Carmelo Anthony has not played NBA basketball in a while.
The third overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, Anthony’s last appearance with the Houston Rockets came in a blowout loss to Oklahoma City on Nov. 8 when he had two points and five rebounds.
A 10-time NBA All-Star, Anthony signed with the Houston Rockets this summer after clearing waivers in a trade that shipped him from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Atlanta Hawks.
Million Dollar Question: What’s next for Carmelo Anthony?
“You don’t get better sitting out of basketball,” TNT’s Charles Barkley tells me.
“No, he’s not going to play in the [NBA] Playoffs, he’s done for the year.”
What about next season? “That’s going to be interesting,” Barkley tells me.
“So, it might be over.”
Yikes.
GettyHouston Rockets forward Carmelo Anthony
Carmelo Anthony has averaged 24 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3 assists in his career with the Oklahoma City Thunder, New York Knicks, Denver Nuggets and Houston Rockets.
A long forward, Anthony is the epitome of today’s game, honestly. He can score.
“I don’t know if they remember how good of a player he was and still is,” Blake Griffin told Basketball Society Online’s Landon Buford.
“Sometimes it’s the situation. It sucks to see as a basketball player to see people act [as if] he is something [that] he is not.”
He also has the respect of many in NBA locker rooms. “He is a legend,” Portland Trail Blazers forward, Rodney Hood also told Buford.
“He is one of my favorite players to ever play and it is tough to see him go through what he is going through in the media. I think he can definitely help a team especially when playoff time comes when things start to stagnate. He is a veteran, so I hope he lands on his feet.”
In an interview with Taryn Finley of the Huffington Post recently, Melo suggested he is at peace with the fact he may not play much longer:
“I’m sure [retirement is] coming soon. I’d be sitting lying to you if I said it’s not coming soon. I think I want it to come soon. I don’t think I want to do this forever, but because you love it so much, it’s hard to give it up. At the end of the day, at anything you do, when it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go. But as long as you feel good with that.”
The Los Angeles Lakers had been leaning toward signing Anthony for the rest of the season — until a mound of LA losses occured.
They won’t make the NBA Playoffs this spring.
Per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski: “The Los Angeles Lakers and free agent Carmelo Anthony are pausing talks on a possible contract agreement unless the franchise makes a turn back toward pursuit of Western Conference playoffs contention.”
Retired NBA player, Quentin Richardson, currently one-half of the Knuckleheads Podcast with Darius Miles believes that Melo should be on a team. “Man, I hope above all else that whatever it is, however he wants it to end, he gets to walk away and go down on his own terms,” Richardson told me on the Scoop B Radio Podcast.
“He’s a great player,” Knicks captain, Lance Thomas told me in December.
“He’s a great teammate, most importantly he’s a great human being and he’s always been a great advocate for the NBA as a brand. So I just want him to get back on a team and play the sport he loves that’s paved a way for him and his family, and he just loves to play basketball, so I really want him back on a team.”