Carmelo Anthony is one of the best players in Denver Nuggets history. The Nuggets selected Anthony with the third overall pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, finishing second behind LeBron James in Rookie of the Year voting and leading the team to the Western Conference Finals in 2009, finishing third in Rookie of the Year voting. He finished with the most points. in the history of the franchise.
Anthony and the Nuggets didn't end on the best terms. Melo requested a trade from the Nuggets in 2010.and finally landed at his desired destination. new york knicks. Anthony had a solid year with the Knicks, leading the team to three playoff appearances, but only one series win. Anthony retired with 28,289 total points, ninth in league history.
Under most circumstances, a team like the Nuggets would strongly consider retiring a player's number like Anthony. There's only one problem. Three years after trading away their star scorer, Denver gave up their No. 15 jersey to a little-known second-round draft pick from Serbia, Nikola Jokic. The rest is history.
Anthony appeared on Kid Mero's podcast “7pm, Brooklyn'' this week and talked about his career. Melo asked Anthony about Jokic getting his old number in Denver, and Anthony didn't seem happy about it.
“It was a little ruse,” Anthony said. “It wasn't like we got to choose the number, it was like he was given the number 15 here. I believe they gave him the number 15 to try to erase what I had done. It means I gave it.”
Watch the clip here:
I find Carmelo's conspiracy here very hard to believe for the following reasons. no one I knew Jokic was going to be this good. If this guy becomes an All-Star even once, he will go down as one of the greatest second-round picks of all time. The fact that he became one of the best big men of all time, a two-time MVP, and an NBA champion is a huge upset in every way.
Anthony claims the Nuggets wanted to erase Jokic's legacy by giving him his jersey number, but most second-round picks were flamed out and had no impact. It's really wild that Jokic is ranked as a much better player than Melo on the all-time list.
Jokic revealed why he chose No. 15 in a recent interview with Orlando Magic star Paolo Banchero. Jokic said he chose No. 15 because it was the biggest jersey available to him as a kid.
Anthony Randolph also wore Anthony's number 15. After Melo left and before Jokic did.
Perhaps Carmelo believes the Nuggets should never have given him his number. That's understandable, but he was forced to move to a new team. Anthony is right when he says that no one should blame Jokic for this.
In reality, there's no conspiracy here at all, and it's pretty delusional and narcissistic for Melo to believe so. Anthony had a great Hall of Fame career, and despite his bitter ending, it was only natural that he had his jersey retired in Denver.
Unfortunately, Melo isn't the best No. 15 in Nuggets history. It will always and forever be Nikola Jokic.
