Carmelo Anthony recently cleared the air on his infamous on-court blackout incident from 14 years ago, during an episode of his 7PM in Brooklyn podcast. The incident happened in 2010 when Melo was playing for the Denver Nuggets. During a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the former NBA star recalled blacking out with no sense left in his body, only to open his eyes and see an arena full of people holding their breath for him.
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What happened was during an offensive play, Anthony was being guarded by Kevin Durant. As he tried to move past KD by driving to his left with the ball in his hand, Melo ended up bumping his head in KD’s body. In this clip posted by James Herbert on YouTube, it can be seen that his neck went straight into the lower part of Durant’s chest and that impact caused him to blackout. What made it such a stinging event for Melo was that nobody from the opposition, the referees, and even his teammates paid any attention to him, as he was lying unconscious on the floor.
What’s even more outrageous is, while he was on the floor, the game continued for a good few minutes. In fact, in their next possession, the Nuggets drove the ball up without caring for their teammate lying on the ground, with Nuggets player JR Smith almost stepping on Melo during a lay-up attempt.
During a fan segment on his podcast, the 39-year-old was asked if he was really knocked out or was just putting up an act for the refs. Melo said that he was in fact unconscious for a few minutes and couldn’t see anything until the staff attended to him. He said, “We went back and watched the film, and once everybody found out I was cool…that kind of relieved the room a lot.”
“I was really out cold…I ran into his [Durant’s] hip bone…I got hit in the temporal [bone] and I blacked out…All I was seeing was darkness,” Anthony added. Even though Melo joked around about the incident, the Nuggets players and coaching staff came under fire for continuing play despite their player lying unconscious on the floor.
The play continued after Carmelo Anthony collapsed
Many people in the arena were worried, but the Nuggets players focused on getting another bucket in the game because they thought that Melo is just taking his time getting up. However, after the game, Chauncy Billups was extremely critical of J.R. Smith, who tried to run down the lane the very next possession after the incident with a layup which was eventually called a travel. In the footage, it can be seen that Melo’s teammates and OKC players were very close to Melo’s body, almost stepping onto him.
Billups said, “I couldn’t believe J.R. would try to go for the layup. I was like, ‘Dude, are you serious? Call timeout man, you see the dude ain’t move. What in the world are you thinking about?”‘ However, after his concussion examination, Melo made his way back to the court and shot two clutch free throws for his team. That’s when people really breathed a sigh of relief.
