Top 50 NBA players from last 50 years: Carmelo Anthony ranks No. 49
Editor's Note: As part of a new series for his podcast "What’s Wright with Nick Wright," FOX Sports commentator Nick Wright is ranking the 50 best NBA players of the last 50 years. The countdown continues today with player No. 49, Carmelo Anthony.
Carmelo Anthony's career highlights:
- 10-time All-Star
- Two-time second-team All-NBA, four-time third team
- 2013 scoring champion
- 2004 All-Rookie team
- Ninth on all-time scoring list
Carmelo Anthony is one of the greatest scorers ever.
If that sounds like opinion, it’s not. His career field-goal percentage is the same as Kobe Bryant’s. His free throw percentage is equal to Jerry West’s. His 3-point percentage is better than LeBron James’. And he’s the ninth leading scorer of all time.
So, what’s keeping Melo from placing higher on the list? A lack of team success.
"Yes, you would like to have a better playoff résumé," Wright said. "But if you have a better playoff résumé, and you’re top 10 all time in scoring, you’re higher than 49th."
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Carmelo Anthony is No. 49 on Nick Wright’s Top 50 NBA Players of the Last 50 Years. Nick says it’s hard to deny Melo's greatness as the NBA’s ninth all-time leading scorer.
That’s not to say Anthony, or his teams, underachieved. After being selected No. 3 overall in the 2003 NBA Draft, the 19-year-old Syracuse product propelled a Nuggets team that had won 17 games the prior season to 43 wins and a postseason berth.
Anthony led Denver to the playoffs in each of his first seven seasons, only to experience a series of first-round exits. The Nuggets did make one conference finals, in 2009, pushing the eventual-champion Lakers to six games behind Anthony’s 28-5-4.
"He’s a guy who, I would say, on the best team that he was on, they did exactly what they should have done in the postseason," Wright said. "They got as far as they should have gotten. They didn’t underachieve. … It’s not like there were a bunch of years when Carmelo was on the better team and fell short."
That narrative remained true in New York, after Anthony forced a trade there during the 2010-11 season. He’d win a scoring title, finish third in an MVP race and break the franchise’s single-game scoring mark (previously held by the No. 50 entrant on this list, Bernard King) with a 62-point outburst in 2014.
While with the Knicks, Anthony developed into a significantly better 3-point shooter, a better rebounder and a better playmaker. But his six-plus seasons amounted to one playoff series win.
Anthony averaged 27.5 points and 7.4 rebounds in the postseason from 2007-13. While his teams have made the playoffs 13 times in his storied career — it’s one that will undoubtedly end with a Hall of Fame induction — they got out of the first round only twice.
Last October, Anthony was included on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. He’s just a few hundred points from surpassing Shaquille O’Neal for eighth on the league’s scoring list and 30,000 career points is within reach.
"Carmelo Anthony and Bernard King, it’s a very interesting dichotomy here," Wright said. "I think Bernard King’s peak was higher, but Carmelo was close to him peak-wise, and he did it so much longer."