It was once thought that Carmelo Anthony was going to be the best player on the Denver Nuggets who wore the number 15. Those held true until a Taco Bell commercial happened during the NBA Draft and the greatest player in their franchise entered the league. Nikola Jokic just led this team to their first Larry O'Brien trophy. He and Michael Malone have made an insanely good system where everyone can thrive. George Karl knows this and even gave a nod to the Nuggets big man on his birthday.

“Happy bday to the champ, the ultimate team guy and the greatest player to wear #15 in Denver hoops history,” was the greeting that George Karl dropped on Nikola Jokic's special day.

Now, the former Nuggets head coach just seems to be adding to the fire when it comes to his spat with Carmelo Anthony. He even tagged his former player on the post to make sure that Anthony knew that he was shading him. This was not the first time these two got at each other.

Just earlier in the week, Anthony unveiled that Karl used to call him overrated. Then, he apparently downplayed Anthony's role as similar to Detlef Schrempf's during the mid-1990s Seattle Supersonics. All of this started during the NBA Draft in 2003 and the beef never died down. Wounds will not heal between these two at all if they continue taking jabs at each other long after they parted ways with the Nuggets system.

The Nuggets season so far

George Karl offered a fresh perspective on Carmelo Anthony's jersey retirement argument amid Nikola Jokic's new-age Nuggets success.

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Defending a championship is never easy unless a team is a dynasty. The Nuggets have yet to prove that they are capable of repeating their insane feat from last year and it shows. They currently lost five out of their last 10 games before the NBA All-Star break. The Los Angeles Clippers have just passed them which means that the Nuggets currently sit fourth in the Western Conference standings with a 36-win record.

They could still turn the jets on in the remaining weeks of NBA action. But, it would take a lot of effort.  The Nuggets are just three games back of the first seed and might be able to pull it off if they fix their spacing, rotations, schemes, and fatigue management.