Portland Trail Blazers veteran forward Carmelo Anthony recently went on a video interview on Uninterrupted and had a lengthy discussion about a number of interesting subjects.
One of the topics that stood out, however, was the pact he and LeBron James made during their stint with Team USA for the 2004 Olympics. Both Anthony and James were in their early years in the NBA at that time, and for some reason, Shawn Marion and Richard Jefferson were picked over them in the starting lineup of the national squad.
Melo and LeBron did not exactly like how that went down, so they decided to lay out a long-game revenge plan on the two veterans.
“When we made that pact it was just like, ‘What? They're playing in front of us? Really?' That was me and Bron's mentality,” the Blazers forward explained. “But then, we used to go to practice, and in practice that was our games. We used to huddle up before practice and be like, ‘Yo listen. Let's go to war. We want to smoke today. If they ain't ready to play today, it's on.'”
As Anthony admitted, he and James swore from that day on that they would do everything in their power to “destroy” Marion and Jefferson whenever they faced off with them on the court. Obviously, the young rising superstars took that incident personally.
The Blazers vet went on to share how different the environment was back then, in the sense that the older players did not really go out of their way to help out the younger members of the team.
“You gotta think the vets back then they were arrogant,” Melo said. “They wasn't like, ‘I got you young'un. I got you, I'mma take care of you.' It was not. You out there by yourself.”
This is a perfect manifestation of the elite competitive spirit possessed by guys like Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James. They learn from all their experiences — good or bad — and use them as motivation moving forward. Unfortunately for Marion and Jefferson, they ended up as the unknowing victims here.
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