Last week, reports started to come out quoting Amar'e as saying he no longer needed Carmelo Anthony in New York. Then other reports started unfolding with one coming from an unknown source that was Amare's former teammate that stated that he would not be happy sharing the spotlight with Carmelo in the big apple. When I first came across these articles, I immediately wrote them off as nonsense and knew it was only a matter of time before Amar'e reached out to Carmelo to clarify these erroneous reports. Well, apparently the air has been cleared.
"After hearing Carmelo Anthony express public doubts over the New York Knicks desire and need for him,Amar'e Stoudermire reached out to tell the Denver Nuggets star that he “wants him in New York,” a league source told Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday." -Yahoo! Sports
There are plenty of people out there (probably Nets and Nuggets fans) that are screaming "tampering" right about now. So I asked myself, what exactly constitutes as "tampering"? So I did a little research and here's what I found:
"Discussion about tampering has been a constant in league circles since an ESPN.com report in late June that James, Wade and Bosh met face-to-face before free agency to discuss their plans, followed by all three committing to the Heat on July 7 and 8. But NBA commissioner David Stern said during a July 12 news conference in Las Vegas that players on different teams who discuss playing together, under current league rules, is generally "not tampering or collusion that is prohibited."
Stern, however, maintains that there is a considerable difference between player-to-player contact -- even before free agency officially began July 1 -- and contact between team officials with players under contract or their representatives. The league's anti-tampering rules were conceived largely with teams and their employees in mind as opposed to players." -ESPN.com
So from the paragraphs above, we can see that there is a thin line between team officials and players having discussions, and player to player discussion. But David Stern and the league will probably not consider this tampering, as this was a player to player communication.
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