It's always amusing to me when people argue that an athlete wants to play for their team because it's close to home. I'm in my early 20s myself, and I know this: the last place I want to live is with my parents in the house I grew up in. No disrespect to my parents, but I want to live on my own and make my own life. So do most people.
↵Athletes are no different. It's more likely that being close to home, even if they aren't living with their family, is a bad thing, not a good thing. In the case of Carmelo Anthony, it certainly was a bad thing. There was really no chance of Anthony coming to the Wizards, since it looks like the Nets are the team that will land him, but many clung to that fleeting hope that he'd want to come to D.C. because he grew up just a handful of miles away in Baltimore. As Michael Lee of the Washington Post reports, though, Anthony had no interest in returning home.
↵↵↵↵↵A person close to Anthony told me recently that Anthony mentioned last summer that he had no interest in playing for the Wizards because the team was "too close" to home. Anthony didn't want to be bothered with the distractions of playing about 30 miles from where he grew up, the source said.
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Given how much athletes have to deal with these days, I'm surprised many still think that performing their craft near their home town is a good thing. They have enough distractions as is.
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