Who Am I? The Melodrama that is Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony is one of the most polarizing athletes in sports today.  The New York Knicks star is unquestionably a superstar basketball player.  He’s one of the two best scorers on the planet, he’s one of about 6 or 7 NBA players who can win a game by themselves, and he’s one of a small handful of people who thinks he’s better than LeBron James and can actually prove it on a good night.

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All this, and yet Carmelo lacks all the hardware associated with the all-time greats.  He has only made one appearance in the Conference Finals (2009), and never come close to winning an NBA Championship.  He’s never been a real threat to win an NBA MVP Award.  And hell, it’s worth noting that he was traded by the team that drafted him before he could bolt as a free agent (I find it very fitting that Carmelo, Deron Williams, Dwight Howard, and even Chris Paul were traded under these circumstances, but LeBron was not- isn’t that the difference between LeBron James and the rest of the superstars in the league?).

So, for lack of a better term, Carmelo Anthony is a loser.  He won an NCAA Championship in his one year at Syracuse, and since then he’s been allergic to winning.  His playoff numbers are a little worse than his regular season statistics.  ESPN loves to blame him for every Knicks loss even if the second best player on the team in the series is Kenyon Martin.  He just has that negative stigma that certain athletes get for coming up short in the postseason.  People expect Carmelo to fail.

All of this Melo talk has had NBA pundits searching for answers.  How can Carmelo be a consistent superstar in this league and never sniff a title or MVP Award?  I’ve heard countless comparisons in the past week- from Charles Barkley to Tracy McGrady and back again.  But I haven’t gotten any answers. 

Carmelo is a better player than McGrady- Carmelo never misses the playoffs and McGrady was never able to win a series at all on the rare occurrence that he got there.  They were both elite scorers but Anthony was a more dominant player and a tougher matchup than T-Mac.  Carmelo also won a pair of gold medals for Team USA, and I’m including that as a major basketball accomplishment.

On the other hand, Barkley is a better player than Carmelo.  Barkley made the Finals in 1993 and was the MVP that year with the Suns.  Rebounding aside, Barkley was just a more efficient offensive player.  He also was named first team All-NBA 5 times to Anthony’s…0.  Carmelo has never been recognized as one of the 2 best forwards in the NBA in his 10 years in the league.

So, with all that in mind, I decided to go on a quest to find out just who Carmelo Anthony’s peers are historically.  I had some ideas going in, and some that I found out about along the way, but I’ve got 3 basketball Hall of Famers that are similar in terms of their career resume.  It’s time for a good ol’ fashioned game of "Who Am I?"

First, our baseline.  Here’s Carmelo Anthony’s Career Highlights after his first 10 seasons.

1^st Team All-Rookie, 6 All-Star Games, 4 All-NBA 3^rd Teams, 2 All-NBA 2^nd Teams, 1 Scoring Title (2013), 2 Olympic Gold Medals (2008, 2012), Never Finished Higher Than 3^rd in MVP Voting (2013), 1 Conference Finals Appearance, 25.0 career ppg

Player X

First 10 Seasons Accomplishments: NBA Rookie of the Year, 9 All-Star Games, 6 All-NBA 2^nd Teams, 1 All-NBA 1^st Team, 2 Olympic Gold Medals, Never Finished Higher than 4^th in MVP Voting, 2 Conference Finals Appearances (1 NBA Finals Appearance), 23.8 career ppg

Carmelo-related Hint:  Like Anthony, I’m a former NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player, and I also played for the Knicks.

Who am I?

Player X is Patrick Ewing.  

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Ewing was a little more consistent than Anthony through his first 10 seasons, making more All-Star teams and better All-NBA Teams.  Like Anthony, he never was a serous MVP candidate, coming in 4^th in 1989, 1993, and 1995.  He won Olympic Gold in 1984 as a collegiate and as part of the 1992 Dream Team.  Like Anthony, he was a highly hyped Knicks star that proved to be a great NBA player, yet still felt like a disappointment.  He made it to one NBA Finals in 1994, losing to the Houston Rockets in 7 games.  Ewing was outplayed by Rockets Center Hakeem Olajuwon in the series.  Like Anthony, Ewing was stuck in the same conference as the best player of his generation- Michael Jordan and LeBron James- which hindered their chances to make Championship runs.  Both players also had superior players at their position in the opposing conference in their way of All-NBA First Teams- Ewing with Olajuwon, Anthony with Kevin Durant.  Same team, same tough-luck circumstances, same degree of career success.

