For 3 a long time we’ve coated many superb basketball characters, however some stand above the remainder—not solely due to their on-court abilities (although these are all the time related), however due to how they influenced and proceed to affect basketball tradition, and thus influenced SLAM. In the meantime, SLAM has additionally modified these gamers’ lives in numerous methods, as we’ve documented their careers with basic covers, legendary images, superb tales, compelling movies and extra.
We compiled a gaggle of people (programming word: 30 entries, not 30 individuals complete) who imply one thing particular to SLAM and to our viewers. Learn the full record right here and order your copy of SLAM 248, the place this record was initially printed, right here.
Carmelo Anthony formally retired from the NBA in Could 2023, after racking up 28,289 factors, making six All-NBA groups and profitable three Olympic Gold medals. Whereas he spent his previous couple of seasons barnstorming across the League, he’ll be remembered for his tenures with the Nuggets and Knicks, the place he headlined some nice groups that have been finally dispatched by higher competitors. However I feel as time goes on, we’ll keep in mind Melo for extra than simply basketball.
Melo was in the identical 2003 NBA Draft class as LeBron James, which might put most gamers in peril of being overshadowed. However he shined his personal gentle and carved his personal path, which took critical work on and off the courtroom. On the morning of the 2003 Draft, I sat all the way down to breakfast with Carmelo, proper there within the foyer of the Westin Resort in Occasions Sq. the place the NBA housed the gamers. His brokers needed us to fulfill prematurely of Melo taking up the SLAM Rookie Diary, which I might assist him write every month. We shared a clumsy meal collectively, Melo simply weeks faraway from profitable the NCAA Match with Syracuse, and simply hours away from the most important second of his life. I largely simply tried to remain out of his manner that day.
However we have been in fixed contact all through his rookie 12 months—shout out tmail, IYKYK—and it was exceptional to see Melo acquire confidence and begin to develop into himself. He matured, turned a father, had his personal line of Jordans, and was beginning to dabble in documentary manufacturing. On the time, you’ll keep in mind, there was no actual blueprint for an athlete seeking to diversify their off-court pursuits. Michael Jordan was nonetheless constructing out Jordan Model and but to buy the Hornets, and Carmelo and LeBron have been feeling out related strains of inquiry relating to what their enterprise futures may appear to be.
In the summertime of 2008, we reached out to Carmelo as a result of it was time to place him on the duvet of SLAM, his fourth cowl because the 2003 Draft. Melo was coming into his sixth season, having averaged 24.4 ppg over these first 5 campaigns (all profitable seasons), together with two All-Star appearances. Nonetheless, it was powerful for the Nuggets to interrupt by means of—issues have been so stacked that the 2007-08 Nuggets gained 50 video games and nonetheless completed eighth within the Western Convention.
Down to present us time for a canopy shoot, Melo needed to pitch us an thought: He needed to be on the duvet seated in a director’s chair. Nope, I shortly responded. As a result of if there was one factor the nice Dennis Web page taught all of us at SLAM, it was how you can make a dope journal cowl. It was arduous sufficient to do one thing compelling in that rectangular form, and having somebody sitting down actually restricted your choices from a design standpoint. However Melo had legitimately thought it out. His life was altering. He felt like he was in management. He needed to make use of one story to inform one other story, and the way higher than through the use of a photograph with him in a director’s chair?
A compromise was reached. We might get a director’s chair and take footage with Carmelo in it, however for the duvet picture, we’d use no matter labored finest. Because it turned out, the director’s chair labored finest, turning into one of many extra memorable SLAM covers of all time.
We talked that day about his progress, and Melo famous, “It took me some time to determine that I had every part in my very own palms. It was arduous to fathom that I went from a row home challenge constructing to a penthouse. It’s nonetheless arduous to fathom that.”
Melo’s basketball story might have come to a sleek finish, however he’s clearly not completed. He guest-edited SLAM’s Social Justice difficulty in 2020, addressing head-on lots of the social points in America then and now. The previous few years, he’s completed every part from proudly owning a soccer staff to performing on TV and in films to launching a podcast to being profiled in Advert Week. And it don’t cease.
Individuals typically ask me who my favourite NBA gamers are, and the reality is, I don’t have favourite gamers a lot as I’ve favourite individuals. Whereas Carmelo Anthony will go down as a Corridor of Fame basketball participant, perhaps the higher story is how he’s additionally grown right into a Corridor of Fame individual.
Picture through Getty Photos.
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