Welcome to the NBA 75, The Athletic’s countdown of the 75 best players in NBA history, in honor of the league’s diamond anniversary. From Nov. 1 through Feb. 18, we’ll unveil a new player on the list every weekday except for Dec. 27-31, culminating with the man picked by a panel of The Athletic NBA staff members as the greatest of all time.
The kid from West Baltimore learned how to survive. He navigated the streets to avoid shootings, drugs and police brutality. He became so immune to the danger around him in his childhood that it was just another day when someone he knew succumbed to the violence.
To become one of the greatest basketball players in NBA history, Carmelo Anthony had to persevere. When the Anthony family moved from Brooklyn to Baltimore when he was 8 years old, he fell in love with basketball. The gym was his sanctuary and the place that would eventually change the fortunes of his and his family’s life forever.
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He became one of the most decorated high school players in Maryland and was named The Baltimore Sun’s Metro Player of the Year in 2001. He transferred to Oak Hill Academy for his senior year, where he was named a McDonald’s All-American and helped lead his team to a win over St. Vincent-St. Mary in one of the most highly anticipated high school games ever, which featured future presumptive Nos. 1 and 2 picks LeBron James and Anthony.
After leading Syracuse to a national championship as a freshman in 2003 and being named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player, Anthony was widely thought of as the second-best draft prospect behind James. It was expected that the Cavaliers would select James, and the Pistons, who held the No. 2 pick, would select Anthony. On draft night, the Pistons inexplicably chose European big man Darko Milicic. A stunned Anthony said he received a promise from Detroit’s front office that he would be their pick.
“To this day, I still think about that,” Anthony said. “They promised me — ‘Yo, we taking you.’ I’m talking all the way up to draft day. In my mind, I’m going to Detroit. Chauncey (Billups) there, Tayshaun (Prince), (Richard Hamilton) … Sheed (Rasheed Wallace) came in the middle of the year because he got traded. That’s what put them over the top. They told me that I would share time with Tayshaun, and I was like, cool.
“And then, they won (the title). My luck. Honestly, if I’m there, they win another one. … I think we go back-to-back if I’m there.”
Milicic played only 96 career games for the Pistons and was out of the NBA after appearing in just one game for the Celtics in the 2012-13 season. He finished his career averaging six points per game. Anthony, meanwhile, developed into one of the greatest scorers of all time. Just last month, Anthony passed Moses Malone for ninth on the NBA’s all-time career points list.
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With the Pistons taking Milicic, the Nuggets took Anthony third overall, and he quickly became the reason Denver went from winning 17 games the year prior to 43 wins and the eighth seed in the Western Conference in his rookie season. Anthony was the first rookie since Spurs legend David Robinson to lead his team in scoring in the playoffs, but Denver was eliminated by the top-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves in five games.
That became the theme of Anthony’s time in Denver. The Nuggets became a perennial playoff team with Anthony but only advanced out of the first round once in his seven full seasons. Denver turned the corner and became a title contender when it traded Allen Iverson for Billups during the 2009 season. With Anthony and Billups on the perimeter and Kenyon Martin and Nene anchoring the frontcourt, the Nuggets advanced to the Western Conference finals and played the Lakers. In Game 1 of that series, Trevor Ariza stole an inbound pass in the final minute to seal a Lakers win.
Anthony revived the Nuggets during his seven seasons with them, and that part is likely forgotten by many fans who are still sour over how he should be remembered in Denver. The Nuggets were abysmal for close to a decade before he arrived, but they just couldn’t get over the hump and win a championship when he was there. Even when it felt like the Nuggets had the right pieces around him, it still wasn’t enough. Denver had reached its ceiling in the Western Conference finals, and it was clear the roster had run its course.
In the summer of 2010, Anthony forced the hand of the Nuggets front office when he failed to sign a contract extension. The drama of Anthony’s unclear future with the organization dragged out for months, but it was well known that he wanted to be traded to the Knicks. He eventually got his wish in February 2011 when the Nuggets sent him and Billups to New York for Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Ray Felton, Timofey Mozgov and two first-round picks.
The excitement of bringing Anthony to Madison Square Garden wasn’t met with on-court results. Like the Nuggets before Anthony arrived, the Knicks were a mess the decade before the Melo Era, having only appeared in the postseason once in the previous nine seasons. Knicks fans thought he’d be the boost the team needed to turn the franchise around, as he did with the Nuggets. He did inject life into the franchise and gave promise to a team that needed it, but the Knicks never could break through. They never had enough talent around Anthony on the roster to seriously contend.
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Part of the problem for the Knicks was Anthony’s style of play. He was the star and acted like it, sometimes to a fault. He was too ball-dominant to the point where it was detrimental for the Knicks’ chances of winning when it mattered most. He took exception to this fact when Tyson Chandler called out the team for settling during the 2013 playoff series against the Indiana Pacers.