The similarities are obvious, but there are some differences.  Ewing was obviously a Center and he was a much better defender.  It isn’t fair to compare their Rebounding totals but Ewing was a 3 time All-NBA Defense 2^nd Teamer.  Anthony plays about as much defense as you or I do on a nightly basis in the NBA.  Ewing went on to have a few more good years after his first 10, but he never won that elusive championship ring.  He is one of the 50 greatest players of All-Time, and I’d estimate he ranks somewhere in the 35-45 range in that regard.  At the end of the day, I think Ewing will go down as the better player between the two (unless Anthony wins a title) but the similarities are awfully close to this point.

Player Y

First 10 Seasons Accomplishments: 1^st Team All-Rookie, 9 All-Star Games, 2 All-ABA 2^nd Teams, 1 All-NBA 2^nd Team, 5 All-NBA First Teams, 4 Scoring Titles, Never Finished Higher than 2^nd in MVP Voting, 1 Conference Finals Appearance, 26.2 ppg

Carmelo-Related Hint:  I’m a wing player who, like Carmelo, played notoriously poor defense.

Who Am I?

Player Y is George Gervin.

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“The Iceman” is pretty much Carmelo’s ceiling if he’s going to continue to be another high scoring forward with no defensive desire or playoff success.  Gervin played his first 3 years in the ABA (pre-merger), but none of his scoring titles came from his ABA days.  He won 3 straight scoring titles at one point and was the best pure scorer of the late 70’s and early 80’s.  He was beaten in a semi-close race by Bill Walton for the 1978 MVP and then came in a distant second to Moses Malone the following year.  Outside of that, he was never one of the best overall players of his era, and he never contended for an NBA Championship.  In terms of offensive productivity, he was slightly better than Carmelo but they were very similar.

The differences are slim here.  The 1^st team NBA nods and the scoring titles give Ice a better resume at this point than Carmelo.  Unless Carmelo goes on a tear and wins the next 2 (matching the 3-peat), Gervin will always hold that edge.  I don’t think Carmelo makes 5 All-NBA 1^st Teams, but Gervin earned those nods in a time when the league wasn’t as strong as it is now, and icons at his spots like Magic and Bird weren’t in the league yet.  I think the close raw stats are a better indicator than the distant All-NBA honors, but I still give Gervin a slight edge.  Like with Ewing, Anthony is going to have to win a title to leapfrog Gervin, another player in that 35-45 range all-time.

Player Z

First 10 Seasons Accomplishments: 1^st Team All-Rookie, 7 All-Star Games,1 All-NBA 3^rd Team, 3 All-NBA 2^nd Teams, 1 All-NBA 1^st Team, 1 Scoring Title, Never Finished Higher than 2^nd in MVP Voting, 0 Conference Finals Appearances, 26.2 ppg

Carmelo-Related Hint: I’m a Small Forward like Carmelo, and I also clashed with a once in a generation Small Forward in my Conference.

Who Am I?

Player Z is Dominique Wilkins.

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Wilkins is the player I liken most with Carmelo.  Both are exciting, must-see superstar scorers, although each only won a single scoring title.  Neither of them had playoff success at all, with Wilkins never even making a Conference Finals because of the poor supporting casts he had.  Anthony is one of the few players who can outplay LeBron-although no one would accuse him of being better than LBJ.  Likewise, ‘Nique had some epic duels with Larry Bird, most notably in their Game 7 Eastern Conference Semifinals in 1988.  Wilkins also had a few classic Dunk Contests, but by and large they’ve got nearly identical resumes.  Their All-Star and All-NBA Teams are pretty close too.  Did I mention both of them are 6’8” and 230 pounds?  Noted.  To top it all off, here’s their outrageous career shooting stats:

Melo- 8.9 FGM/G, 19.5 FGA/G, 45.6 FG%, 33.4 3PT%, 80.8 FT%

Nique-9.3 FGM/G, 20.1 FGA/G, 46.1 FG%, 31.9 3PT%, 81.1 FT%

Translation: Holy $h!t

There aren’t many differences right now between Wilkins and Anthony.  If Carmelo wins an MVP or a ring, he’ll move up closer to or even above the Ewing or Gervin player comparisons, but for now, he looks like the Dominique of his generation.  He’s an unbelievable talent, and at the end of the day people will look at Carmelo’s career and wonder how he didn’t have more success.  ‘Nique is a fringe Top 50 player all-time, and I think that’s where Carmelo is headed.  He’ll be a Hall of Famer, but someone who has more “should have’s” in his career than the guys ahead of him.

Carmelo Anthony still has a few good years left to define his career as a player.  He could rise to new heights, but given his bad luck playing with LeBron and Durant, as well as his inability to make his (admittedly subpar) teammates better to the point where he’s an MVP or a Champion, right now the answer to Carmelo Anthony’s “Who Am I?” is Dominique Wilkins.