It's rare that a pro athlete, no matter their history, gets to pick when, where, and why they leave their sport.
So Carmelo Anthony will not be the first fine basketball player to exit the NBA in an inelegant fashion. Just a dozen games into his career with Houston, the Rockets are already looking for ways to cut ties with the formerly sublime scorer. He has played ten games, started two, and is averaging 13.4 PPG, about ten points below his career average. Houston would now be the second team in two years to pay Anthony to play somewhere else.
What makes Melo so interesting is not his skill set, or even his career as a pro player, but rather how we react to it, and to him.
Some of us saw this coming. After spending eight seasons in Denver, falling apart in the playoffs almost every year, Anthony told us exactly what kind of player he was - a high-end scorer, a gunner, a corporeal sponge for the basketball who rarely passed, never played defense, and made none of his teammates better. He was fun to watch, but not a winner commensurate to his salary and stature.
Yet despite the warnings from a few sportswriters - like Peter Vecsey and yours truly - New Yorkers drooled over the idea of Melo coming to the Big Apple to bring a coveted title, the Knicks' first since 1973. There was nothing in his history to suggest he was that kind of transcendent talent, with the metaphorical shoulders to carry an NBA club to the NBA Finals. Yet that didn't stop the natives from their delusions of confetti-drenched parades in June.
And, of course, Melo's seven forlorn seasons in Gotham were as expected - plenty of points, without a whiff of the Eastern Conference finals. He came, he saw, he got paid, and left the conquering for his fellow 2003 draft mates LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. Anthony was much like the flashy NFL wideout, who plants his flag on SportsCenter highlight reels but never raises any banners in his home arena.
Perhaps even more maddening is that Anthony seemed to know the difference between these winning and losing styles. As an NBA player he was a selfish, me-first gunner who was allergic to sharing the ball, or the glory, and was even threatened by the two-week celebrity of Linsanity. Yet as a member of the U.S. Olympic team he was a selfless leader who had no problem tweaking his game for the greater good of winning a gold medal. Why didn't he have such hardwood clarity and self-awareness anywhere else?
That doesn't stop his dwindling army of apologists, who still insist Anthony was never in the right situation. But when it comes to truly iconic players, they make the situations, and are not made by them. Many of Melo's biggest advocates are the same folks who have transferred their adoration to Melo's OKC teammate in 2017: Russell Westbrook, who fills the stat sheet like no other, yet never gets his fingers near a Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Another trait they share is that other high-grade players never pine to play with them. When given a chance to trade for Anthony, LeBron demurred, keeping his banana boat copilot a safe distance from Cleveland. Likewise, Kevin Durant couldn't wait to get out of OKC and as far away from his triple-double-churning teammate as possible.
Fans will belch the bromides, assure us that Carmelo Anthony is a Hall-of-Fame player. And he is. When you play over 15 years, score over 25,000 points, play in 12 All-Star games, and win three gold medals, you punch a ticket to Springfield.
It's not a crime to put pay and personal goals over the team. But so many NBA fans never make the distinction between what looks great and what is great. Melo had the street game and street cred. He had a celebrity spouse and a sprawling estate contoured for an episode of MTV Cribs.
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For over 15 years, Carmelo Anthony chose vanity over victory. It doesn't make Melo a bad guy. But for some reason, too many fans were blinded by his surface to peek into his hardwood soul, which was never June-deep.
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