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

Dominique Wilkins, Oscar Robertson, 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

Following his successful lead of Syracuse to the NCAA national championship during his freshman year, Carmelo participated in the 2003 NBA Draft. He was chosen as the No. 3 overall pick by the Denver Nuggets and immediately began scoring from his first game.

In the 2003-04 season, Anthony was the leading scorer among all rookies, averaging 21.0 points per game. He marginally surpassed LeBron James, who scored an average of 20.9 points per game and won the Rookie of the Year award. This exceptional group of players also included Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh among the top five picks.

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, the third highest in the franchise’s history, over 564 games. This averages to 24.77 points per game. His shooting accuracy was 45.9% overall, 31.1% for 3-pointers, and 80.3% for free throws.

Halfway into the 2010-11 season, Carmelo was transferred to the New York Knicks. Despite the shift from Colorado’s mountains to the urban setting of New York City, Carmelo’s scoring prowess remained unaltered, regularly notching up points while making Madison Square Garden his home turf.

Indeed, the scoring continued at almost the same rate as it had in Denver. Anthony, who averaged 24.77 points per game with the Nuggets, went on to average 27.72 points per game with the Knicks. There was only a slight difference of 0.05 points per game in his scoring average between his initial seven-and-a-half seasons and the following six-and-a-half seasons. Overall, this represents 14 seasons of consistently being among the league’s top scorers.

Carmelo secured just one scoring title in his career (2012-13, 28.7 ppg), but for nine consecutive seasons (2005-06 to 2013-14) he was among the top 10 scorers. During this period, he twice finished as the second-highest scorer.

After the 2016-17 season, the Knicks transferred Anthony to the Oklahoma City Thunder, marking the start of the third phase of Carmelo’s career. Currently, he is a significant reserve for a Blazers team based in Portland. They have managed four consecutive wins and are aiming to escape the Play-In Tournament to secure a playoff berth for the eighth season in a row.

Carmelo, who is Portland’s fourth top scorer with an average of 13.6 points per game, had a more crucial role earlier in the season when CJ McCollum was out for two months due to a foot fracture. Going into the postseason, having a dependable veteran scorer who can either make open shots or create his own shots off the dribble or in the post is a significant advantage.

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Let’s take another look at the Hall of Famers Carmelo has already surpassed this season and is on track to surpass 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 cover almost the entire history of the NBA, embodying different positions and time periods. What makes them unique, however, is that their skills could have been showcased in any era of the game – a statement that equally applies to Carmelo Anthony.

Carmelo, being one of the most robust wing players in the game, would not have been disturbed by the physical nature of past generations. He is proficient in playing in the post, driving the lane, and finishing despite contact. Hand checking and hard fouls would not have discouraged him.

He doesn’t excessively depend on the 3-point shot, unlike many of today’s leading scorers who use it as their main method to accumulate points. Although Carmelo is capable of shooting threes, it has never been his main scoring tactic. The chart above shows that most of his baskets were scored either inside the restricted area (3,892 FGM) or from the mid-range (3,543 FGM). These two zones make up 56.2% of Anthony’s total points, while another 23.4% come from free throws.

Anthony may not possess extraordinary speed, isn’t known for his high jumps, and doesn’t shoot from 40 feet out, like his teammate Damian Lillard. Rather, he leverages his size, fast initial move, and exceptional footwork to continuously unsettle defenders attempting to guard him.

If you guard him too closely, he can bypass you, reaching the hoop, drawing a foul, or making a pull-up jumper. If you guard him too loosely, he will punish you by sinking a three-pointer and then jogging back down the court, tapping his temple three times as a warning not to leave him unguarded. If the offense stalls or the shot clock is running out and a shot needs to be taken, locate Carmelo in the post and let him do his thing.

Anthony is poised to enter the top 10 scorers club, whether it happens on Monday or later in the week. He can then aim to ascend even higher on the list. The next milestone is surpassing Moses Malone, who currently has a lead of just 118 points over Anthony. Given Anthony’s current scoring average, it would take him nine games to overtake Malone for the ninth spot. Conveniently, the Blazers have nine games remaining in the regular season for him to accomplish this.