Carmelo Anthony on being ranked 15th best in the NBA: ‘It was disrespectful’
Carmelo Anthony is one of the biggest stars in the NBA. But is he still one of the league’s best players?
Slam magazine doesn’t think so. In ranking the top 50 players going into the 2016-17 season, it placed Anthony at No. 15 — and that’s even after acknowledging that the New York Knicks forward “quietly had one of his best all-around seasons last year.”
Anthony was asked about the ranking after practice on Thursday. “I just looked at it, and it was disrespectful,” he said.
After coming in at No. 4 in 2013, Anthony dropped to No. 7 in 2014 and No. 13 last year. Now he finds himself ranked just ahead of Golden State’s Draymond Green (No. 16) and just behind the Clippers’ Blake Griffin (No. 14) and the Warriors’ Klay Thompson (No. 13).
It definitely caught the superstar’s attention. Anthony left two comments to Slam on the Instagram post that revealed him as No. 15 — “don’t play yaself” and “all credibility lost in my [eyes].”
Still, Anthony said, “It is what it is. I take it with a grain of salt. I laugh at it. I definitely wasn’t upset about it yesterday. It was just kind of surprising. ... So it’s just more of kind of letting them know, ‘You lost some credibility with me.’”
Twitter: @chewkiii
More to Read
Go beyond the scoreboard
Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.