Chasing third gold, Anthony ready to lead
Carmelo Anthony wasn’t sure if he wanted to play in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Three of his close friends — LeBron James, Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade — weren’t going, and others told him, “Don’t do it,” according to Anthony.
But he heard from another faction: players committed to Rio, who encouraged Anthony to come back for a chance at a third Olympic gold medal, an accomplishment no American men’s basketball player has achieved.
“They were saying, ‘It’s your time, your Olympics. You should take advantage of this opportunity,’ ” Anthony said. “Once the guys started reaching out and talking to me about that, it felt good to hear my colleagues want me to have that.”
Anthony, who is finding his voice as a social leader, heard from another important person. Jim Boeheim, Anthony’s college coach at Syracuse who is a Team USA assistant, encouraged him to play about a week before the NBA Finals began.
“I don’t try to tell him what to do,” Boeheim said. “He’s his own man, but I wanted him to play.”
Boeheim gave Anthony reasons why playing was a good idea.
“I told him two things, ‘You can help us. We need a veteran guy. Second, you’ve been losing for three years. Let’s get a good basketball experience. This is something you really should do,’ ” Boeheim said. Anthony, 32, agreed. “I get a chance to go out there, be the leader of the team and enjoy it,” Anthony said. “It’s about going over there, having fun, getting the winning feeling back and trying to get another gold medal.”
Said USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo, “I was very, very pleased that he made that decision. Carmelo has gone through some difficult years in the NBA — maybe having individual success but not having team success. As it relates to USA Basketball, Carmelo has thrived in international competition, and he’s also won.”
Rediscovering that winning feeling is important for Anthony. After the Knicks won 54 games in 2012-13 and reached the second round of the playoffs, they won 37, 17 and 32 games, missing the playoffs each time.
Anthony had a chance to leave the Knicks in the summer of 2014. He gave the Chicago Bulls serious consideration. Boeheim said he encouraged Anthony to join the Bulls. But Anthony likes New York and believed in Knicks President Phil Jackson’s plan to rebuild and make the team a contender.
“The struggle for me over the past couple of years was not even wins and losses but staying mentally strong to go through those situations and deal with that two-, three-year time period where I never experienced anything like that in my career,” Anthony said.
It appears the Knicks are improving with the additions of Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Courtney Lee and the intriguing development of Kristaps Porzingis. But they’re also not ready to win a championship.
Anthony sees James and Wade with three NBA championships each, and though Paul hasn’t won one, he has had more playoff success than Anthony. That’s why playing in another Olympics is important to him. Whether or not he wins an NBA title, Anthony is shaping his legacy with international basketball, too, and he thrives in that environment.
In 16 Olympics games in 2008 and 2012, Anthony averaged 13.9 points and 4.5 rebounds in 18.4 minutes and shot 53.7% from the field and 44.6% on three-pointers. His signature game came against Nigeria in 2012, when he scored 37 points and made 10 of 12 three-point shots in 14 minutes.
“Moments happen like that,” he said. “Not often, but they happen.”
As the leader of this year’s U.S. team, he will be asked to contribute on the court and provide guidance for the younger players, including six who are on the team for the first time.
“I’ve been a part of USA Basketball since I was a junior in high school,” Anthony said. “I actually like it.
“I didn’t want to miss out on that opportunity. Who wouldn’t want to play with the best players in the world? It’s easy for everybody.”
Anthony has taken a leadership role on social issues, too, starting with support for Freddie Gray in marches in Baltimore and continuing with an impassioned Instagram post, an ESPYs appearance where he made a plea to end violence and a town hall meeting Monday with police, community leaders, young people and other athletes in Los Angeles.
“It was some very, very powerful messages being talked about amongst not just us as athletes but the youth,” Anthony said. “The youth really, really spoke out about how they feel about their community, how they feel about police officers, how they feel about relationships and how we can mend these relationships. Police spoke. Youth spoke. Athletes spoke. And we really got a lot of messages out of today.
“Hopefully we can kind of continue this dialogue, and I think we created something today that will continue.”