On Wednesday, Brooklyn-born and Baltimore-raised basketball legend Carmelo Anthony achieved the goal all young ball players dream of when it was revealed that he would be inducted into the 2025 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
This comes as no shock as Anthony, the number three overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets, became a 10x NBA All-Star, 6x All-NBA player and one of the greatest one-on-one scorers in the history of the game.
Carmelo exploded onto the scene as a scoring machine in his very first season, averaging 21 ppg along with 6 rpg and almost 3 apg and making the All-Rookie team. At his peak, he was virtually unstoppable, averaging just under 29 points per game.
In 2011, the Nuggets traded Anthony to the Knicks, giving New York its first true superstar since Patrick Ewing roamed the hardwood of the Garden. Two years later, Carmelo led the NBA in scoring but couldn’t lead the team beyond the second round of the playoffs.
After seven seasons in New York, six of which he made the All-Star team, Anthony moved on to play with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers, and the Los Angeles Lakers.
When he retired, he had a career stat line of 22.5 ppg, 6.2 rpg and 2.7 apg while shooting 44.7% from the field and 35.5% from the three-point line.
Despite not winning an NBA championship, Anthony’s overall place in basketball is secure.
Not only was he a multi-year NBA All-Star, he was a member of the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, won three Olympic Gold medals and one bronze and led Syracuse to its only National Championship title.
Besides his four Olympic medals, he still holds the record for most points scored in a single game with 37 against Nigeria in 2012 and ranks third overall in points scored in the Olympics.
Carmelo Anthony will forever be remembered as a legend and one of the best scorers this game has ever seen, and later this year he will forever be enshrined in Springfield, MA as a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
