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When Washington Wizards guard Brandon Jennings returned to Madison Square Garden on Thursday, he looked back on his brief tenure with the New York Knicks. Jennings, who requested and received a buyout from New York after the trade deadline, told reporters that rumors about a potential Carmelo Anthony trade distracted the players. 

“It was roller coaster, everything he had to go through,’’ Jennings said, via the New York Post’s Marc Berman. “It was unfair to wake up every day hearing he might be gone. That was one of the wildest things I’ve seen. Everyone was on their phones checking. It definitely took a toll on the team.”

You might recall Anthony himself saying that the trade talk was “mentally draining.” While it was happening, everybody knew it was affecting the Knicks, who never had much chemistry on either end of the court this season. Anthony has been their No. 1 option the entire time, and New York president Phil Jackson was reportedly “determined” to trade him.

“It was like a two-week span, where…everybody was hitting your phone,” Jennings said, via the New York Daily News’ Daniel Popper. “The Score, Bleacher Report, everything was hitting your phone about Melo leaving. It definitely took a toll, I think, on the team too. It wasn’t even about basketball anymore. It was more about what was going on with Melo.

“He had a lot of pressure on him, dealing with stuff with Phil and the trade rumors and things like that. So I think it was just like an emotional roller coaster for him this year, with everything he had to deal with, which isn’t fair -- for a player to wake up every day and you’re hearing the trade rumors and you might be going, this and that.”

Rumors of a blockbuster trade can put a team in a difficult place, but the specifics of this situation made it worse. It’s not as if Anthony and the front office were working together on finding a deal that worked -- he had a no-trade clause, and communication between the two sides was mostly indirect. There were new headlines on the subject just about every day, whether it was about a tweet from Jackson or a former playing weighing in. And hey, remember when Jackson’s friend and ghostwriter Charley Rosen started rumors about Anthony himself?

All of this was unusual, ridiculous and covered from every angle. It’s not the reason that the Knicks were a mess again this season, but it certainly didn’t help. When all the New York season-in-review stories are written next week, you can expect Jennings’ ex-teammates to be asked about the subject. If they are honest, they will back him up.