It was recently announced that former Nugget great Carmelo Anthony is going to the Basketball Hall of Fame this year. This class also features Dwight Howard, the 2008 US Olympic Men’s Basketball Team, coach Billy Donovan, referee Danny Crawford, prominent WNBA legends Sue Bird, Sylvia Fowles, Maya Moore, and Heat owner Mickey Arison.
The Denver Nuggets community obviously has its biggest connection to Anthony, who spent his first 7.5 years of his career in the Mile High City, after being drafted 3rd overall by the Nuggets in the 2003 NBA draft. However, the toxicity surrounding Melo and the Denver faithful has been well-reported, after he demanded a trade and was shipped to the New York Knicks in 2011.
To this day, Anthony also claims that he never truly demanded a trade from the Nuggets, which directly conflicts with the stories and reports at the time, as well as common sense. Due to this, many Nuggets fans have not been able to look past his departure. Years later, Nikola Jokic (now 3x MVP and 1x champion) began wearing the same #15 jersey that Melo wore in Denver.
His success in Denver has polarized the conversations further about whether the team should retire Anthony’s jersey and have two #15s in the rafters since Jokic will surely have his jersey up there. Retiring two players with the same jersey number is incredibly rare, but not unheard of thanks the the New York Knicks (#15 Earl Monroe and Dick McGuire) and Portland Trail Blazers (#30 Terry Porter and Bob Gross).
This decision to retire Anthony’s jersey or not is tough based on history
The Nuggets currently have seven current jerseys up in their rafters, consisting of six players and a coach. The players featured are Alex English (#2), Fat Lever (#12), David Thompson (#33), Byron Beck (#40), Dan Issel (#44), and Dikembe Mutombo (#55). Meanwhile, the lone coach represented is Doug Moe (#432), whose jersey represents his coaching wins in Denver.
Of the six players, Thompson (7 years), Lever (6 years), and Mutombo (5 years) all actually spent less seasons with Denver than Anthony did. At the same time, all of English, Beck, and Issel spent over a decade with the team, so the “unofficial tenure requirement” should not stop Anthony from having his number retired.
The debate gets a bit more complicated than that however. All of Lever, Issel, Thompson, and Beck had connections to Denver dating back to the ABA days when they were the Rockets and were a part of the Nuggets inaugural season in the NBA in 1976. Meanwhile, English was the NBA scoring champ in 1983 with Denver and Mutombo won DPOY in 1995 and led the 8-1 playoff upset with the Nuggets.
Anthony was not a part of the Nuggets inaugural team in the NBA obviously, but also never won a major award/scoring title with Denver (his 2013 scoring title came with the Knicks). None of the current players in the rafters left the team via trade mid-season like Anthony did either, which makes the decision more perplexing. Regardless, Melo was a top-tier Nugget.
The verdict: Yes, it is crucial that the franchise retires Anthony's number
Anthony is a top 75 player ever, as showcased by his inclusion on the NBA 75th Anniversary Team. No other Nugget in history can say this, excluding Nikola Jokic, who would surely be on that team if the voting was done right now, rather than in 2021. Melo is more talented than perhaps any Nuggets player not named Jokic and deserves to be recognized as such.
Additionally, Melo helped make the franchise relevant again. Prior to Anthony being drafted, Denver had come off of eight losing seasons in a row, with no playoff appearances. The franchise had just one winning season in their previous 13 seasons before the Syracuse legend blessed them with his talents.
Lastly, it just makes sense from a timeline perspective to reward Melo with a jersey retirement. Players like Lever, Issel, Thompson, and Beck helped pay homage to the franchise in the 1970s, Then a few of them and Alex English carried the Nuggets' history in the 1980s before passing off the baton to Mutombo for the first half of the 1990s.
If Melo does not get his jersey retired by Denver in the future, there would be a massive gap from 1996-2015. The 2000s decade of Nuggets history, where Denver made the playoffs 10 straight years, would be entirely neglected. Luckily, Anthony’s run with Denver from 2003-2011 would help bridge that historical gap in a massive way before the Nuggets eventually retire Jokic and his #15.
Do the right thing, Denver. Get Carmelo Anthony in the rafters like he deserves.