Carmelo Anthony is nothing if not enigmatic. The same guy who gets busted for DUI and appears on the 'Stop Snitchin' video, regardless of however brief a cameo it may have been, also is known to be a devoted father and well loved by his teammates. Apparently, he's also got a soft spot for the President-elect, Barack Obama.
The Denver Post reports that at shootaround today, Melo said he's going to try and score 44 points in honor of our 44th President due to be sworn in in January after a landslide victory last night. This represents another in a long list of NBA players firmly behind the first African-American President in the history of the United States. It also represents a more socially conscious and human side of Carmelo Anthony. It also represents a very real possibility, given Golden State's defense who he faces tonight.
It makes for a pretty exciting challenge to one of the league's premier scorers who all of a sudden finds himself without the weight of expectations that come with playing beside Allen Iverson. Whether you consider it hubris or not, it certainly says something about Anthony, even if we're not sure what.
(HT: Dime)
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
This says more about George Karl and the offense he's running than anything else. Carmelo's one of the best scorers in the league -- some might say the best period -- so it's not surprising that he has a complete green light. But it's still kind of disappointing.
If you were a Denver fan, wouldn't you like to know that there's some sort of offense in place that takes into account what the defense is given you. If the Denver offense is built to have Carmelo score 40+ a night, then this would make sense, but it would also mean the Denver offense is failing.
In order to score 44, Carmelo would have to either break offense or suddenly become unbelievably efficient -- I think it's a safe bet that he didn't mean the latter.
There's also the question of what Carmelo would do if he reaches 44 with time still on the clock. Clearly, Carmelo wants to be a winner and wouldn't really hold off just to celebrate the Presidency, but idle thoughts like this probably shouldn't be encourage. Let's just hope this -- aiming to score a specific (large) number of points -- was just normal chatter, and not an actual game strategy.