Knicks star Anthony wooing free agent Durant

Carmelo Anthony said he is already trying to lure free agent and close friend Kevin Durant to the New York Knicks.

Oklahoma City Thunder forward and seven-time All-Star Durant is set to become one of the most sought-after players in the NBA when he becomes a free agent on July 1.

The Knicks are among a number of teams attempting to prise the 2014 MVP away from Oklahoma City, and Anthony is doing his best to attract Durant to New York, following the arrival of Derrick Rose, with the pair named in the United States’ Olympic Games squad.

“We’ve been together. We’ve been talking,” Anthony told ESPN. “I do consider myself part of the Knicks. So that meeting has already taken place.”

Durant, who was taken with pick two in the 2007 NBA Draft by the then-known Seattle SuperSonics, averaged 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and five assists as the Thunder reached the Western Conference Finals in 2015-16.

“We’re friends. We hang out,” Anthony added. “It’s magnified now because he’s a free agent and we’re in New York. But last year nobody was talking about us hanging out, going to work out or going to dinner or things like that.

“So, those conversations do come up, but it’s not something that I’m constantly on him, throwing at him, because I was in that situation before.”

Anthony – no stranger to free agency having contemplated the idea of leaving New York before signing a new deal in 2014 – continued: “You know, for me, it’s more just about just laying it all out for him. Giving him the real.

“Being in that situation before and knowing how much he has to think about‎ and what he has go through, him not wanting to leave Oklahoma ‎[after] all the time that he spent there, ‎I felt the same way when I was in Denver, spending seven-and-a-half years there and then to have to make a decision‎. But you leave it up to him. He’s going to make the best decision for him. I think that’s the most important thing‎.