Carmelo Anthony has a bunch of interesting stories. Ever since he was a kid, Melo started showing signs that he would be different, even off the court. He always tried to differentiate from others, finding fun ways to do so.
Right now, he’s Carmelo Anthony, one of the most talented scorers of all time in the NBA, but he could have been known very differently if his plans of changing his name went through. During his childhood, Anthony was mad that people kept messing with his name and decided to find a new one.
Celebrating his 38th birthday, Hoops View shared one of the funniest stories about Carmelo and the time when he changed his name to ‘Tyrone Johnson’, somebody people couldn’t mess with.
“That whole summer, people was butchering my name. It was just like ‘Caramelo’ and ‘Camelo’. “There wasn’t no nothing bad to it. I just didn’t like people f**king my name up… So I write the name ‘Tyrone’ and I’m looking around and I’m like ‘what last name am I gonna go with?’ So I see a textbook and it’s like ‘Johnson’ and something textbook. So I’m like, ‘Tyrone Johnson’. ‘Ain’t no f**king with Tyrone Johnson.’”
Even though he liked that name at the time, Tyrone Johnson sounds like a 13th, 14th, or 15th player on the bench. It doesn’t have the same impact as Carmelo Anthony, the all-time NBA great.
Now it’s pretty hard for people to mess with his name after all the good things he’s done in the league. Anthony just turned 38, but he has shown he has a lot left in the tank. It’ll be interesting to see if the Lakers re-sign him this summer, or if other teams like the Brooklyn Nets add his veteran presence to the roster. Tyrone came a long way to become Melo, and he’s still chasing that elusive NBA ring.
