writing is on the wall, though, but I see what writing is on the wall. You know I’m not going to tell you that. You can’t reach.”

We’ve reached the point of the season where at least one player is so traumatized that he only speaks in metaphor. That’s always fun.

The danger here is to read to much into Melo’s poetic musings vis-à-vis his plans for the offseason. We’ve been here before, people. Dude probably hasn’t made up his mind one way or the other. Let’s all calm down and enjoy these last few (hopefully!) losses.