Carmelo Anthony Comments on Donald Trump's Win over Hillary Clinton

New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony has been one of the NBA's most outspoken players regarding social injustice and inequality, and he took time Wednesday to discuss his thoughts about Donald Trump's win over Hillary Clinton in the general election on Tuesday. 

When asked if he was surprised that Trump defeated Clinton, Anthony told reporters he wasn't caught off guard by the result. 

"I wasn't honestly surprised, to be honest with you," he said, according to ESPN.com's Ian Begley. "I wasn't surprised. The way that things are going now in this country, the educated and uneducated, the people that is out there who was voting, I wasn't surprised at that."

With Trump the president-elect, Anthony elaborated on how he plans to try to facilitate positive change while influencing younger generations, per Begley (sic): 

"

Now it's our responsibility as men and women take it into our own hands, be role models and be our own leaders at this point, regardless of kind of who's the commander in chief. I think we have more of a responsibility now, especially with the youth and kind of educating them. I've talked to youth, I've talked to kids today, this morning, my family. You could just hear kind of the nervousness. They're afraid. They don't know what to think. People don't know what to do at this point. So I think it's up to us as individuals to kind of just take that responsibility and lead, everybody got to lead in their own way. We can't rely on a system or one person. We got to move on from that.

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Anthony, 32, has used his platform to try to bring light to social injustice throughout the year.

"The system is broken, the problems are not new, the violence is not new and the racial divide definitely is not new, but the urgency for change is definitely at an all-time high," he said during a July appearance at the ESPYs beside LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul, according to ESPN.com news services. 

Anthony also influenced younger members of Team USA's gold-medal-winning basketball team with the way he carried himself over the summer. 

"Carmelo taught us all this summer what it means to use your position to influence the world," Kyrie Irving said, per Bleacher Report's Lars Anderson. "He taught us that we need to stand up for what we believe in and that athletes need to get involved in the social issues that are affecting us all."

In a separate interview with Bleacher Report's Howard Beck and Jonathan Abrams, Anthony admitted he was "past the gestures" regarding national anthem protests and planned to try to get more NBA players to invest time and energy in local communities that may be disadvantaged.

"I'm trying to get guys on board with that and help them understand that—enough of the gesturing and talking and all of that stuff—we need to start putting things in place," he said.