All good things eventually come to an end. After 19 seasons, Carmelo Anthony announced his retirement from the NBA. Melo achieved some impressive feats along the way, though he never won a ring.
His lack of championships is without any doubt the only possible stain in his otherwise impressive career. In 19 years, Anthony made 10 All-Star appearances, won a scoring title and collected three Olympic gold medals.
Melo has played for eight different teams, but couldn’t go the distance with any of them. When looking back in time, Anthony seems to regret not listening to Dwyane Wade about signing a shorter deal with the Nuggets in 2006.
Carmelo Anthony regrets not testing free agency with Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, and Chris Bosh
(Via Chris Herring of Sports Illustrated)
“There were moments in his career that easily could have flipped the script. During the summer of 2006, while he was training with fellow Team USA players and draft class members LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, Anthony chose to sign a five-year, $80 million maximum extension with the Nuggets, a choice that ran counter to the shorter, three-year deals those players were signing so they could later all test free agency simultaneously. ‘My memory of that is that I called Mel like right as he was sitting down to sign his deal,’ Wade says, ‘and by then, it was too late.’
“Anthony remembers it similarly, and says he now wishes he’d considered the upside of agreeing to a shorter deal at the time. ‘The only regret I’ve got there is not being intelligent enough about the business of the game,’ he says. ‘I got that call from [Dwyane] saying, ‘Take the three-year deal; we’re all doing that,’ and I’m like, ‘Do you know where I’m from, man?’ Like, I’m happy, bro. I’m cool with Denver.’”
As everyone knows, James, Wade, and Bosh joined forces in the summer of 2010 to become the faces of a star-studded Miami Heat. The Big Three went on to make the NBA Finals four times, winning two championships.
