Carmelo Anthony grew up in a tough neighborhood of Baltimore, surrounded by crime and gang violence within his environment. Such notorious elements had profoundly impacted Melo, who once considered leaving aside his focus on basketball to run the streets. In an interview with comedian Kevin Hart on the Gold Minds podcast, the New York Knicks legend revealed how he was tempted to jeopardize his $262,523,093 NBA career, all until a tragedy changed his outlook.
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Thankfully, Carmelo chose the right path in taking his basketball aspirations seriously. Melo had a legendary career playing in the NBA, retiring after 19 years in the league in 2022. Much of Melo’s decision to not be on the streets was influenced by a tragedy he witnessed during his teenage years. This further changed his outlook on life to choose the right pathway to lead his career.
Carmelo Anthony once considered running the streets instead of focusing on basketball
Carmelo Anthony would never have wrecked the league with his prolific scoring had he given into his teenage temptations of being on the street. In a career spanning 19 seasons, Melo earned $262,523,093 from his NBA contracts, with his highest career earnings coming from his time at the Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks.
In a one-to-one conversation with Kevin Hart, Melo described how basketball was not a priority for him before his junior year of high school. Though he was a part of his school’s JV team, ‘school’ never much interested him during his freshman year. Instead, Anthony was tempted to join one of the gangs in his neighborhood and be on the street. Narrating this experience to Kevin Hart, Melo said:
“I was probably 12 to 15 when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Basketball was, I’ve played football, baseball, I’ve played everything. But, I wasn’t really serious about nothing. It was just sports for season. You wanted to play, go back to the block, play, go back, you just wanted to have fun in your teenage. It wasn’t until I got to high school, my junior year, I started to take basketball seriously. But prior to that, my freshmen year in high school, I played JV, I quit. I did not quit but I stopped going to school after that cause I’m like, ‘I didn’t come here to play JV, I don’t care about this.’ I wanted to be on the streets, I wanted to run the streets. I’m from Baltimore so basketball wasn’t really important for me at that time.”
Although Carmelo seemed pretty much deviated from a proper career path, tragedies, and harsh reality checks helped him bring himself back to the ground. Melo admitted how seeing his friends get into serious trouble or lose their lives to gang violence changed his outlook for the good. Elaborating further, Melo said:
“Then my sophmore year came. I started losing friends, people started dying around me and I saw a whole bunch of things started to happen, life started to happen, and I had to make a decision what I wanted to do. So, basketball became that golden ticket.”
Since this realization, Carmelo started taking basketball more seriously than ever. He became the No.1 high school senior in the class of 2022, earning him a scholarship at Syracuse University. Eventually, after playing one year in college, Carmelo enrolled for the NBA draft and was selected as a 3rd overall pick by the Denver Nuggets in 2003. However, his career was not without some drama.
Carmelo Anthony once appeared in an intimidation video which landed him in trouble
Carmelo Anthony’s tryst with street and gang violence wasn’t just over after he made it into the NBA. In 2005, a 20-year-old Melo briefly appeared in an underground DVD called ‘Stop Snitching,’ which had been circulating around Baltimore during that time.
In that video, Melo briefly appeared beside a man who warned people tipping off Baltimore police about drug deals would ‘get a hole in their head.’ This DVD was doing rounds right before Maryland officials revealed Carmelo to be featured in a violence prevention campaign later that summer.
Though Melo does not explicitly condone violence in the video, he was inadvertently caught on camera while visiting his former neighborhood. While testifying for this video to a Congressional committee, Anthony reiterated how he was against violence and drugs, having lost several friends to the same.
During this period, Carmelo earned significant scrutiny and criticism for his association with street violence, of which he cleared his name eventually.
