Carmelo Anthony: "I don’t feel like there’s loyalty in sports. You talk about loyalty and what my morals is based off of, I still carry those basics of loyalty. Sports is just sports. It’s a business. You’re an athlete, that’s your profession, you get paid to do that. No one has to be loyal to you."

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You wrote that your loyalty—you pride yourself on it—was developed/enhanced in Baltimore. How tough has it been navigating the NBA, a business that rarely shows or rewards loyalty?

"I don’t feel like there’s loyalty in sports. When you talk about loyalty then and what my morals is based off of, I still carry those basics of loyalty today in my life. Sports is just sports. It’s a business. There’s no loyalty in sports. You’re an athlete, that’s your profession, you get paid to do that. No one has to be loyal to you. Me just kinda knowing that and having that mentality growing up and learning that, I know what loyalty feels like and I know what it feels like when somebody’s disloyal to you or not loyal as you are. I still carry those basics of loyalty with me today."

I’ll throw out this “what if” question: How different is your life if you spent your entire childhood in Red Hook as opposed to moving to Baltimore? I realize that’s kind of a heavy question.

"Oh man, it is a heavy question. Honestly, I don’t know because you go places, but can’t run from it if I had stayed in Red Hook. Everything would’ve been right there, in that community, in those projects, so I don’t know. It probably would’ve been worse because I was living in the projects in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I would’ve been project-living so the mentality would’ve probably gotten deeper, stronger, probably would’ve gotten worse. Who knows?"