"Am I really nice?" - Carmelo Anthony opens up about the self-doubt he battled as his NBA career wound down

The NBA is thriving in the player-empowerment era, which means players often get to dictate which team they play for and the paths they take. It’s a privilege often reserved for the game’s premier superstars like LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant. Many thought that Carmelo Anthony also belonged to that category, but as his career ended, it became clear he didn’t.

Looking back on the tumult that he dealt with at the tail end of his decorated career, the high-scoring 6’7″ forward recalled feeling so disappointed and disheartened that he began to question his abilities and legacy in the NBA.

When Melo was at the peak of his powers, he was a bull-strong forward who could score from anywhere on the floor. An automatic bucket, so to speak, as evidenced by his averaging 24.8 points per game on 45.2 percent shooting over his first 14 NBA seasons with the Denver Nuggets and the New York Knicks.

However, Melo’s scoring prowess, while impressive and earning him All-Star honors and All-NBA Team selections, also invited criticism: that he was a ball hog who could not be effective without the ball in his hands, a criticism that weighed on him late in his career. This was apparent during his ill-fated 10-game tenure with the Houston Rockets in 2018, when team officials decided they were better off with him sitting out instead of playing.

A few months later, Carmelo was traded to the Chicago Bulls and was promptly waived. He would not play again until late 2019, when the Portland Trail Blazers signed him for the veteran’s minimum. He recalled how he fumbled during those months without a job and a team, feeling despondent and confused.

“Imagine going through that as a player. So now you start questioning, like, ‘Damn, yo, damn, was my career worth it? Did I really do what I was supposed to do in my career? Am I supposed to be here? Am I really nice?'” Melo shared.

“I was down, down, down, down. I was back on the ground, hands up. Y’all got me. It’s a stickup. Like, take everything,” he continued. “For 15 months. Like, what the f–k is going on? Nobody got an answer for me. Everybody on TV making excuses, or it’s this, or it’s that. He didn’t want to come off the bench. What?”

Related: “The misconception of just being a scorer” – Carmelo Anthony opens up on the narrative that defined his career

Fifteen months is a long time to be away from NBA basketball. During that extended hiatus, Melo buckled down and tried to figure out where he went wrong and what he could do to return to the big leagues. He candidly admitted that despite his efforts, he never came up with a suitable answer.

“I’m going to be honest with you. Like, as I studied it and kind of, like, did some knowledge on it, tried to get understanding on it, I still can’t come up with nothing,” Carmelo remarked. “And it’s like, what was it? You know, some people came up to me like, ‘Melo, I’m going to be honest with you. It was your aura was too much for out here, right? This couldn’t exist. Your aura couldn’t exist in here. Nobody was going to tell you that.'”

“I said, ‘What the f–k does that mean?’ Like, I’m sitting…I said, ‘What? What does that mean?'” he added. “My point is, Everybody had a thousand and one reasons of why it happened, and I still don’t know the reason why it happened.”

Melo regained his footing in Portland, even making the postseason in each of his seasons there. He ended his NBA career playing with his good friend LeBron James on the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2021-22 season before retiring in May 2023.

Related: “It started becoming a domino effect” – Carmelo Anthony opened up about the negative labels that nearly ended his career