Getty Lakers forward Carmelo Anthony
Los Angeles Lakers small forward Carmelo Anthony was recently the target of a disrespectful rant by Hall of Fame coach George Karl.
Karl, who coached Anthony on the Denver Nuggets, believes Melo is the best scorer he ever coached. However, the 2012-13 Coach of the Year fired back at Ball Don’t Stop on Twitter for saying Anthony is a top-25 player in NBA history.
@balldontstop Best scorer I ever coached. So talented but Not top 25 in anything.
Are u a Melo Stan? Always in my feed loving on him 😆
Anthony played for Karl from January 2005 to February 2011. He was traded to the New York Knicks on February 22, 2011, after requesting a trade from the Nuggets and Karl hasn’t been shy of letting people know how he truly felt about Anthony in Denver.
Karl on Anthony in Denver: ‘He Wasn’t a Team-First Player or Good Defender’
While the Karl-Anthony connection never missed the playoffs, the Nuggets only made it out of the first round of the playoffs once. They reached the Western Conference Finals in 2009 and lost to the Lakers.
Karl wrote on Twitter in August 2021 that Anthony was a terrific scorer with the Nuggets. However, he also bashed the future Hall of Famer for not being a team-first player.
In 2017, Karl wrote a book called Furious George and he took several shots at Anthony, who is the 11th-leading scorer in NBA history but has never won a title.
“Carmelo was a true conundrum for me in the six years I had him,” Karl wrote. “He was the best offensive player I ever coached. He was also a user of people, addicted to the spotlight and very unhappy when he had to share it. He really lit my fuse with his low demand of himself on defense. He had no commitment to the hard, dirty work of stopping the other guy. My ideal — probably every coach’s ideal — is when your best player is also your leader. But since Carmelo only played hard on one side of the ball, he made it plain he couldn’t lead the Nuggets, even though he said he wanted to. Coaching him meant working around his defense and compensating for his attitude.
“The volume of questions about Carmelo eventually wore me down. Sometimes I got so sick of talking about him that I’d just throw up my hands and say: ‘I don’t know what he is and I don’t care.’ I want as much effort on defense — maybe more — as on offense,” Karl penned. “That was never going to happen with Melo, whose amazing ability to score with the ball made him a star but didn’t make him a winner. Which I pointed out to him. Which he didn’t like.”
Anthony was named one of the top-75 players in NBA history this season. He has career averages of 22.5 points and 6.2 rebounds and has made 10 All-Star teams and six All-NBA teams. The one-time scoring champion signed a one-year deal with the Lakers last summer. Los Angeles had the second-best odds in the preseason to win the 2022 title, but Anthony and Co. didn’t even make the play-in tournament.
Anthony May Only Last 1 Year with Lakers
Anthony spoke with reporters before the Lakers’ final game of the season against the Nuggets and he sounded noncommittal about his future with the franchise.
“This was another chapter for me,” Anthony told Dave McMenamin of ESPN. “I can say I’ve experienced it. … I can finally check the box — played with Bron. Played with AD. We had, on paper — we were phenomenal on paper. Me, personally, I had a good year, personally. Just as far as happiness and being able to go out there and compete and being able to do my part, play my part on this team. There were good days, there were bad days, but we got through it, and I got through it.”
Anthony appeared in 69 games for the Lakers this season. He averaged 13.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 1.0 assists while shooting 44.1% from the field, 37.5% from beyond the arc and 83.0% from the free-throw line. The Syracuse product becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer.