Of Course Carmelo Anthony Said He Would "Be Very Happy" If He Retired With 3 Gold Medals And No NBA Championships
ESPN- As the accolades stack up for him in the international game, New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony says he has no trouble tuning out naysayers who want to take issue with his NBA résumé. In an interview with ESPN at the Rio Olympics, Anthony ?insisted that the prospect of becoming the first U.S. male to win three gold medals in basketball more than eases the sting of an NBA playoff history that, to date, includes only one trip to the conference finals and just two trips total beyond the first round.
“Most athletes don’t have an opportunity to say that they won a gold medal, better yet three gold medals,” Anthony said. “I would be very happy walking away from the game knowing that I’ve given the game everything I have, knowing I played on a high level at every level: high school, college, won [a championship at Syracuse] in college and possibly three gold medals. “I can look back on it when my career is over — if I don’t have an NBA championship ring — and say I had a great career.”
Such a #Me7o quote right there. #Me15 wipes his ass with that type of rhetoric, but #Me7o has no problem with it. I wasn’t going to blog this because it is very similar to the blog I wrote about Melo thinking a gold medal is equal to an NBA championship. But it’s become enough of a story in the media. I don’t think Carmelo truly believes this nonsense, but he has to say it. Or else he’s admitting to the world that his career is a failure. He knows how hard it is to win a championship. He can’t even make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.
If I may, I would like to use a dated analogy from one of my favorite movies as a kid, The Land Before Time. Melo is Cera the baby triceratops girl. A thick-headed force despite a limited vertical. Cera thinks she can get to the Great Valley doing it her own way. Even when things seem to be going well, they end up falling apart pretty quickly. Both Cera and Melo were pro friends succeed by teaming up (we will say LeBron is Little Foot, D Wade is Ducky, and Chris Bosh is Petrie. Oh yeah, and I guess Mario Chalmers is Spike). Which only leads to Melo/Cera wanting to do it their own way that much more. Cera would probably say she is fine not reaching The Great Valley just like Melo saying he is fine not winning a Larry O’Brien trophy, even though neither of them probably truly mean it.
As Knicks fans, we unfortunately are at this guy’s mercy of whether or not he will get it before it’s too late. The franchise can start him on that path by slapping number 15 on his back the minute he lands back in the US of A.
Then again, if this is what Phil Jackson thinks of Derek Fisher’s time in New York, I have no idea if he has the capability to realize that a player’s jersey number impacts how he plays.
“One difference I had with Derek is that I’m much more interested than he was in training groups. The Knights of the Round Table kind of thing. “There’s a movement called Humanistic Psychology that appeals to me, especially the work of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. In the context of this basketball team, it’s about creating a comfortable, secure workspace to help and encourage the players to self-actualize with the end of enabling them to grow together as a group.
“You could also say that the season is a process, something like an extended group therapy session, or a vision quest. The ultimate group goal being to win a championship. This is a different managerial style, a different paradigm, that’s far from the norm in the NBA.”
Jeeeesus. The Zen Master must have gotten into the good shrooms before answering that one. I would have just said Fisher was a shitty coach and there were rumors he was fucking a bunch of the players girlfriends followed by smacking your hands together like your just washed them clean.