Melo Burned
Carmelo finds hot water again…or maybe it’s the other way around…
by Lang Whitaker
With Carmelo Anthony hours away from signing an $80 million contract extension with the Nuggets, he probably wasn’t happy to hear this: A car was pulled over Sunday night outside Denver after police said the car was being driven erractically. While the driver was found to have marijuana and was booked and released, the car was found to belong to Carmelo Anthony. (I think. This story says it was registered to the driver’s home address. This story and this story say it was registered to Melo Enterprises. I guess we’re going with the majority here.)
While Melo hasn’t done anything legally wrong here, at the very least he’s shown poor judgement by surrounding himself with people who are going to get themselves, and in turn get him, into trouble.
Last summer I interviewed Melo and asked him about the incidents from the previous year, when marijuana belonging to a friend of his was found in his backpack, when he was branded as a malcontent on the 2004 Olympic team and then when Melo made his infamous appearance in the Stop Snitching tape.
“Regardless of whether or not somebody writes a great story or a terrible story about me, they’re always going to write about what I did over the summer,” Melo said. “That will always be attached. Does it bother me? No, not now. At first it did. I was like, Damn, you know, I don’t want to be reading about this in every story. That stuff don’t bother me, now.”
I feel like I know Melo pretty well. I ghost-wrote every one of his rookie diaries that ran in SLAM, I’ve written two features on him for SLAM and he and I still keep in touch. And he’s a nice kid, one of the nicest people in the NBA. But there’s an interesting duality: While he’s still a kid (he’s still only 22 years old), he wants to be a businessman and have a corporate side, too. I guess we can thank Jordan and Jay-Z for it, but now, it seems like every entertainer and athlete want to be both a businessman and a business, man.
Right now, I think we’re seeing Carmelo’s in-between, the dissonance before those two diametric sides resolve themselves. Melo’s growing up, and he’s doing it on a huge, very public stage. He had the best year of his career last season and put in a ton of afterhours work with assistant coach Tim Grgrich, and I thought we were seeing the maturation of Melo. Now I’m not so sure.
I know Melo likes “The Wire,” but someone please send him the recent two episode story-arc on “Entourage” involving Vince, Drama, Turtle, E and their troublesome buddy Dom.
Hopefully he can learn something from it.
16 Responses to “Melo Burned”
Jul.12 at 1:51 am
Gani says:
Youth isn’t really a good excuse for whatever happens to Melo outside the NBA. He should’ve learned from his mistakes the previous off-season. Yet history repeats itself again. Still, I hope he overcomes all these hurdles. I’ve been rooting for him since he entered the league. PS Great new site, Lang.
Jul.12 at 1:56 am
Sadaqat says:
“the dissonance before those two diametric sides resolve themselves”? Who are you, Tom Shales?
Jul.12 at 1:58 am
Adrian Zapata says:
yeaa melo needs to start thinking. He’s one step from being a megasuperstar
Jul.12 at 4:04 am
chad li says:
it’s pretty unfair that what everyone around melo does reflects back on him, but thats the way its always gunna be. so he just gotta watch it.
Jul.12 at 4:38 am
Vyse says:
Poster No. 1 is right — youth is a big excuse. I can quote Jay-Z too: “I call a, spade a spade / It just is what it is.” And what is Carmelo Anthony? Immature and irresponsible, surrounding himself with bad people — doesn’t who you kick it with speak to you as a person? It reflects back on Melo, as well it SHOULD. And 22 is not that young — the age thing is simply an excuse, at 22 you should know better. Hell, at age 16 you should know better. And he’s not even that great of a basketball player. Why in the world is he getting 80 million? He’s great at one thing: Scoring. He hasn’t even proved he can be consistently great at it anyway. He’s nowhere near a franchise player. To quote the Clipse, “Ugh”
Jul.12 at 9:38 am
ibrahim says:
Come on man, give the guy a break. It’s not his fault when someone in his crew messes up. I mean, he can’t just be a ‘Big Brother’ over all his buddies.
Melo is one of my top 3 favorite players in the L but I am trying to give an objective opinion. Just because someone was driving the car erratically, in possession of marijuana….heck..it wasn’t Melo that was driving it. So they got no case against him. Like his tat says..”When the grass is cut, the snakes will show”
Jul.12 at 9:59 am
Tunez says:
I think Nas said it best on “Big Things” when he said, “I can’t hang on the corner with you no more, i’m into Big Things”. The same applies to Melo… keepin’ it real and staying true to your people is 1 thing, but to be jeopardizing what you have worked your whole life to achieve is plain stupid. And on the other hand, if your boys are putting you in situations like this, it’s time to send their ass home.
Jul.12 at 10:39 am
Sam Rubenstein says:
It’s just like The Wire. Carmelo is caught in between being Avon and Stringer. Avon stayed as true as he could to his roots, Stringer tried to get into the legit construction/politrix world. Things aren’t looking so great for either of them right now. By the way, that guy Dom from Entourage is really Herc from The Wire, one of the greatest cops in TV history.
Jul.12 at 12:52 pm
Joe Millionaire says:
Since when do u guys ghost write rookie diaries. And i thought they were genuine pieces of writing from the player himself!!!!
Jul.12 at 1:52 pm
Califolks says:
Yeah I’m kind of upset about you all ghost writing diaries as well. Very disappointing. Please tell me you’re kidding. If not does the trouble he’s getting into surprise you? If he cant write his own diary how can he be a business, man? Handle your own shit Melo, whether writing a diary or driving a car.
Jul.12 at 2:46 pm
Wellwisher says:
Lang supports Marbury (which I still believe is one of the most hypocritical defensive stances on a player since it comes from the same man who loathes Kobe Bryant) of all the people in the world, of course he’s going to support Carmelo.
Jul.12 at 3:45 pm
jurishoopdence says:
Who cares!? Melo’s buddy got in some trouble while he was driving around in a car he borrowed from Melo. Damn…we’d all be f***** if we were judged so harshly when one of our friends screwed up. Besides, all this dude did was get busted with some weed. It’s not like he took a stolen handgun that belonged to Melo and went out and shot someone.
Jul.12 at 5:49 pm
Lang Whitaker says:
If you think the players actually write diaries — not only in SLAM but in ESPN or SI or wherever — I have some real estate you might be interested in near the Everglades. The way I always look at is to try and write in that guy’s voice — for instance, the Kwame Brown quotes on today Links are a great example of how not to ghostwrite. But honestly, most of the diary guys know exactly what they want to say, they just don’t have the time to sit down and write it all out. –lang
Jul.14 at 1:00 am
hillsidefosho says:
Man quit hatin on melo he is on of the greatest players in the league and a hall of famer he was not in the car nor even in town so don’t blame him for other peoples problems he is right there with wade and lebron matter of fact he is the most clutch player in the nba and he only played 3 years and made more last second shots then Jordan made in his whole career I can go on and on don’t argue his greatness
Jul.15 at 10:59 pm
arm chair ghost louis says:
.
arm chair ghost louis As always a good post
Dec.21 at 7:34 pm
melomonster says:
u aint gonna blame him because it ain’t hi fault