On Jeremy Lin: Carmelo Anthony Has Grown Up

We’re sure Melo was always a nice guy. Syracuse-educated (just like the man Bob Costas, and Shaquille O’Neal) a hard worker, and an even better scorer. It takes a nice guy to wear that ugly Nuggets baby blue for eight seasons, after all.

But, today, Melo finally grew up, because let’s be real: there were hints (or outright obvious emissions) of Diva there. Melo was a bit of a whiner. As much game as he brought on the court, he brought a lot of dramatics off it. There seemed to be an aura about him, like he was the only guy he wanted on the court, even if that wasn’t the case.

But now, we saw him address the Jeremy Lin situation, and we couldn’t be prouder.

Welcome to Kobe status. Only, Kobe had to deny raping a woman before he could grow up. Melo just got older. (*That’s a better route.)

“Kobe Bryant: Rape case taught me me how to deal with pressure,” VIBE (July 17, 2012)

Instead of being jealous of Lin, Melo was the one who begged D’Antoni to play him more. When he returned, he said he was excited to play with Harvard Jer, even if the two didn’t flow quite right. Sure, he did call the Rockets’ $25 million offer sheet to Lin “ridiculous,” but that was targeted at the contract and at the Rockets itself, not Lin.

How it should have been said was, “Man, they’re trying to poach our players by offering them money we won’t match. Ridiculous.”

Sure, a little part of Melo has to be happy knowing he’s still the big dog. Of course, Melo chose to go to New York, to play with Amar’e. He wants Chris Paul.

And, today, Carmelo Anthony showed just what an adult he is. He’s happy for Lin. He’s happy he got paid. So, maybe, if you can’t understand Melo, you don’t understand one very important thing: basketball is an individual game.

“Everybody knows what he did for us, what he did for him, what he did for the game of basketball, so… for me to see him move on, I don’t know if it’s sad. I’m kind of happy for him, for him, to be able to start at where he started at and to be able to end up where he is now. But, I didn’t want to see him leave.”

Is that you, Melo? Welcome to the World of Gentlemen, Gentleman.