“I didn’t wanna see MJ with the Wizards. I didn’t wanna see that,” Carmelo Anthony confessed on an episode of ‘7PM in Brooklyn’. In 2023, Carmelo talked about the trend of one-team stars leaving their franchises towards the end of their careers.
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Of course, fans can understand the dissonance that comes with seeing their beloved franchise leaders in an unfamiliar jersey. But despite not wanting to see it, Carmelo Anthony actually watched Wizards Jordan in action. And he had nothing but praise for the latter years of His Airness.
Melo added about MJ’s last year in the league. “He not MJ of old. He’s not MJ flying through the air. But the game looks so easy to him,” Anthony stated in disbelief.
The 40-year-old also talked about Shaq in a Celtics jersey, Allen Iverson as a Grizzly, and even about himself as a Houston Rocket. However, Melo isn’t the only player to cite Wizards Jordan as a cheat code.
DeMar DeRozan recently credited MJ’s era as one of his biggest inspirations. NBA champion Rasheed Wallace even claimed that Mike was a little better on the Wizards than he was in Chicago.
While that last claim can be contentious, there’s a reason so many NBA greats were in awe of ‘Black Jesus’ during his final years. Jordan displayed a mastery of the game in Washington, where every move was made consciously and every bucket felt like a practice shot.
Carmelo also touched on the incredibly efficient bag Jordan had developed by the time he was 38.
“I’m like damn, it’s like MJ is- he just picking his spots. And they can’t do sh*t about it.“
Through years of hard work and repetition, Jordan had become an actual scoring machine by the twilight of his career. He knew where he wanted to get shots from and he knew how to get there. Melo explained how, as an athlete, that’s the pinnacle one looks to achieve. It makes sense too, since Anthony himself made a living out of the mid-post by practicing his triple threat moves to perfection.
So, even though Melo was not a fan of MJ’s move to Washington, he has many reasons to enjoy what came out of it. A blue print for reliable on-ball scoring, and a shoe deal from the six-time NBA champion. After retiring, the first thing Michael Jordan did was pick Carmelo Anthony as his successor at the Jordan brand. Melo is the first-ever athlete to receive their own shoe from Air Jordan.
