Carmelo Anthony will go down as one of the best scorers to ever play in the NBA. The 19-year veteran recently announced his retirement from the league.
Since then, Melo has revealed a plethora of things regarding his time in the league. On that note, Anthony talked about his favorite teammate ever in an interview with Sports Illustrated.
“I’ve had a lot of teammates, but my favorite, though, is J.R.,” Anthony said. “Coming into the game, I felt like for me, I may be one of two people who he could relate to, and I was myself and probably at the time A.I. [Allen Iverson]. I felt like I was that big brother to J.R. even though I was only a year and some change ahead of him.”
Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith were teammates while playing for the Denver Nuggets for about five seasons.
The reason why Melo named Smith as his favorite teammate was due to a brother bond that he formed with him. It’s great that Melo and Smith forged such a bond during their time in the NBA.
Carmelo Anthony Doesn’t Regret Not Winning An NBA Championship
The ultimate goal for any player in the NBA is to lift the Larry O’Brien trophy at least once in their career. Carmelo Anthony had the same dream, but couldn’t achieve it despite spending 19 seasons in the league.
One would think that Melo has regrets about failing to become an NBA champion. But in a recent interview, the 38-year-old revealed that’s not the case.
“I’m at peace. That doesn’t bother me no more; that idea that you’re a loser if you don’t win a championship,” Anthony said. “For me, I’ve won. I won back in 2003, the night I shook David Stern’s hand on that [draft] stage. I made it out of Red Hook. I’ve won at life. The ring is the only thing I didn’t get. It would’ve been a great accomplishment, but I don’t regret it, because I feel like I did everything I could to get it.”
It’s great that Carmelo Anthony is heading into retirement with that mentality. But that doesn’t mean that the former Nuggets superstar has no regrets about his career.
He regrets not taking Dwyane Wade’s advice about entering free agency in 2010 alongside his peers from the 2003 NBA Draft class. Had Melo taken Wade’s advice, he could have taken a better decision about his future and may have even joined a team where he could have maximized his chances of winning an NBA Championship.
