The Melo story: 5 wrong turns in Carmelo Anthony's career
Carmelo Anthony's career is a classic what-if scenario. This is one of the greatest scorers of all time, a player with a jump shot so pure that he's the only player in NBA history to score 50 points in a game without a single one of them coming in the paint.
Maligned all over the internet for only having a couple of jab step moves up his sleeve on isolation possessions these days, he is a far cry from the scoring machine that he was for a large chunk of his career with the Nuggets and the New York Knicks.
Talent is not enough to win championships in the league. It takes sacrifice and a willingness to be coached and play different styles of basketball, getting out of one's comfort zone while doing so - none of which Melo has conceivably been successful at.
Let's take a look at 5 of the wrong decisions taken by him and the people around him that have shaped his career the way that it's turned out.
#1 Signing a 5-year contract with the Nuggets
The summer of 2010 saw LeBron James and Chris Bosh join forces with Dwyane Wade at Miami. Long before this happened, however, the superteam that was supposed to form had Anthony in place of Bosh - the three superstars who entered the league in 2003 as part of a fabled draft class.
The reason Anthony got left out of this chance to form such a team was that unlike James, Bosh and Wade, who signed 4-year contract extensions in 2006 with their franchises, Melo opted to sign a 5-year deal with the Nuggets. This happened because Melo believed he had a legitimate shot at championship contention in Colorado.
He ended up with only one Conference Finals appearance in 7 seasons with Denver.