Back when Carmelo Anthony was with the Denver Nuggets, late NBA Commissioner David Stern gave the future Hall of Fame forward a call that shook him up.
The contents of the call, which came in the aftermath of an on-court brawl between the Nuggets and New York Knicks in Dec. 2006, were relayed by Carmelo on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast:
“You gonna leave that alone,” Anthony remembers Stern saying.
“I know who you with… where you live at; I know where they live at. I know when you close your eyes, I know when you wake up,” he continues, incredulous just thinking about the conversation.
“He’s telling me, ‘I know what they’re doing. You either tell them to stop or you gotta cut them off.’ And I’m like, ‘Damn. How the f**k?’ That’s when I knew the NBA was a part of the feds.”
Anthony received the longest suspension (15 games) of the seven players who were punished by the league and Stern following the melee.
Although the start of the brawl had nothing to do with Carmelo, Anthony still decided to make his presence felt by punching former Knicks wing Mardy Collins in the face and knocking him to the ground. It was theorized that one of the reasons that serious punishments were levied against the players involved in the dust-up was the infamous Pacers-Pistons brawl that saw NBA players going to the stands to fight fans.
Nonetheless, it's easy to see exactly how Anthony felt when he received that call from Stern. It's not often that anybody, let alone the NBA Commissioner, calls you up sounding like a movie villain hellbent on revenge.
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