NEWSLETTER
Carmelo Anthony has called it a career. After 19 seasons in the NBA – which included 10 historic days with the Chicago Bulls – Anthony steps away from the league as the 9th leading scorer of all-time.
Carmelo Anthony announced his retirement Monday morning in a video posted on social media. The long-time members of the Knicks and Nuggets said goodbye to everyone who supported him throughout his career.
Over the course of 19 seasons, Anthony was a 10x-All-Star. He played for six teams, mostly known for his eight seasons with the Nuggets and seven with the Knicks. Anthony finishes his career with 28,289 career points, which is ahead of Moses Malone on the all-time scoring list and just behind Shaquille O’Neal. Anthony will turn 39 next week and did not claim a roster spot on a team this season.
After a legendary National Championship run at Syracuse, Anthony was drafted third overall in 2003 by the Denver Nuggets. That epic draft saw LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade go in the top 5.
The only bust from that top 5 was Darko Milicic, who went second to the Pistons. Detroit went on to win the title in 2003 and fall in the NBA Finals to the Spurs in 2004. Had they not passed on Carmelo in 2003, it’s easy to imagine how history could have been altered. The farthest any of Anthony’s teams got in the playoffs was the conference finals in 2008-09 with the Nuggets.
Carmelo Anthony’s History With The Bulls
The Bulls will always be somewhat linked to Anthony. In the summer of 2014, the Bulls made an aggressive push to land Anthony in free agency before he ultimately chose to remain with the New York Knicks. Adding Anthony to the Bulls roster led by Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Pau Gasol, and Jimmy Butler has gone down as one of the bigger “what-ifs” in Chicago sports history.
The Bulls did finally get there man, though. Er … kinda. On January 22nd of 2019, the Bulls acquired Carmelo Anthony in a deal with the Rockets centered around cash considerations. After 10 legendary days on W. Madison Street, the Bulls waived Anthony.
In all seriousness, congrats to Carmelo Anthony on an outstanding career. He’ll always have a few “what-ifs” to wonder about if his career took a couple of different turns, but he’s no doubt a hall-of-Famer and one of the greatest bucket-getters in league history.
