Carmelo Anthony Will Eventually Make Peace With Failing To Win An NBA Title, And NBA Fans Can Too

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Elgin Baylor, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Charles Barkley, George Gervin and the list goes on, but there’s a solid chance Carmelo Anthony — who turns 34 next season — will join this group of NBA superstars who never climbed the tallest mountain in the NBA to cradle the Larry O’Brien Trophy in their arms.

It’s really easy to deride Carmelo Anthony. He’s got the #StayMe7o hashtag game and an abundance of off-court deals that would make any athlete jealous, let alone one whose team has won just 49 combined games the last two seasons while failing to make the playoffs. And during those last two seasons Anthony has gotten his buckets while Knicks fans usually throw up their hands in disgust when they see him jab-stepping away at the elbow extended as teammates flare open around him on the perimeter.

Yet, there Anthony was Wednesday night last week, saving a USA Team from utter devastation at the hands of a talented Australian Olympic team that might still have to face again in the medal round.

Melo’s trying to win his third gold medal in Rio, you see, the most gold medals by a basketball player in history. And, while this might have been before your time, he’s captured a title before, too. It was at his lone season with Syracuse, but it’s proof he’s won and won big when it mattered most, and it should be noted that ‘Cuse team was laden with four freshman — including Melo — and just a No. 4 seed that year.

But that doesn’t matter. Ringzzz are all that matter. In fact, Melo couldn’t even be prematurely content with his career without getting some backlash from the unknown assembled masses who make up the majority of the online world. You don’t know them, and neither does Anthony, but they appeared to call him out when he had the temerity to be happy with his career despite a waning window for NBA glory.

“Most athletes don’t have an opportunity to say that they won a gold medal, better yet three gold medals,” Anthony told ESPN’s Brian Windhorst last week. “I would be very happy walking away from the game knowing that I’ve given the game everything I have, knowing I played on a high level at every level: high school, college, won [a championship at Syracuse] in college and possibly three gold medals.”

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And here’s the line that seems to have given some people pause:

“I can look back on it when my career is over — if I don’t have an NBA championship ring — and say I had a great career.”

And here’s more from Melo, by way of Sean Deveney at Sporting News:

“I still have time in the NBA to make that happen,” Anthony said. “But for me to be out there and have a chance to win three gold medals, I have proven I can win at every level, high school, college — unfortunately not yet in the NBA as far as winning aa championship — but three gold medals playing at the highest level of basketball. At the end, in 10 years, I’ll be satisfied with that.”

Even if Anthony and USA Basketball get upset in the quarterfinals of the Olympics, and fail to win the gold as they’re favored to do; Even if he has to retire before this next season, Anthony can already say he’s had a fantastic, Hall-of-Fame-worthy career.

Except, after Windhorst and Deveney’s story’s ran, he posted an odd exchange with LeBron (perhaps fictional?) on his Instagram that made it seem like his comments had been taken out of context.

carmeloanthonyME: I’m bout to go off
Bron: Chill, Chill don’t do it
Me: Why Not?
Bron: Bc, they don’t even know the context of your answer or the question.
Me: So, they could just get away with this?
Me: Corny, B
Bron: StayMe7o

We love that ‘Bron uses Melo’s online mantra to get him to calm down at the end, and the editor in us thinks that’s a beautiful kicker, Melo, if it’s imaginary dialogue to make a point.

But it’s disheartening at the same time. It’s obvious Anthony didn’t want to be portrayed as somehow content before he wins an NBA title — that much is clear, at least, despite the odd way he had of conveying that sentiment. (Maybe this is normal in the age of being on fleek, but we hope not.)

And we get it, too. Anthony’s striving to keep improving and eventually get over such a monumental professional hurdle. But the realist in all of us, including Melo, has to realize he’s probably not going to win NBA title. He’s getting old, and while the additions of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah in free agency — combined with the ascending Kristaps Porzingis — puts a more positive spin on the 2016-17 Knicks, it’s not likely they’re getting by his buddy ‘Bron in the Eastern Conference playoffs (if they even make it to the postseason).

Except we want Melo to know that’s totally OK. We wish fans would understand that, too. Only one team wins a title every year, which means 29 other teams don’t. Carmelo Anthony is an all-time great. He doesn’t need to prove that anymore. And while we applaud his drive to add to his legacy with a championship ring, the chances of him doing so remain remote, and that’s OK, too.

Not everyone wins a ring, but that should stop being such a supposed referendum on a player’s career. It’s all well and good to laugh at Charles Barkley when Shaq and Kenny Smith are brandishing their championship rings in Inside the NBA, but Barkley’s largely come to peace with that absence of NBA championship hardware with a successful post-NBA career. Melo’s still playing. And he’s simultaneously coming to terms with the disappointing reality that he’ll likely never spray champagne at his teammates while the Larry O’Brien Trophy wedged in the crook of his arm. That shouldn’t take away from how we view his NBA legacy, regardless of how he still views it.

(Via ESPN; Sporting News)

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