For 3 a long time we’ve lined many superb basketball characters, however some stand above the remaining—not solely due to their on-court expertise (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 notice: 30 entries, not 30 folks whole) who imply one thing particular to SLAM and to our viewers. Learn the full listing right here and order your copy of SLAM 248, the place this listing was initially printed, right here.
Carmelo Anthony formally retired from the NBA in Might 2023, after racking up 28,289 factors, making six All-NBA groups and profitable three Olympic Gold medals. Whereas he spent his previous few 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 had been ultimately dispatched by larger competitors. However I believe as time goes on, we are going to 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 severe 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 Lodge in Occasions Sq. the place the NBA housed the gamers. His brokers needed us to fulfill upfront of Melo taking on the SLAM Rookie Diary, which I might assist him write every month. We shared an ungainly meal collectively, Melo simply weeks faraway from profitable the NCAA Event with Syracuse, and simply hours away from the most important second of his life. I largely simply tried to remain out of his approach that day.
However we had been in fixed contact all through his rookie yr—shout out tmail, IYKYK—and it was exceptional to see Melo achieve 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 had been feeling out related traces of inquiry concerning 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 quilt of SLAM, his fourth cowl because the 2003 Draft. Melo was getting 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 robust for the Nuggets to interrupt via—issues had been so stacked that the 2007-08 Nuggets received 50 video games and nonetheless completed eighth within the Western Convention.
Down to provide us time for a canopy shoot, Melo needed to pitch us an concept: He needed to be on the quilt seated in a director’s chair. Nope, I rapidly responded. As a result of if there was one factor the good Dennis Web page taught all of us at SLAM, it was 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’d get a director’s chair and take footage with Carmelo in it, however for the quilt picture, we’d use no matter labored greatest. Because it turned out, the director’s chair labored greatest, 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 the whole lot in my very own palms. It was arduous to fathom that I went from a row home mission constructing to a penthouse. It’s nonetheless arduous to fathom that.”
Melo’s basketball story could have come to a sleek finish, however he’s clearly not completed. He guest-edited SLAM’s Social Justice challenge in 2020, addressing head-on lots of the social points in America then and now. The previous few years, he’s accomplished the whole lot from proudly owning a soccer workforce to appearing on TV and in films to launching a podcast to being profiled in Advert Week. And it don’t cease.
Folks usually ask me who my favourite NBA gamers are, and the reality is, I don’t have favourite gamers a lot as I’ve favourite folks. 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 Photographs.