Uncasville, Connecticut -- Carmelo Anthony will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday for a career of excellence that included 10 NBA All-Star appearances and a 19-year pro career in Denver, New York, Oklahoma City, Houston, Portland and Los Angeles.
He is, undoubtedly, one of the best scorers in NBA history.
But the former Syracuse star will also be recognized as part of USA Basketball’s “Redeem Team,” the 2008 Olympic squad that redeemed a 2004 bronze medal to win gold in Beijing and restore America’s reputation as exemplars of the game.
Anthony is best known in Syracuse as the player who delivered the Orange its only national title in his first and only year with the program.
He is also a 4-time Olympian, a man who won a 2004 bronze medal as a 20-year old, then added gold in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
Anthony owns U.S. Olympic career records in points (336) and games played (31), and is the only American men’s basketball player to make four Olympic teams.
Anthony talked Friday afternoon in a ballroom at the Mohegan Sun Casino about his Olympic experience, reminding reporters he first started representing the United States as teenager in 2002 at the FIBA Americas Junior World Championship.
“If (I) ain’t the face of USA Basketball,” he said, “I don’t know who is.”
Those USA Basketball experiences paired him with his college coach, Jim Boeheim, who served as an assistant on the 2008 Redeem Team. Anthony said his immediate memory of Boeheim on that trip was “he slept a lot.”
Those games meant something to Anthony. He still talks poignantly about the team, its mission and his place in Olympic lore.
Documentaries have been made about the Redeem Team. But for Anthony, those publicly shared memories can’t fully describe what he and his teammates experienced.
“Unless you were there on a day-to-day basis,” he said, “in those gyms, in those practices, in those weight rooms, in part of those conversations, you’re really not gonna understand or grasp what that moment meant.”
Anthony spoke about the pressure, about the understanding among players and coaches that nothing other than gold would suffice. He kept using words like “very special” when describing his Olympic experience in 2008 and his Olympic tenure in general.
“When it comes down to just representing, and using the word ‘serving,’” he said, “I’ve served this country for a long time and represented this country for a long time.”
He talked about the different personalities of the coaching staff, from head coach Mike Krzyzewski to Boeheim, and the way the team learned to navigate each one of them.
He can now point to that team as a seminal experience. Team USA defeated its Olympic opponents by an average of 27.9 points per game.
“That ‘08 team really set the tone for how you show up, how you show up as a professional athlete, as a professional team about business,” Anthony said.
Anthony’s career, of course, spanned generations. And on Saturday night in Springfield, his individual accolades will be honored along with his performance on the unforgettable Redeem Team.
“I mean, it sounds good to say you’re going into the Hall of Fame twice,” he said. “That’s a hell of a thing.”
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