PDA

View Full Version : Sadly, Carmelo has little choice



alamo50
04-09-2003, 05:45 PM
By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com

There’s no financial reason for ’Cuse star to delay pros

It’s nice that Carmelo Anthony actually has enjoyed being in college and didn’t spend his spectacular freshman year talking about all the money he’s going to make and the Hummers he’s going to buy. And there’s not a soul in the Syracuse fan base who doesn’t want him to stay another year. Just the same, if I were he, I’d take the NBA money and run and gun.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/1856126.jpg
Syracuse's Carmelo Anthony cuts off a piece of the net after winning the championship game 81-78 on Monday. Anthony, a freshman, scores 20 points in the final and was named the tournament MVP

IT’S NOT THAT I don’t appreciate the value of a college education. Without one, I wouldn’t have this swell job in which I get to tell kids with more talent in their little fingers than I have in my entire body — creaky joints and all — what to do with their lives.
That’s the whole point, though. Many of us go to college to acquire the skills we’ll need to forge a career and earn a decent living for ourselves and our families. Anthony already has such skills. He’ll earn a very fine living, and he’ll still have time to read Tolstoy, if he so desires.
And if Carmelo truly wants that college education, then all he has to do is say, “I’m staying four years, and I’m getting my diploma,” and neither you nor he will hear any more from me other than, “Congratulations, big guy. Good decision.”

But we don’t hear that from Anthony or even from Syracuse fans. What I hear is the crowd chanting, “One more year.” This isn’t a statement about the necessity of getting a college degree. It’s a plea to make it through sophomore year before moving on to his ultimate place of employment — the NBA. The folks taking up the chant don’t want Anthony to declare a major and start thinking about his senior thesis. They just want to watch him win more games for the orange and blue.
So it’s not about getting an education or anything other than winning another title for good old ’Cuse. If I’m Anthony, I realize that I’ve done what I came to do and I’d move on. Catching a magic ride two years straight doesn’t happen that often.

Injury is always a possibility, and a shredded knee could drop his NBA value. Right now, he’s worth as much as anyone; he might even be a better number one overall pick than LeBron James.
The NBA’s salary scale is so structured that a kid who comes out of school after four years will never make up the money he could have earned if he had come out early. There is a rookie salary cap and caps all the way up the seniority scale. Kids who come out of high school start working up the scale immediately, even as they’re taking three or four years to learn the pro game. Anthony is learning the game, too, except he’s not getting paid for it.
I wish there were a system that rewards kids for going to college and staying there, but there isn’t. The rewards are there for the kids who leave when their value is at its peak. That’s where Anthony is now, and there is such an enormous amount of money at stake, he should take it.
I can’t blame the fans who want him to stay. If he played for my school, I’d be chanting, too. The kid can play the game like Mozart played the pianoforte. I’d be nuts to want him to leave, and I’d fall back on every rationalization I could to try to justify my purely selfish desire that he stay.
Nor can I blame Anthony for not saying he’s going after that diploma, because it’s been pretty clear all along that’s not his goal. His mother, who sounds like a smart and sensible woman, would be delighted if he did get the degree. Unlike LeBron James’ mother, she hasn’t taken out demand loans to buy him cars, and she hasn’t hung her star on his talent.
Education, she knows, is the only reliable way to get off the streets. Sure, one in several million is born with the sort of talent Anthony has demonstrated and can turn that skill into tens of millions of dollars, and millions of kids in circumstances both deplorable and delightful grow up chasing that dream.
One of the cruelties of life is that, when Anthony leaves school, whether this year or next, the next generation of kids will look at what he’s getting and not the talent it takes to get it. They’ll put their dreams in a ball and a hoop and dismiss a college degree as a legitimate way to further themselves.

But that’s not Anthony’s problem. Even if he stayed four years, the kids will just see the basketball player and the professional career. They’ll never see the value of the education until other players of lesser talents start using their scholarships to get an education rather than as a four-year break between high school and real life. The reality is that most kids from the streets who get scholarships don’t graduate, and the roots of that problem reach far deeper than Carmelo Anthony.
He’s ready now to earn a living with a highly marketable skill. He’s got his championship. It’s time to turn pro.

lefty
12-25-2019, 11:04 AM
Title is still relevant today

DMC
12-25-2019, 01:52 PM
Except he's a millionaire today and doesn't need to play at all.

:lol @ could be better 1st overall than Lebron James.

Spurtacular
12-25-2019, 03:11 PM
:lol @ could be better 1st overall than Lebron James.

A lot of people had that opinion. That was before they knew how much of a cancer he is.

Millennial_Messiah
12-25-2019, 03:30 PM
if he stayed 1 more year he would have been the #1 overall pick easily. lol Dwight Howard, Emeka Okafor.