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For 3 many years we’ve lined many wonderful basketball characters, however some stand above the remainder—not solely due to their on-court expertise (although these are at all times 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 pictures, wonderful tales, compelling movies and extra.
We compiled a gaggle of people (programming observe: 30 entries, not 30 folks whole) who imply one thing particular to SLAM and to our viewers. Learn the full list here and order your copy of SLAM 248, the place this record was initially printed, here.
Carmelo Anthony formally retired from the NBA in Could 2023, after racking up 28,289 factors, making six All-NBA groups and successful 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 finally dispatched by larger competitors. However I feel as time goes on, we’ll bear 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 at risk of being overshadowed. However he shined his personal gentle and carved his personal path, which took severe work on and off the court docket. On the morning of the 2003 Draft, I sat right down to breakfast with Carmelo, proper there within the foyer of the Westin Resort in Occasions Sq. the place the NBA housed the gamers. His brokers needed us to satisfy prematurely of Melo taking on the SLAM Rookie Diary, which I’d assist him write every month. We shared an ungainly meal collectively, Melo simply weeks faraway from successful the NCAA Event with Syracuse, and simply hours away from the largest second of his life. I largely simply tried to remain out of his manner that day.
However we had been in fixed contact all through his rookie yr—shout out tmail, IYKYK—and it was outstanding to see Melo acquire 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 bear in mind, there was no actual blueprint for an athlete trying 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 comparable strains of inquiry concerning what their enterprise futures would possibly 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 duvet of SLAM, his fourth cowl because the 2003 Draft. Melo was coming into his sixth season, having averaged 24.4 ppg over these first 5 campaigns (all successful seasons), together with two All-Star appearances. Nonetheless, it was powerful for the Nuggets to interrupt by way of—issues had been so stacked that the 2007-08 Nuggets gained 50 video games and nonetheless completed eighth within the Western Convention.
Down to present us time for a canopy shoot, Melo needed to pitch us an thought: He needed to be on the duvet seated in a director’s chair. Nope, I shortly responded. As a result of if there was one factor the nice Dennis Web page taught all of us at SLAM, it was tips on how to make a dope journal cowl. It was laborious 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 by utilizing a photograph with him in a director’s chair?
A compromise was reached. We might get a director’s chair and take photos with Carmelo in it, however for the duvet 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 development, and Melo famous, “It took me some time to determine that I had all the pieces in my very own arms. It was laborious to fathom that I went from a row home mission constructing to a penthouse. It’s nonetheless laborious to fathom that.”
Melo’s basketball story might have come to a sleek finish, however he’s clearly not completed. He guest-edited SLAM’s Social Justice issue in 2020, addressing head-on lots of the social points in America then and now. The previous few years, he’s executed all the pieces from proudly owning a soccer group to appearing on TV and in films to launching a podcast to being profiled in Advert Week. And it don’t cease.
Individuals 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, possibly the higher story is how he’s additionally grown right into a Corridor of Fame individual.
Photograph by way of Getty Pictures.
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