If you remember what it was like in that late spring of 1977, then there probably has been more than a whiff of déjà vu at the way this has all gone down between the Knicks and Carmelo Anthony. Because back then, 40 years ago, the will-they-or-won’t-they that consumed New York was overwhelming.

Remember, 1977 was the first year of the Bronx Zoo. The Yankees were a soap opera with a different episode every day, all revolving around a cast of single-name-only characters: George. Billy. Reggie. Thurman. Sparky. Catfish. They were also on their way to a World Series. And yet for a couple of weeks at the end of May and the beginning of June, the Yankees couldn’t buy a back page.

Because the Mets were thinking about trading Tom Seaver.

And that was the only story that mattered. Could the franchise really trade The Franchise? Would they? Could they?

Now, yes, for all Carmelo Anthony has done here, he hasn’t yet achieved what Seaver did here: a World Series win, two pennants, three Cy Young Awards, almost universal adoration, co-billing with Joe Namath as the most iconic sporting figure of that time in New York. So if you want to argue having Melo on the block isn’t quite the same as shopping Seaver, you may be right, technically.

But everything else is eerily similar.

You start with dumpster-fire teams – the ’77 Mets, the ’17 Knicks – that already had become chores to watch (with the exceptions of the nights Seaver pitched and Melo has his scoring touch), the Mets at the start of what became a seven-year exile from competitive baseball, the Knicks in the midst of 16 years of blightful basketball.

The owners? Well, let’s put it this way: There are few in recent New York history who are talked about with as much enmity as James Dolan – but Lorinda deRoulet would be one who actually might qualify. The Mets were born out of the deep pockets of the Payson and Whitney families, but by 1977, deRoulet actually was inquiring why foul balls couldn’t be recycled.

(That’s a true story. Think about THAT next time you want to call a Wilpon “cheap.”)

The Bosses? Well, let’s put it this way: There never has been a more despised figure in New York sports than M. Donald Grant, who held the lofty title of chairman of the board of the Mets, but was one of the last and loudest of the folks who tried to perpetuate baseball’s plantation culture. By himself, Grant managed to splinter a team that had been to two World Series in five years, refusing even to think about signing free agents in that first class of ’77, notably Gary Matthews. So maybe P. Douglas Jackson can take solace in this: He may be a complete failure so far as president of the Knicks … but at least he isn’t M. Donald Grant.

Not yet, anyway.

The media mouthpieces? In 1977, it was Dick Young, whose son-in-law worked for the Mets (Thornton Geary actually did well in the job, negotiating the Mets’ first cable deal, but there never has Betboo been a dispute about why he got the job). Beginning at the start of June, Young wrote a series of columns fed to him by Mets brass painting Seaver as a greedy pig, capped by a doozy in which he claimed Seaver’s wife, Nancy, was jealous of Ruth Ryan (whose husband, Nolan, was earning more than Seaver). The Mets, in fact, reluctantly had agreed to tear up Seaver’s existing contract and pay him more than Ryan despite Young’s (and Grant’s) howls.

But the Nancy/Ruth story ended that. Seaver, in his hotel room in Atlanta, called up Mets GM Joe McDonald and without saying hello screamed, “GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!!!” That was June 13. On June 15, that’s exactly what the Mets did.

(So let’s put it this way: If we see anything under the byline of Charley Rosen in the coming days or months that suggests that LaLa Anthony is jealous of Savannah Brinson, AKA Mrs. LeBron James …)

The biggest similarity, though, may be the suffocating inevitability that shrouded both situations: There was no way the Mets were going to get equal value for the man who – even now, 40 years later – is the only member of the Hall of Fame whose immediate association is with the Mets. And they didn’t.

And the Knicks?

Let’s put it this way: If they are truly intent on ridding themselves of Melo, and they can get the basketball equivalent of Steve Henderson, Pat Zachary, Doug Flynn and Dan Norman in return? They’d probably have to sign up for that. In a heartbeat.

Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.