The New York Knicks recently offered the Minnesota Timberwolves a package of Amar'e Stoudemire, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Iman Shumpert for Kevin Love, according to a source.

The Timberwolves reportedly declined the offer.

Hardaway has good value around the NBA, but Shumpert could be in line for a raise once his rookie contract ends and Stoudemire has one season left on his big contract.

The Knicks could offer Love a maximum contract if he becomes a free agent next offseason.

Carmelo Anthony ultimately decided between the New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls. Anthony added that he believes the Knicks aren't too far away from becoming a contender.

"I want to win. I don't care about the money," Anthony told ESPN.com. "I believe Phil (Jackson) will do what he has to do to take care of that."

"I don't think we're that far away," he added. "People use 'rebuilding' too loosely."

Anthony signed a five-year, $124 million deal to remain with the Knicks.

"It was overwhelming," Anthony said. "It was stressful in the final days, one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make."

Anthony said, though, it ultimately came down to New York and Chicago.

"I was flip-flopping," he admitted. "It was hard. It was Chicago, but then after I met with L.A., it was L.A. But it came back to Chicago -- and was pretty much always Chicago or New York. That's a situation where I could have walked in now to an opportunity to compete for the next however many years."

Shannon Brown was released by the New York Knicks on Wednesday.

Brown signed with the Knicks late last season and played with the team in Summer League.

Andrew Bynum is considering sitting out the entire 14-15 NBA season in order to undergo the Regenokine knee therapy procedure.

The non-surgical procedure uses injections to help grow new cartilage, and requires an extra-long rehab.

If Bynum successfully completes the program, he could return in 2015-16, according to his agent David Lee, who said the Knicks potentially would be interested in Bynum.

"If he's healthy, Phil (Jackson) will be interested," Lee told the Post, referring to the Knicks team president who coached Bynum while with the Lakers. "Phil knew how to tap into Andrew. They got along famously."

In an update to Phil Jackson's autobiography, he outlines how talks to return to the Los Angeles Lakers in November of 2012 unraveled.

Jackson was intrigued by the possibility of going after one more ring with Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol now that the Lakers had also acquired Dwight Howard and Steve Nash.

"I was thinking of the job as a one-season gig, but Jimmy (Buss) and Mitch (Kupchak) were looking for a coach who could help them rebuild the team over the long haul," writes Jackson. "They were also eager to turn the Lakers back into the sort of fast-paced, high-scoring team they were in the Magic Johnson “Showtime” era — and (Mike) D’Antoni was certainly a coach who could make that happen.

"The overriding issue, however, was the state of owner Jerry Buss’s health. He’d been in and out of the hospital during the previous several months battling prostate cancer and other ailments. But things had taken a turn for the worse recently, and his family hoped that a turn in the Lakers’ fortunes might bring some joy into his life and, with luck, help speed his recovery.

"Several weeks later, the story came out that Dr. Buss, not Jimmy, had made the decision to go with D’Antoni. This seemed unlikely to me given the state of Jerry’s health — not to mention, Jimmy’s long history of impetuous decision-making — but it was impossible to verify that story one way or the other. In the end, it didn’t matter that much anyway. I was ready to move on."

Carmelo Anthony's contract with the New York Knicks is worth $124,064,681 over five seasons. Anthony also has a no-trade clause and a 15-percent trade kicker.

Anthony will earn the following amounts, according to Marc Stein:

Year 1: $22,458,401

Year 2: $22,875,000

Year 3: $24,559,380

Year 4: $26,243,760

Year 5: $27,928,140.

Free agent center Jason Smith has signed a one-year contract with the New York Knicks worth the taxpayer midlevel exception of $3.3 million, league sources told RealGM.

Smith averaged 9.7 points and 5.8 rebounds last season for the New Orleans Pelicans, and the 7-footer gives the Knicks an active, rugged big man to fortify a frontcourt that lost Tyson Chandler.

Smith, a six-year NBA veteran, had received interest from several teams in free agency.

Smith has career averages of six points and nearly four rebounds per game. He spent his first two seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers.

While Phil Jackson attempted to trade Andrea Bargnani this offseason, he believes he can have value on the floor this season for the New York Knicks.

"He's overlooked. We think he's going to really do well in the system we have," Jackson said of Bargnani. "We have a couple of guards he likes to play with, Jose (Calderon) and Pablo (Prigioni), and I think he's going to be a surprise and a pleasant one for our fans."

The Knicks traded for Bargnani from the Toronto Raptors last offseason.

Carmelo Anthony left between $6 million and $7 million on the table, agreeing upon a five-year deal with the New York Knicks worth between $122 million and $123 million.

Anthony structured the deal to give the Knicks more cap space in 2015. It is believed he didn’t take his annual 7.5 percent raise in Year 2 and may have taken a tiny pay decrease. Under collective bargaining agreement rules, a player can receive as high as a 7.5 percent pay raise annually.

“He did exactly what we kind of asked him to do,’’ Jackson said. “Give us a break in the early part of the contract when we have some wiggle room — hopefully big enough wiggle room — next year when we can exploit it.’’

Anthony will create about $2 million in additional cap space in 2015.

Chris Andersen has agreed to re-sign with the Miami Heat on a multiyear deal.

The New York Knicks made a late push to sign Andersen, but he decided to remain with the club that helped him salvage his career.

Andersen played in nearly 20 minutes per game last season for the Heat.