Back in 2011, when the NBA went dark during the lockout, the league felt like it was frozen in time. Stars like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Carmelo Anthony stayed put in the U.S., unsure of what came next. But J.R. Smith? He packed up and headed straight to China, suiting up for the Zhejiang Golden Bulls. His fearless leap overseas not only reshaped his career but also sparked a wave of international opportunities for other locked-out players. Smith proved that taking risks, even halfway around the world, can lead to unexpected rewards. He wasn’t about to sit on his hands. And it changed everything.

Smith didn’t just perform well; he dominated. The man dropped 60 points off the bench in one game, turning heads across the basketball world. Soon enough, NBA teams were dialing him up. Big names like Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul showed interest, but it was Carmelo Anthony who closed the deal. Melo knew what others overlooked—J.R.’s wild style wasn’t chaos, it was firepower.

And in Melo’s eyes, that fire belonged in New York. “Because everybody knew what they was getting with him. It wasn’t like, we’re gonna try to change Jr We’re gonna it’s like no if you getting to him, you know what you’re getting right, and at the time,” Melo shared on the 7 PM In Brooklyn podcast. He never tried to tame Smith’s game—instead, he embraced it. “I Was the only one that appreciated that style of his game, and I knew you can’t box a man.”

And it actually worked out. Melo kept telling the Knicks coaching staff to let J.R. be J.R.—and that unleashed his best. Smith averaged 15.1 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2.8 assists across 213 games in New York. But even with that support, it wasn’t always smooth sailing. As J.R. put it on the same podcast, “I go out there and get a quick nine or ten points off of Three catches shoes and he’d be looking at mad as a m———–.”

Yet things got even more chaotic—just the way J.R. liked it. “It’s like I’m I know I can do what I do just in spite of you like I would go out there and try to windmill and do all the crazy-a–. Don’t I know that dude hated that s— shoot as far as I can and that should be cash,” he added. Even at practice, Smith couldn’t help himself. “I’ll be in practice f——- up the drill shooting deep cash and s— just like I’m gonna play in spite of you want to be an a—— to me I’m gonna be an a—— to you.” And to add to that, Melo, with a smile, seemed to give a nod.

So while Melo saw the beauty in J.R.’s chaos, he also lived through the storm. A love-hate dynamic? Definitely. But one that gave Knicks fans a show they won’t soon forget.

Carmelo Anthony snatched JR Smith from Kobe Bryant and Chris Paul

At first, it looked like J.R. Smith was heading west. As he told it himself, “Kobe texted me… He’s like, ‘Yo man, I need you, what’s up man, I need you, I need an alpha.’” Not long after, Chris Paul made his own pitch. “Yo bruh, you need to come to the Clippers, we need to figure this out.” Coming off a dominant stint in China, Smith suddenly had two of the game’s biggest stars trying to pull him into LA.

But just as the Lakers and Clippers started circling, Carmelo Anthony caught wind of it. Since all three—Kobe, CP3, and Smith—shared the same agent, Melo didn’t need much digging to know what was going down. “Leon called me back two days after, like, ‘I don’t know what you said to JR, but he on a flight. He’s a New York Knick.’ I said, ‘What the f–?!’” Melo laughed.

And Smith admitted he told Melo he was thinking about LA. But Melo wasn’t trying to hear any of that. “Damn dawg, you gonna do me like that?!” Smith remembered Melo telling him. That line alone flipped the whole script. Next thing he knew, Smith was booking a flight to New York.

Just like that, Smith landed in New York—fresh from China and ready to run it back with Melo on the Garden floor.