Dec 25, 2014
Carmelo Anthony listlessly swiped his finger against his tablet's surface, scrolling through the Bleacher Report article. He frowned at the bold proclaimation that his team's season was a "Nightmare". This was not the Christmas present he needed.
"A nightmare?" he questioned no one in particular, since he was currently the sole occupant of the hotel room. "A nightmare!" he repeated. "They're right. This season is a listless mess. We can't play defense, we can't make shots, and we can't win games. Our team is a disaster! We've only won five games! Even the Charlette Hornets are doing better than us. And they stink!... Ugh, if only there was a way we could channel the Knicks greats of seasons past!" He wistfully thought of the great names which had preceded him. Names like Patrick Ewing, Walt Frazier, and Willis Reed. "If only," he mused, "I could take an entire team's talent and squeeze it into one player. Imagine... imagine the 1970 Knickerbockers, who fought tooth and nail to persevere over the Lakers in the Finals. Imagine that much raw talent infused in one person. Why, it would make them a beast on the court. He thought back to the article headline, and a wicked smile grew upon his face. "Why, for the opposing team, that player would be... a nightmare."
After the prerequisite evil cackling, Carmelo got right to work. He needed to learn the dark arts. Fortunately he had plenty of sources available to him. He started up Netflix and cued up the first three seasons of Supernatural, all of Gravity Falls, the Harry Potter Series, and the really old version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. That was a lot of material, but fortunately he had had learned a time travelling technique from Fluttershy, so he just drank lots of soda and looped through the same day five or six times in a row until he had watched all that. He had some trouble staying awake the first few days, but then he realized that he was in New York City, aka land of powdered cocaine, and he easily scored himself a hit. That stuff kept him up alright.
Having powered through the dark magic crash course he was ready to begin. First, he strolled down to the local public library and printed out black and white portrait photographs of all the team members on the roster of the 1969-1970 New York Knickerbockers. Aren't library cards wonderful? Next he needed his victim volunteer. Taking inspiration from Captain America, he figured he would use the weakest player on the team for the possession. This was a little hard to decide, considering how horribly his team stunk this season, but he eventually settled on Andrea Bargnani, who hardly played anyway. He was staying in the same hotel, and thus was easy to find. Carmelo bribed one of the housekeepers with cocaine to slip him an extra keycard, and 'Melo entered Andrea's room unimpeded.
"Hello, Mellow 'Melo, how are you?" asked the oft-injured power forward/center, who was sitting at the suite's kitchen table.
"Not as well"--it's important to know when to say "good" and when to say "well" --as you're going to be doing," Anthony replied cryptically.
"What does that--ACK!" Andrea didn't get a chance to finish his sentence because his teammate had covered his mouth and nose with a chloroform-soaked cloth. The taller man panicked and began to hyperventilate, rapidly pumping the anesthetic into his lungs. "Curse your sudden buuut inevitabeth behtrayyyy..." And with that, Andrea Bargnani collapsed, his huge body sagging into the chair. Carmelo held the cloth there an extra moment, then gently laid the other man's head down onto the table. It was time to enact the next step of the plan.