Melo must sacrifice
Carmelo Anthony experiment will work only if future Hall of Famer puts the Rockets first
Will Carmelo Anthony come off the bench for the Rockets?
Willingly? Happily? Proudly?
That’s all it is for Anthony and his new, next team: questions.
How badly does he truly want to win?
How much is he willing to personally sacrifice to finally reach the next level in his career?
Anthony is entering Year 16. He entered the NBA way back in 2003, as a 19-year-old with the entire world before him. He was brilliant in Denver and selfish as a Nugget. He wanted everything that New York represents and got it, went through coach after coach — remember when Mike D’Antoni was leading the failing Knicks? — occasionally made Madison Square Garden shine and ended up in Oklahoma City after too many chaotic, pointless seasons.
Anthony with the Thunder didn’t work, either, and also ended badly. And now more than four years after general manager Daryl Morey tried to link Anthony with James Harden and Dwight Howard — Kevin McHale was the coach then; Jeremy Lin briefly lost his red No. 7 to Melo — the Rockets are set to answer the best regular season in franchise history by adding one of the most debated (and misunderstood?) scorers in NBA history.
Anthony doesn’t have to constantly make the net sway with the Rockets. He also should be at his best by averaging the least amount of minutes in his ultimately underwhelming career.
LeBron James went No. 1 way back in 2003.
My lord, how the league has changed since.
James lifted the Cavaliers, coldly left, started this whole crazy superstars forming superteams thing, won titles in Miami, brought a championship to Cleveland, and is living his best life in La La Land.
Lapped by James
Anthony went No. 3 — remember Darko Milicic? — and we’re now at the point in NBA history when we can’t even compare The King with Melo, because James is so far ahead in the overall game.
The Rockets can make this work. I don’t doubt that. D’Antoni has continually learned, evolved and adapted, and is coming off one of the best coaching seasons of his movieworthy career. Chris Paul and The Beard just pushed their gritty, tough crew — winning with old-school defense and constant 3s — to the edge of the NBA Finals.
But is Anthony truly willing to make this work?
That is the question — and it can’t be officially answered until next June.
“Who me? I don’t know where that started, where that came from. Hey P, (Paul George) they said I gotta come off the bench.”
Anthony sarcastically laughed when he said the above last September.
The Thunder were knocked out of the first round 4-2 by Utah (which fell 4-1 to the Rockets in the next round). Anthony scored only seven points and took seven shots in 26 limited minutes during OKC’s elimination game, posting a minus-19 when he was on the hardwood. He averaged a career-low 16.2 points and shot only 40.4 percent from the floor during the regular season, then said this soon after the 15th consecutive year of his career ended before the NBA Finals began.
“Yeah, I’m not sacrificing no bench role,” Anthony said. “That’s out of the question.
“For me, my focus would be on kind of figuring out what I want out of the rest of my career, what I want in my future, what am I willing to accept, if I’m willing to accept that at all.”
Barely two months later, George was staying with Russell Westbrook in OKC and Anthony was staring at his third team in three seasons (and that doesn’t count getting waived after pinballing to Atlanta).
Anthony is still good. But it has been a long while since he was great — winning, scoring, dominating, owning the hardwood and inspiring his team night after night, month after month — and he never will be again.
He also must be comfortable sometimes being the sixth-best player on the 2018-19 Rockets for all this to fully work out.
This is Harden’s team and Paul’s team. This is a 65-win squad that has Eric Gordon firing off the bench, P.J. Tucker doing the serious dirty work (and sinking wing 3s), and Clint Capela running the floor and locking in on both sides of the court.
Is Anthony going to seriously commit to championshiplevel defense for 82 games, then four more long rounds in the never-ending playoffs?
Are the Rockets willing to suck it up and move on from Anthony immediately, if it is clear it’s just not going to work?
Title only thing missing
There are only two ways to go after you win 65 games, and come a good second half away from knocking off the Warriors and reaching the Finals: A championship or backward.
Just reaching the Finals isn’t good enough, especially with Paul at 34 next May, Harden entering his 10th year and D’Antoni coaching for his first championship at 67.
Anthony should end up in the Hall of Fame. He ranks 19th all-time in NBA scoring (25,417 points). The only thing missing from his basketball résumé is an NBA championship.
It’s a huge, defining thing for Anthony and the divide that so clearly separates him from the league’s true greats.
To reach the Finals, to clutch that elusive trophy, Melo must sacrifice more than ever. Not for himself. For the Rockets.