When it comes to stories of the quarantine, there may be no better active player in the NBA who is a better storyteller than Carmelo Anthony of the Portland Trail Blazers. Anthony, who entered the league in the iconic 2003 NBA Draft with LeBron James, has seen a lot over his years and he was also one of the game’s biggest stars in the last 20 years. And he and LeBron were often side-by-side, including during what was one of the blemishes on USA Basketball on the international stage, during the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.
Anthony was a guest on the UNINTERRUPTED WRTS: After Party that follows “The Last Dance,” on Sunday nights and he told a previously unknown story about how he and LeBron felt like the young guys on the 2004 team, with veterans like Allen Iverson and Tim Duncan as the veterans. Anthony also recalls that veterans who weren’t quite as big, such as Richard Jefferson and Shawn Marion, started over he and LeBron, leading to a pact between the two phenoms to destroy the veterans every time they played.
Four years later, Anthony and James weren’t the elder statesman but they were key members of the 2008 Redeem Team that won the gold medal back for the United States, along with Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul. In fact, Wade is currently producing a documentary on that 2008 team, which will hopefully include some more of those insights that Carmelo shared about a less-than-stellar 2004 performance for the U.S.
