Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire played for Team USA at the 2004 Olympics, and the two recently spoke about an infamous incident in the lead-up to it. Head coach Larry Brown had suspended Stoudemire, Allen Iverson, and LeBron James for an exhibition game, and some light was shed on that on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast.
"The minute I knew what type of environment that was going to be was when they got suspended in Florida for being a minute early [to a meeting]," Anthony said. "... Say there's a meeting at 2 PM, you get there at 1:57. The meeting starts at 1:55, now you get suspended.
"We about to go play Puerto Rico in Jacksonville," Anthony continued. "We coming to the meeting, he like, 'You ain't playing, you ain't playing, and you ain't playing.'"
Stoudemire grew up in Florida, and his family was going to be at that game against Puerto Rico. Brown certainly didn't care about that, though.
"It was you, AI, and Bron," Anthony stated. "You talk about the three biggest names at this point in time. You talking AI, who was damn near the face of the world. He's the face of the world in basketball. You got this young rookie of the year, you know, Stat, and then you got Bron, who was the next [star]."
Anthony stated he understood, as he grew older, that if you're on time, then you're late. He still doesn't like the fact that Brown started that meeting early.
"We actually in the training room getting taped and getting ready for practice," Stoudemire said. "So we get our bags, and we rush over to the meeting, and we are early. We there like a few minutes early, so we're thinking we're good. He's like, 'You ain't playing, you ain't playing.' Like 'What? What do you mean we're not playing?'"
Despite James, Stoudemire, and Iverson not playing, Team USA would beat Puerto Rico 96-71 at Veterans Memorial Arena. The decision still proved controversial, though.
Anthony felt Brown wanted to make a statement by suspending the trio. The head coach's relationship with Iverson had deteriorated towards the end of their time together on the Philadelphia 76ers, and the star was going to be on a tight leash. Brown wasn't going to tolerate any slip-ups on Iverson's part.
On hearing all this, co-host Rudy Gay felt James and Stoudemire just ended up being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Anthony stated that it was true, but added there was more to that.
"As I got time to reflect on that time, you realize, it wasn't a casualty of war," Anthony said. "It was setting the tone. 'AI, you the guy, you leading Amare, who's the young guy, Rookie of the Year. You also leading LeBron James. So I have to set the tone and let LeBron know that's not allowed.'
"It wasn't about him, he probably had a little s*** in there, but I got to set the tone on AI that I'm not going to allow you to influence LeBron that way," Anthony added. "It was multi-layered, which is why he said, 'Allen, I'm not dealing with that anymore.' So, that's how it kicked off."
It was a bad start to that journey, and it didn't end well either. Team USA would lose to Puerto Rico and Lithuania in the group stages of the Olympics, but they still made it to the knockouts.
After beating Spain in the quarterfinals, though, Team USA shockingly lost 89-81 to Argentina in the semifinals. They would win the bronze medal game against Lithuania, but the campaign was still a total failure.
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