by Adi Joseph, USA TODAY Sports

Carmelo Anthony has become more of a team player this season. Credit him with another assist.

The New York Knicks star headed Thursday to the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he lived as a child, to hand out supplies and food to those ravaged by superstorm Sandy. Working with several charities including his own, the Carmelo Anthony Foundation, the NBA All-Star helped deliver 500 boxes of supplies in a housing project on Columbia Avenue.

“I wanted to step up to the forefront,” Anthony said, via ESPN New York. “We all know what Sandy did to our city, especially to Brooklyn, and to Red Hook, with us being right here on the water. It hit us pretty bad, so I feel like I’m the face of Red Hook and I wanted to come back and give back to the place I grew up.”

Anthony moved from Brooklyn to Baltimore while in elementary school, but his ties to the borough remain strong.

“I’m one of them, I was once one of them,” he said. “I grew up running around with a lot of the older guys as a little kid, so for me to come back and to help and give out house supplies and things like that, that’s the least I can do, especially at a time like this.”

ESPN New York’s Ian Begley offers this wonderful anecdote from the scene:

“We just wanted to provide a temporary relief,” Justice Anthony, Carmelo’s brother, said.

That’s what Carmelo Anthony and the foundations did for Vincent Perez.

Perez had been unable to get to work due to the transportation system closures after the storm. He said he was running out of food and was concerned Thursday about from where his next meal would come.

“This a blessing because I have nothing,” he said after receiving a box of food and housing supplies from Carmelo Anthony. “I have no power, no heat and I was running out of clean clothes. This is a great relief.”

Moving stuff from a player who has grown up on and off the court recently.

… [For more on Carmelo Anthony of Knicks delivers supplies for Sandy victims, click here.]