Kevin Durant paid respect to Carmelo Anthony by acknowledging that his real ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment was against him.
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Carmelo Anthony is one of those players whose legacy is likely to be consigned to the doldrums. He is a top 5 scorer in this century, has 4 Olympic medals and has played in the NBA for 18 seasons now.
But he’s never won a championship or even been to a Finals series. This is likely the one thing that is keeping him from taking the next step to league legend status. It’s the same with Chris Paul too – these are two players who were considered the cream of their position at their primes.
Nevertheless, Carmelo has a faction of hardcore fans who grew up on a staple of 2000s basketball. Melo has to be up there for anybody who considers themselves a serious fan of ball. He even beat a peak Kevin Durant for the scoring title in the 2012-13 season.
Kevin Durant says Carmelo Anthony handed him his first ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment
KD once gave a revealing interview to the crew from The Players’ Tribune – Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles. Among the many topics discussed that day were how KD arrived at the decision to sign with the Warriors.
Q-Rich and Miles then posed them one question they ask every NBA star on their podcast – their ‘welcome to the NBA’ moment. Durant happily obliged with a great answer.
“My first NBA game was against Carmelo Anthony. He was just physical. He would duck you in the paint, hit you with the shoulder, then he’ll take you out.”
“Jab, jab, pull over top of you. He was just have you thinking too much on D. I got on the plane confused.”
This version of Carmelo Anthony is one of the 10-15 best/most unstoppable forces the game has ever seen. Polished, confident PUNISHER on that court 💀 The only small forwards I can definitely put over him when talking straight abilities are LeBron and Durant and maybe T-Mac. pic.twitter.com/Ad3QGIGbyA
— Ball Don’t Stop (@balldontstop) February 28, 2019
