Retirement: An Ode To Carmelo Anthony

News broke that legendary basketball player Carmelo Anthony has announced his retirement from the NBA at the age of 38 after 19 seasons in the league with a variety of teams.

I always thought of Anthony as LeBron James’ sidekick even though they didn’t play together until the very end. Yes, every article of mine must mention either LeBron or Rocky Balboa.

Melo and Bron were drafted in the same class back in ’03 when LBJ went to the Cavs #1 and Melo to the Nuggets #3 out of Syracuse.

Via The New York Times: Anthony led the Nuggets to the playoffs in his rookie year. He jab-stepped, up-faked and posted up his way to 10 All-Star Games and six All-N.B.A. teams. Anthony ended his career with 28,289 total points — good for ninth in N.B.A. history. He also won three Olympic gold medals and one bronze.

Anthony started his career with the Denver Nuggets (03-11), then went to the New York Knicks (11-17). He played for the OKC Thunder (17-18), Houston Rockets (18-19), Portland Trailblazers (19-21) and lastly, the Los Angeles Lakers with LeBron (21-22).

For his career, Melo averaged 22.5 points a game, 6.2 rebounds and 2.7 assists. He was indeed one of the best of this generation.

Yes, this is Cleveland Sports Talk and no, Carmelo never played on the Cavaliers. However, his career should be noted as one of the best ever. He certainly will be a Hall of Famer in the future, that’s for sure.

Melo’s best game against the Cleveland Cavaliers came on 3/23/14 as a member of the Knicks where he dropped 32 points, eight rebounds and two assists. The Cavs did win that game though by a score of 106-100.

It’s funny because that was a battle of bad teams with the Cavs improving to 27-44 on the year and the Knicks going to 29-41.

Yikes.

No, Melo never won a title and that will be a stain on his historic career. However, all the aforementioned statistics show just how great the star was for so many years in the league.

Lastly, there were rumors that back in the day Melo wanted to be involved in the “Big 3” Miami Heat with LeBron back in the day. This would’ve certainly garnered him a title and changed it all. However, the contracts just didn’t work out for that to happen.

Best of luck with your future ventures, Melo. You certainly were a treat to watch all of these years growing up. Unless, of course, your team beat the Cavs that game.