Carmelo Anthony on cusp of reaching Top 10 all-time in scoring

Oscar Robertson, Dominique Wilkins, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Tim Duncan.

Those are the players that Carmelo Anthony has passed in career scoring so far this season. After beginning the 2020-21 season ranked 15^th on the all-time scoring list, Anthony enters Monday’s game needing 10 points to pass Elvin Hayes and enter the top 10 scorers in the 75-year history of the NBA.

In his 18^th season, Anthony is currently averaging 13.6 points per game for the Portland Trail Blazers, who face the Hawks in Atlanta on Monday (8 ET, NBA League Pass), giving Carmelo an opportunity to put himself in the top 10 scorers club with just one more double-digit scoring night in a career full of them.

Top 11 Scorers – NBA History (entering Monday, May 3, 2021)

RANK	PLAYER	GP	PTS	PTS/GM	TS%
1	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	1,560	38,387	24.61	59.2
2	Karl Malone	1,476	36,928	25.02	57.7
3	LeBron James	1,307	35,299	27.01	58.7
4	Kobe Bryant	1,346	33,643	24.99	55.0
5	Michael Jordan	1,072	32,292	30.12	56.9
6	Dirk Nowitzki	1,522	31,560	20.74	57.7
7	Wilt Chamberlain	1,045	31,419	30.07	54.7
8	Shaquille O’Neal	1,207	28,596	23.69	58.6
9	Moses Malone	1,329	27,409	20.62	56.9
10	Elvin Hayes	1,303	27,313	20.96	49.1
11	Carmelo Anthony	1,185	27,304	23.04	54.2

Carmelo, after guiding Syracuse to the NCAA national championship in his freshman year, entered the 2003 NBA Draft. He was chosen as the No. 3 overall pick by the Denver Nuggets and immediately started scoring from his first game.

In 2003-04, Anthony was the highest-scoring rookie with an average of 21.0 points per game, slightly surpassing LeBron James, the Rookie of the Year winner, who scored 20.9 points per game. This impressive class also included Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh among the top five selections.

Carmelo made an instant impact with the Nuggets, who went from 17-65 and 29^th in the league in scoring in 2002-03 to 43-39 and fifth in scoring in Anthony’s rookie season. He spent the first seven-and-a-half seasons of his career in Nuggets blue and yellow and made the playoffs every season.

While playing for the Nuggets, Anthony accumulated 13,970 points, the third highest in the franchise’s history, over 564 games. This resulted in an average of 24.77 points per game. His shooting accuracy was 45.9% from the field (4,989 successful shots out of 10,877 attempts), 31.1% from the 3-point range (410 out of 1320), and 80.3% from the free throw line (3,582 successful shots out of 4,462 attempts).

Carmelo was traded to the New York Knicks midway through the 2010-11 season. Although the backdrop shifted from Colorado’s mountains to New York City’s streets, Carmelo didn’t stop scoring consistently every night at his new home, Madison Square Garden.

Indeed, the scoring continued at almost the same rate as it did in Denver. Anthony, who averaged 24.77 points per game with the Nuggets, would go on to average 27.72 points per game with the Knicks. The difference in his scoring average between his initial seven-and-a-half seasons and the following six-and-a-half seasons was only 0.05 points per game. This means that for 14 seasons, Anthony consistently ranked among the league’s top scorers.

Carmelo only secured a single scoring title in his career during the 2012-13 season, with 28.7 points per game. However, for nine consecutive seasons (2005-06 to 2013-14), he was among the top 10 scorers, and twice during this period, he finished second in the scoring title race.

After the 2016-17 season, Carmelo Anthony was traded from the Knicks to the Oklahoma City Thunder, marking the start of the third phase of his career. Currently, he’s a pivotal reserve player for the Portland Trail Blazers, who have won four consecutive games and are aiming to escape the Play-In Tournament to secure a playoff spot for the eighth year in a row. His career continues to flourish in Portland.

Carmelo, as Portland’s fourth-highest scorer with an average of 13.6 points per game, played a more critical role earlier in the season when CJ McCollum was out for two months due to a foot fracture. As the postseason approaches, having a dependable veteran scorer who can either make open shots or generate his opportunities off the dribble or in the post is an incredibly valuable asset.

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Let’s take another look at the Hall of Famers whose records Carmelo has already broken this season and is set to break this week – Tim Duncan (1997-2016), Dominique Wilkins (1982-99), Oscar Robertson (1960-74), Hakeem Olajuwon (1984-2002), and Elvin Hayes (1968-84). These five players span nearly the entire history of the NBA, representing different positions and eras. What sets them apart is their timeless skills that could have excelled in any era of the game. The same can be said about Carmelo Anthony.

Carmelo, recognized as one of the strongest wing players in the game, would not have been phased by the physicality of past generations. He has the ability to play in the post, drive the lane, and complete plays despite contact. Physical challenges such as hand checking and hard fouls would not have deterred him.

Unlike many of today’s prominent scorers who primarily rely on the 3-point shot to accumulate their points, he doesn’t overly depend on it. Though Carmelo has the ability to shoot the three, it was never his main scoring method. The chart above shows that most of his points were scored either inside the restricted area (3,892 FGM) or in mid-range (3,543 FGM). These two areas contributed to 56.2% of Anthony’s total points, while an additional 23.4% came from free throws.

Anthony may not possess extreme speed, exceptional leaping ability, or shoot from 40 feet out like his teammate Damian Lillard, but he leverages his size, swift initial move, and excellent footwork to consistently unbalance defenders attempting to restrain him.

If you guard him too closely, he can evade you, driving to the basket for a layup, drawing a foul, or shooting a pull-up jumper. If you give him too much space, he’ll punish you by effortlessly sinking a 3-pointer and running down the court tapping his temple thrice as a warning not to leave him unguarded. Lastly, if the offense slows down or time is running out on the shot clock and a shot must be taken, locate Carmelo in the post and let him work his magic.

Anthony is poised to enter the top 10 scorers club soon, whether it happens Monday or later in the week. He can then focus on advancing even further up the list. His next target is Moses Malone, who is only 118 points ahead of him. Given his current scoring rate, Anthony would require nine games to overtake Malone for the ninth position. Conveniently, the Blazers have nine more games remaining in their regular season for him to achieve this.