Carmelo Anthony is one of the greatest scorers the league has ever seen but he overcame a lot of off-court adversity to get to where he is. He lost his father at the age of two and recently appeared on Dwyane Wade’s podcast ‘The Why’ to discuss how he learned more about who his father was.
Carmelo Anthony first revealed the extent of his discovering Puerto Rican ties and how people around him told him he grew up to look just like his dad
“It wasn’t until high school when I went to Puerto Rico and they wanted me to play on the Junior National Team, representing Puerto Rico. I knew I was Puerto Rican, I didn’t know the ties. I knew my dad was Puerto Rican but I didn’t know how deep it goes. Honestly, that was a moment of like, I have to go figure this out. I gotta start asking questions because now this void of not having a dad is like damn I’m about to make it to the NBA, I wish he was here…you start having all of these moments, I’m doing it for him. …Everywhere I would go in Brooklyn they would say ‘Ay, yo you look just like your dad. You walk like your dad, you talk like your dad. Like your whole aura is your dad’.”
Anthony then discussed his father’s aura and the people he hung out with. In his discovery of who his father was, Anthony learned that he was a ‘Young Lord’, a Puerto Rican version of the Black Panther, as Anthony described it.
“As I started to discover, I realized my dad was a Young Lord. Young Lords are basically the Puerto Rican version of Black Panthers. It’s the version of the Black Panther depending on who you actually ask…So I started digging deeper into what is a Young Lord. Oh, he looks fly. So you start going now I can use the internet. Now I start pulling up pictures and researching and like wow that’s where I get it from.”
Anthony’s ties with Puerto Rico go deep but it was unfortunate that his father wasn’t around to raise him with those traditions. Anthony Iriarte passed away due to cancer when Melo was two years old, but it’s fair to say he has made his father incredibly proud.
Carmelo Anthony Lost To Puerto Rico In 2004 Olympics After Not Representing Them
Carmelo Anthony’s Puerto Rican roots meant he was allowed to choose between Puerto Rico and the USA for international representation. Anthony thought he could play in the 2004 Olympics for Puerto Rico, but plans changed when most elite American athletes decided to drop out.
Carmelo Anthony: “I’m going to break it down to you from my perspective. ‘04 I was gonna play with Puerto Rico…right after that I get the call for ‘04 Olympics [for USA].”
Dwyane Wade: “Because all the players opted out.”
Carmelo Anthony: “Everybody opted out so this is telling you where USAB was at that point in time. Everybody opted out. All the top dogs opted out. It was only a couple of people left. They call us, [and I thought] hell yeah I’m playing. That mindset of I’m going to get to it…Man, I get to play USA Basketball in the Olympics after my first year in the NBA. I can establish myself. This is [the] dream team. And we go play that game in ‘04, get the sh*t beat out of us and the rest is history.”
Anthony will always have to live with that run. He barely played for Team USA in 2004, mostly warming the bench and not getting PT in their loss to Puerto Rico. If he chose to represent them instead, he could’ve been the architect of one of the most famous victories in basketball history.
Melo played seven games in the 2004 Olympics, averaging just 6.7 minutes and 2.4 points per game. LeBron James was also a part of the Bronze medal-winning squad.
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