Anyone who’s been paying attention to the entertaining first-round series between the Utah Jazz and the Oklahoma City Thunder has jotted down plenty of mental notes about the matchup: Rudy Gobert is a crippling defensive menace; Ricky Rubio is playing like he’s totally forgotten who Ricky Rubio is; Russell Westbrook is confounded by Utah’s defense; Carmelo Anthony is abysmal.
Between Westbrook and Anthony, Melo’s performance in this series is the sadder one. If the Thunder succumb in this series to Utah, Westbrook still has plenty of time to help his image recover from such a disaster.
It’s hard to say the same for Anthony, who is hoping that his stint with Oklahoma City would end up with an NBA title, thus erasing all those bitter memories of failures in the playoffs. Oklahoma City is supposed to be Melo’s ticket to redemption, but with the way the Utah series is going and how he is faring in it, Anthony’s career appears to be headed in the wrong direction.
The King and Melo
Regardless of how different the trajectories of their career arcs have gone, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony are always going to be bundled in the same conversation when discussing their respective careers.
LeBron is 33, which is an essential number in trying to explain how marvelous this season has been for the four-time MVP. In his 15th year in the NBA—another key metric— James blew people’s minds in the regular season by consistently putting up numbers that were rarely seen from someone with that many miles on their legs (really anyone, for that matter).
At some point, LeBron will slow down, but there are not any detectable signs that The King is on the decline. Even if LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers fail to get out of the first round of the playoffs against the Indiana Pacers, it would be criminal to say that LeBron is done.
A player who just nearly averaged a triple-double in a season while shooting over 50 percent from the field is far from irrelevancy. Someone who is going to be the most coveted commodity in the upcoming free agency period is not the one who is facing the twilight of his career anytime soon.
On the other hand, we have Anthony. Like LeBron, Melo is 33, and since he also entered the NBA in 2003, he’s been a pro for as long as the Cavs superstar. But, while LeBron’s star remains bright, the shine on Melo’s has faded significantly to the point that he’s become his team’s third banana.
That has never happened before during his time with the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks. He was a go-to guy right from the start of his career through his final days in Gotham. In Oklahoma City, that’s no longer the case. He may never regain the alpha male 1 status ever again — and that’s even if he moves to another team after this season.
The 2017-18 regular season
In September of last year, Anthony was involved in a blockbuster deal that sent him from New York to Oklahoma City in exchange for Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, and a future draft pick. The deal came a few months after the Thunder acquired Paul George from the Indiana Pacers.
With Melo becoming a part of a Big Three in OKC, he suddenly found himself in a great position to compete for an NBA championship as part of a legitimate title contender. Now, a few people didn't think that assembling an alpha male trio of Melo, George, and Westbrook would simply lead to instant success. For the first several games of the season, that seemed to be the case, as the Thunder were just 15-15 through their first 30 games.
The Thunder were brimming with talent but greatly lacked the chemistry and cohesion that other superstar-laden teams have. Learning to play alongside each other proved to be a laborious process for the three superstars.
As for Anthony, he actually played well in his first month in Thunder threads, as he averaged 22.9 points on 46.5 shooting percentage in seven games in October (though Oklahoma City only went 4-3 in those contests). Since then, Anthony went on to play months of inconsistent and topsy-turvy basketball. He did not average more than 18.1 points in any of the next six months of the regular season. Of course, that’s a clear byproduct of Anthony’s new environment where he had to share the ball with George and Westbrook.
Anthony’s offensive production has always depended on volume, but as his touches went down in OKC, so did his efficiency. In fact, his 40.4 field goal shooting percentage in the 2017-18 season is the worst of his career. Anthony also had a three-month streak from February to April in which he failed to shoot better than 38.8 percent from the floor.
Anthony was, on a lot of nights, hard to watch.
The 2018 NBA Playoffs
As mentioned earlier, the Thunder are not having a good time in the first round of these playoffs. They are being embarrassed by a backcourt tandem consisting of a veteran that took years to make his career postseason debut in Ricky Rubio and a rookie in Donovan Mitchell.
Anthony and the Thunder are now down 3-1 in the series, which stands as the death knell for Oklahoma City’s championship aspirations. The safe bet at this point is that Utah will upset the Thunder. It’s going to be a very bitter pill to swallow for OKC and especially Anthony, who has been plainly horrendous in the series.
The last time Anthony played in the playoffs prior to this year, he averaged 28.8 points for the Knicks in 2013. Five years later, Anthony is putting up a dismal 14.3 points per game on 37.3 shooting from the floor. He has also been invisible in fourth quarters.
Through the first four games of the first round, Anthony has averaged just 1.0 points in the final period. In Game 4, he made only five of his 18 attempts from the field to finish with 11 points. He was also 0-for-6 from downtown.
If the Thunder get eliminated in the first round, Anthony will conclude yet another disappointing season. He has a year left on his current contract that comes with a player-option for 2018-19, but whether he stays with the Thunder or transfers to another team, a number of things must go Melo’s way for his career to blossom once again.
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