{"id":127459,"date":"2025-09-07T22:20:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T22:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/127459\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T22:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T22:20:07","slug":"when-chauncey-billups-alleged-carmelo-anthony-cared-more-about-scoring-30-points-than-winning-a-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/127459\/","title":{"rendered":"When Chauncey Billups Alleged Carmelo Anthony Cared More About Scoring 30 Points Than Winning a Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following a successful 19-year NBA career, Carmelo Anthony has finally been enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. Although the legendary forward never won an NBA championship, he has achieved something only a select few have. Putting on that orange jacket signifies an accomplishment of the highest degree. Anthony may be on the mountaintop now, but his career wasn\u2019t a straight path upward.<\/p>\n

Carmelo Anthony<\/a> holds a reputation as one of the greatest scorers of all time. The 10-time All-Star dominated from the very first time he stepped foot on an NBA<\/a> court. In the first 13 years of his career, he averaged at least 20 points per game. Those stellar performances came when he was the main scoring option on his team.<\/p>\n

Once Anthony\u2019s role began to change, his value as a player decreased. Teams began to view Anthony as selfish in terms of his play style. He wasn\u2019t a great defender and wasn\u2019t an ideal shooter since he operated mostly in the mid-range. As a result, he went the majority of the 2018-19 season without a team.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the Portland Trail Blazers gave him an opportunity<\/a> in November of the 2019-2020 campaign that Anthony quickly proved that he was worthy to be on an NBA roster the entire time. People began raising questions as to why teams didn\u2019t want to take a swing on an all-time great. His former teammate, Chauncey Billups<\/a>, knew the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMelo was like a good teammate, man. \u2018Melo practiced every day. He didn\u2019t miss any games. Now the only thing I will say\u2013and I\u2019ve even told \u2018Melo this\u2013scoring 30 meant too much to \u2018Melo,\u201d Billups said<\/a> on SiriusXM NBA Radio back in 2019.<\/p>\n

Only a few players know Anthony on a personal level and Billups is one of those people. The 6-foot-3 guard spent three seasons with Anthony, assisting the forward to his only Conference Finals appearance with the Denver Nuggets in 2009. Billups didn\u2019t hesitate to address Anthony\u2019s almost toxic obsession to score.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt meant too much because he could have games where he had 20, 22 [points], we win the game and he\u2019s mad. He might have 36 and he\u2019s in there, you know, we lose the game and he\u2019s in there picking everybody up,\u201d Billups said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t mentally taken that step back to say, \u2018OK, I\u2019ll come in and play against back-ups. I\u2019ll try to help the team out. I know I might not be able to close, but I just want to help.\u2019 Well, he\u2019s not there yet,\u201d\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n

At the time, Billups\u2019 comments may have seemed harsh, but they certainly had merit. In Anthony\u2019s sole season with the Oklahoma City Thunder, he had laughed at the notion of head coach Billy Donovan bringing him off the bench. But that absence from the NBA humbled Anthony drastically.<\/p>\n

After his first season with the Trail Blazers, he happily accepted a bench role, which would become the norm for his remaining two seasons. Anthony may not have been able to end his career on his terms, but he was still able to do so as a contributing rotational player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a successful 19-year NBA career, Carmelo Anthony has finally been enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,17873,22892,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-127459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-carmelo-anthony","11":"tag-chauncey-billups","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}