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

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

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

After guiding Syracuse to the NCAA national championship in his freshman year, Carmelo joined the 2003 NBA Draft. He was picked by the Denver Nuggets as the No. 3 overall choice and started scoring points immediately.

In the 2003-04 season, Anthony was the top scorer among all rookies, averaging 21.0 points per game. He barely surpassed Rookie of the Year winner LeBron James, who averaged 20.9 points per game. This remarkable rookie class, which included Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh among the top five picks, was filled with future stars.

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 scored 13,970 points, making him the third highest scorer in the franchise’s history. He achieved this over 564 games, averaging 24.77 points per game. His shooting accuracy was 45.9% from the field (4,989 successful attempts out of 10,877), 31.1% from the 3-point range (410 out of 1320), and 80.3% from the free throw line (3,582 successful attempts out of 4,462).

During the middle of the 2010-11 season, Carmelo was transferred to the New York Knicks. Despite the shift from Colorado’s mountains to the streets of New York City, Carmelo’s scoring streak continued. He consistently racked up points every night while playing at Madison Square Garden.

Indeed, the scoring continued at nearly the same rate as it had 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 was a mere 0.05 points per game between his initial seven-and-a-half seasons and the following six-and-a-half seasons. Altogether, this accounts for 14 seasons of consistently being among the league’s top scorers.

Although Carmelo only secured one scoring title in his career (2012-13, 28.7 ppg), he consistently ranked among the top 10 scorers for nine consecutive seasons (2005-06 to 2013-14). Within this period, he also finished second in the race for the scoring title on two occasions.

After the 2016-17 season, Carmelo Anthony was traded by the Knicks to the Oklahoma City Thunder, marking the start of the third phase of his career. Currently, he continues to thrive in Portland as a valuable reserve for the Blazers team which has recently secured four consecutive wins. The team is striving to advance from the Play-In Tournament and secure a playoff spot for the eighth consecutive season.

Carmelo, who is Portland’s fourth-highest scorer with an average of 13.6 points per game, played a more significant 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 make open shots or create opportunities by himself, whether off the dribble or in the post, is an invaluable asset.

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Let’s take another look at the Hall of Famers that Carmelo Anthony has surpassed this season and is expected to surpass this week. They include Tim Duncan (1997-2016), Dominique Wilkins (1982-99), Oscar Robertson (1960-74), Hakeem Olajuwon (1984-2002), and Elvin Hayes (1968-84). These five players cover almost the entire history of the NBA, representing various positions and time periods. What made them unique is their ability to excel in any era of the game, a characteristic shared by Carmelo Anthony.

Carmelo’s physical strength makes him one of the most robust wing players in the game. He has the ability to play in the post, drive the lane, and finish through contact. The physical nature of previous generations’ play, such as hand checking and hard fouls, would not have discouraged him.

Carmelo is not excessively dependent on the 3-point shot unlike many of today’s top scorers who heavily rely on it to accumulate their points. Even though Carmelo is capable of shooting the three, it was not his main scoring strategy. The accompanying chart shows that most of his baskets were scored either in the restricted area (3,892 FGM) or mid-range (3,543 FGM). These two zones make up 56.2% of Anthony’s overall points, with an additional 23.4% coming from free throws.

Anthony may not possess extraordinary speed, the ability to jump exceptionally high, or shoot from 40 feet out like his current teammate Damian Lillard. However, he capitalizes on his size, quick first step and superior footwork to consistently unsettle defenders attempting to restrain him.

If you guard him too closely, he can slip past you, either reaching the basket, drawing a foul, or making a pull-up jumper. If you guard him too loosely, he’ll punish you by sinking a three-pointer and running down the court, tapping his temple thrice as a reminder not to leave him unguarded. If your offense is struggling or the shot clock is running down and you need to make a shot, find Carmelo in the post and let him take charge.

Anthony is poised to enter the top 10 scorers club this week, regardless if it’s Monday or later. His next target is to climb even higher up the rankings. Moses Malone, who is just 118 points ahead of Anthony, is next in line. If Anthony continues to score at his current average, he would surpass Malone for the ninth spot in just nine games. Coincidentally, the Blazers have exactly nine games remaining in the regular season for Anthony to achieve this.