“I watched the tape myself and there’s open looks,” Chandler said, as quoted by Newsday’s Al Iannazzone. “We have to be willing passers. You have to sacrifice yourself sometimes for the betterment of the team, for the betterment of your teammates. So when you drive in the paint, you draw, you kick it. We need to do a better job of allowing the game to dictate who takes the shots and not the individuals.”
Chandler was eventually traded to Dallas before the 2014-15 season, despite being one of the best defenders at the time and a leader inside the Knicks’ locker room. There was, of course, Anthony’s displeasure with Jeremy Lin taking the spotlight during his Linsanity run in New York. Both Mike D’Antoni, the coach at the time, and Amar’e Stoudemire, the other star on the Knicks, have said and alluded to Anthony not being fine with adapting to Lin’s style of play and him turning into an overnight sensation, and that’s why Lin needed to play elsewhere.
Although the Knicks were winning during this stretch and it was one of the greatest moments in recent Knicks history, Lin did not return the following season. Lin was offered a three-year, $25 million deal by Houston in restricted free agency — a contract that Anthony called “ridiculous.” The Knicks did not match the Rockets’ offer and Lin was gone.
There always seemed to be a stark contrast of the highs with Anthony in a Knicks jersey, such as his 62-point bonanza in The Garden where it felt like he couldn’t miss that night, with the reality that even with the star power he brought to New York, it was never going to amount to much of anything substantive.
That’s not to say that Anthony himself wasn’t incredible, because he was. In 2013, he became the second Knick after Bernard King in 1984-85, to lead the league in scoring. He perfected the turnaround fadeaway. You’d probably grimace today if you saw someone other than Anthony take that shot as often as he did, but he perfected it. It always felt like a good shot when he was jab-stepping and falling away from the basket.
The reason he is one of the game’s all-time best is that he made scoring look effortless in his prime. There weren’t many better at getting the ball in the hoop than Anthony — and he mostly did it his way.
- He’s the only player in NBA history to score 50 points without a single point in the paint.
- He’s one of two players in NBA history to score 62 or more points without a single assist, the other being Kobe Bryant.
Those two stats perfectly encapsulate the kind of player Anthony was at the peak of his powers. But as Anthony has aged, he’s needed to evolve to stay in the league. When the Knicks traded him to Oklahoma City, it felt like the beginning of the end for him. And, the following season with Houston, it felt like, unceremoniously, it was over.
He played 10 games for the Rockets in 2018 and then was released. No one picked him up for the rest of the season, and he wasn’t on a roster at the start of the following season until the Blazers signed him.
“I’ll tell you what, it’s so crazy — I feel bad for (Anthony), and here’s why,” Billups, his former teammate, said on SiriusXM in 2019. “Melo was like a good teammate, man. Melo practiced every day. He didn’t miss any games. Now, the only thing I will say — and I’ve even told Melo this — scoring 30 meant too much to Melo.
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“It meant too much because he could have games where he had 20, 22 (points), we win the game, and he’s mad. He might have 36, and he’s in there, you know, we lose the game, and he’s in there picking everybody up. Scoring 30 meant too much, but I think now you fast-forward the tape, and the reason why he’s not in the league — because he’s still worthy — is he hasn’t mentally taken that step back to say, ‘OK, I’ll come in and play against backups. I’ll try to help the team out. I know I might not be able to close, but I just want to help.’ Well, he’s not there yet.”
That acceptance of not being the same player he once was came in Portland. He accepted a bench role for the Blazers and was the consummate teammate for a team that needed some additional veteran guidance.
“Most people’s defining moment comes earlier in their career; mine came in Year 16,” Anthony told The Athletic.
“Even though it was a bad time — well, I don’t want to say bad time, but a downtime for me — it was a game-changer for me. Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, it just changed the game for me. It made me lock into a different perspective.”
The 10-time All-Star, six-time All-NBA selection and three-time Olympic gold medalist is now thriving in a bench role with the Lakers — and he’s teammates with his childhood friend LeBron.
The only thing that is missing in Anthony’s career is a championship ring. This season could end up being the best opportunity he’s had in his career to call himself an NBA champion at the end of it.
Career stats#: G: 1,191, Pts.: 23.0 , Reb.: 6.3, Ast.: 2.8, FG%: .447, FT%: .814, Win Shares: 104.9, PER: 19.7
The Athletic NBA 75 Panel points: 167 | Hollinger GOAT Points*: 60.0
Accolades: Six-time All-NBA, 10-time All-Star, Scoring champ (’13), Olympic gold (’08, ’12, ’16), NBA 75 Team
#Through the 2020-21 season
*A rating of a player’s accumulated accomplishments at the highest levels, based mostly on comparable historical factors, determined heavily but not completely by contemporary evaluations (i.e. awards and All-Star selections). Emphasis is given to the most outstanding achievements — MVP award shares, All-NBA teams, and production above and beyond what is typically an All-Star level.
(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)