Denver Nuggets: Carmelo Anthony’s Struggles with George Karl Revealed

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Carmelo Anthony has not played NBA basketball since November 8 against his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

In the past year, the Los Angeles Lakers, Brooklyn Nets and his former team, New York Knicks have all been rumored to have had interest in Anthony.

Still, no deal has been signed.

On a recent episode of the Scoop B Radio Podcast, NBA writer, Sean Deveney, a writer at Forbes and Heavy explained how Anthony’s time in the NBA has shaped perception.

Check out a snippet from our chat via Scoop B Radio below:

Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson: You talked about kind of just the Oklahoma City Thunder days and Knicks days. I can get back to Denver [Nuggets] he played in his first year under Jeff Bzdelik and then George Karl took over. When George Karl put out his book he said it was a conundrum around Carmelo Anthony. You know you look at any youngin’ with money out here doing his thang. They want the ball, they’re the star on the team. Then you look at Bzdelik when Carmelo comes to Houston he left because Carmelo came. So, Mike D’Antoni shot down those rumors. It seems like people just have this negative connotation about Carmelo and I feel like it’s often compared Carmelo vs. Wade and LeBron. Wade or LeBron took smaller deals they’ve moved around the league. Melo stayed and bulk. There’s this perception that Melo wants to just score and collect a lot of money. People forget he won gold medals with USA basketball. When the Knicks were losing he made it fashionable to come to New York when no one wanted to go. It kind of feels like in my mind people look at him like he took the money and he only care about himself. What do you see?

Sean Deveney: Yeah I think that’s right. I’m not a blind Melo defender. No question when he was in Denver, he was tough to deal with as far as coaches go because he was a ball stopper was very much so an iso-player wanted to back you down and take 13-14 footers and that’s not necessarily great basketball so there’s no question. George Karl is a great example look at how he was with Ray Allen, certainly DeMarcus Cousins. Karl doesn’t have a great reputation for producing, reaching and teaching young players. Showing them the way. You talk to Ray Allen about George Karl he’ll give you a mouth full about George Karl certainly DeMarcus Cousins as well. You have to put everything into context. I think with New York and in the end with Phil. Phil without saying it he scapegoated Carmelo. If you go back to when Carmelo was in the summer of 2014 when he was eligible for his new contract he had to opt-out of his old contract and sign that $115 million dollar deal. Phil was in the media saying it would be better if Carmelo wouldn’t of had a knee injury. That and Phil was telling the New York media that if Melo were to opt-in on the one-year deal than that would give us more flexibility when could do all this and that. That sucks you can’t tell a guy to opt-in to a one-year for 18-19 million to give up the possibility to get 115 million. But Phil was doing that setting him up to be the scapegoat that’s been the pattern that has fallen on Carmelo Anthony since then you know it’s something that he has found hard to escape since that time.

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