Carmelo Anthony recently retired as one of the most celebrated scorers in NBA history. He never won a championship during his playing career, but things could have been different if he had made some different choices.
Carmelo Anthony enjoyed some great years with the New York Knicks, but in 2014, it seemed like he might move on. And legendary Dallas Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki had made a public pitch at the time for Melo to join him on the Mavs.
“If Carmelo would really love to come here, we’d love to have him,” Nowitzki said in 2014 as per NBC Sports. “Listen, I think I’ve showed over my 16 years that I can play with anybody. The only tough season I think we’ve had is when we had (Antawn) Jamison and Antoine Walker and myself who are all three kind of the same 4-men, but other than that I think I’ve shown over my career that I can play with anybody.
“I’ll adjust, whether I have to get out of the way or go to the corner more, post up, pass. I’ll do whatever, really, that needs to be done out there to win or for this franchise to be a winner.”
These are some intense words from Nowitzki, he would have been fine adjusting his game to fit Carmelo Anthony’s if it would give the Mavericks a chance to win consistently. This ‘what if’ involving the two greatest scorers of all time is a thinker, could Melo have won a championship if he had joined the Mavs in 2014?
The Dallas Mavericks Could Have Made Some Noise In The 2014-15 Season With Carmelo Anthony
Dirk Nowitzki was starting to seriously decline by the time 2016 rolled along, but in 2014-15, he led the Dallas Mavericks to 50 wins. They lost in the first round of the playoffs, but the team still had some interesting role players. At that point, Melo was still averaging 24.2 points per game for the New York Knicks and was a perennial All-Star, so they could have made some noise in the West if they had acquired him.
What ended up happening was that Anthony re-signed with the Knicks on a five-year deal. He would eventually move teams and play for the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2017, but he would never win a championship. The Dallas Mavericks were also unable to achieve much in Nowitzki’s final years. It is pretty amazing to think what might have been, though.
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