After 19 seasons in the association, Carmelo Anthony officially called it a career Monday afternoon. Though he never attained that highly coveted NBA Championship, the 38-year-old leaves the professional level with a tremendous amount of accolades which includes 10 All-Star nods, six All-NBA selections, a scoring title, and career averages of 22.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.7 assists.
However, toward the end of his tenure, Anthony's star status took a serious hit, as he spent the last few seasons in and out of the league. Perhaps the turning point for him was during his short-lived stint with the Houston Rockets back during the 2018-19 campaign where he joined forces with James Harden and Chris Paul on the roster of the reigning Western Conference runner-ups.
There, he saw his role diminish from being a legitimate franchise cornerstone to a mere role player. Unfortunately, despite his best efforts to adjust, he would only go on to play 10 total games for the franchise before being traded mid-way through the season.
Though on the surface, it would appear that Carmelo Anthony's up-and-down production was the lone factor in the club's decision to move on from him so unceremoniously, in a sit-down with Sports Illustrated's Chris Herring, he stated that his ouster from Houston was seemingly due to more than just on-court reasons.
“Nobody ever really explained it to me,” Carmelo Anthony said. “To be honest, nobody can explain it to me, because there’s no real reason as to why any of that transpired. And I beat myself up about it. I took the role off the bench. I did everything they said I gotta do. So I kept thinking, It’s gotta be deeper than that. It felt like it was about more than just basketball at that point.”
Anthony would finish his Rockets career with averages of just 13.4 points and 5.4 rebounds on 40.5% shooting from the floor and 32.8% shooting from deep.
Follow Us
Subscribe