00:00 Carmelo Anthony has announced his retirement.
00:03 I think that's a big deal.
00:05 That is.
00:06 What?
00:06 He's kind of been retired, though.
00:08 I mean, he should have been playing, but he's kind of been retired.
00:10 Yeah. You know what I said at one point years ago, like he's best off
00:14 playing in China because the game has changed so much.
00:16 And I meant it at the time.
00:17 And then he had several productive years after I said that.
00:20 If I'm seeing a theme with you, Max. Yeah.
00:23 I motivate asking the cliff.
00:27 Yes, I am the second most important quarterback of the era, apparently.
00:31 Listen, it is interesting, Dre, like Carmelo's whole.
00:35 He was a little late to recognize how much the league had changed
00:40 and what he really needed to do to continue to be effective.
00:42 But as a result of that, I think he's kind of framed unfairly.
00:47 Like the league changed right out from under his feet.
00:50 You know, he was an elite player for a good number of years.
00:53 He was. And so Carmelo is a surefire Hall of Famer, right?
00:58 It's the Basketball Hall of Fame.
00:59 It's not even just the NBA Hall of Fame.
01:01 And he's done so much.
01:02 College champion Olympics, in addition to all of his scoring exploits.
01:06 But as you said, the game changed even before it was obvious
01:11 that the game changed, though he was a kind of two step off
01:15 the dribble score at a time when the impact of that type of player
01:20 just wasn't as as large as the 30 points per game would suggest.
01:25 So, you know, talk a lot about the analytics.
01:27 The analytics always suggested that he was, you know, really good.
01:31 But, you know, maybe not
01:34 the franchise change changer that he was brought in to be with the Knicks.
01:39 But with all of that said, I loved watching him in Syracuse.
01:42 I loved watching his NBA career.
01:44 And even though he hasn't been in the league, it is huge news that he's retiring.
01:46 I must say this, Dre, man, he's one of the coldest I've ever seen do it.
01:50 Like that was that equates to winning championships.
01:53 Like I'm just talking strictly skill set, strictly, you know,
01:57 a transformational type of basketball player.
02:00 That's one of the best scores the game of basketball has ever seen.
02:02 Like his his two, three game dribble set up moves
02:06 that he's able to get into his bag with.
02:08 I've never it's rare that I've seen anybody make Mello feel uncomfortable
02:13 when he was in his prime. Yeah.
02:15 Yeah. There's a clip that's been going around on social media
02:18 saying that Mello is the only person in NBA history to cross somebody up
02:22 without dribbling, just with his jab step and then like crossing back.
02:25 And like he was making people stumble with that.
02:27 So, yeah, what he could do, he was nice with it.
02:30 You know, I think it was Bill Walker.
02:31 It was a player back in the day
02:33 that said Mello's jumper is wet all the time.
02:35 And, you know, that's about the biggest compliment you can get for a baller.
02:38 Dre, he was never really.
02:41 Look, it takes so much to win a championship.
02:43 You know, Paul Pierce finally gets Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.
02:48 And out of that, they got one.
02:50 Right. It is that hard to do.
02:52 Carmelo was never in that situation.
02:54 He never had a situation like that quite so, you know.
02:57 Well, Max, ain't that something, though?
02:59 Like you stay around in New York because you want to be in New York.
03:01 And then all of a sudden it feels like he's one of New York's greatest.
03:04 But at the same time, like he almost got crucified for wanting to stay.
03:08 And it's not his fault either, that even though the Knicks had them over a barrel,
03:13 Dolan made a stupid day, overrode his GM and made a stupid trade.
03:16 He's done that many times before.
03:18 So so that's also not Carmelo's fault.
03:20 He went to a gutted team, you know.
03:22 And to the point you just made, if you compare Mello with Paul Pierce,
03:26 Pierce got his championship when not only more talent, but a better player came.
03:32 You know, Mello never really had that opportunity too much to be on teams
03:36 where there was clearly a championship franchise player that he could play off of.
03:42 And maybe that speaks to the difference in championships between him and Pierce.
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