Former Nuggets Player Says Watching Young Carmelo Anthony Play in College Influenced His Move to Denver

Fans cannot forget how much hype surrounded Carmelo Anthony when he first entered the NBA. Pegged as LeBron James’ equal, countless players across the league wished to play with Melo in Denver and Andre Miller was one of them. The former Nuggets man explained just why this was for him, and how unfortunate the conclusion to his efforts turned out to be.

When Miller appeared on the Forgotten Seasons podcast, he explained how Anthony’s time in Syracuse was the reason he chose Denver over Utah.

“Really, it came down to Denver, and Utah… You know, I saw what Carmelo Anthony did in college, man. And for a freshman to do what he did, and lead that team to a championship, man it was no-brainer! Like, I gotta go play with this dude, man. I gotta go, you know?”

The championship Miller referred to here is Melo’s emphatic NCAA title win with Syracuse in 2003. He was a freshman at the time. So, the fact that he was able to lead a powerhouse school all the way to the promised land was especially impressive.

Unfortunately for Andre, things didn’t quite turn out the way that he had hoped for. After he joined the Nuggets in 2003, the role-player was soon used as a trade asset for the team to bring in Allen Iverson. And for Jelani McCoy this was not a good move whatsoever.

“I remember they [Nuggets] were way over the luxury tax, you know what I mean? They was like maybe in the history of the luxury tax, they were setting new records… They tried to do it with like a tough AC Carter, you know what I mean? But the AI [Iverson]-Melo experiment… On paper it looked great. On court, sometimes it looked good. But it wasn’t built on something that would be consistent.”

For Miller’s part of the equation here, his thought process does seem justified. Given just how great Carmelo was in college, and right off the bat in the NBA, he did make the right choice. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out the way he had planned.

In the end, the Nuggets wished to go with a different approach. They wished to gamble on the sheer scoring prowess of Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony. However, as Jelani made clear, the players just weren’t practical enough to work out.

In the end, this yielded no championships for the Nuggets. However, what it did produce was a rather exciting, if not a bit turbulent, era of basketball for them.

From the way he spoke about it, it seems that Miller is happy to have been a part of it. Even if he may have wanted his time with the franchise to have lasted a bit longer.