The Denver Nuggets Should Retire Carmelo Anthony’s Jersey

While the attention may not be focused on Melo for the next few weeks in the Mile High City — all eyes are fixated on a likely NBA Finals matchup between the Nuggets and Miami Heat and possible first-ever championship for the franchise — it’s time to acknowledge the inevitable: Anthony’s No. 15 uniform should be up in the rafters.

Now, the actual uniform retirement can’t happen anytime soon, on account of Denver’s No. 15 currently being worn by Nikola Jokic, a two-time MVP and a living legend in his own right. But the Nuggets could instead lift two No. 15 jerseys high above the fans in Ball Arena.

Looking at Melo’s résumé, it’s clear to see why this make sense. He’s a future first-ballot NBA Hall of Famer who currently sits ninth all-time in total scoring. At the height of his powers, he garnered six All-NBA team recognitions in addition to ten NBA All-Star selections.

After being drafted third overall out of Syracuse in 2003, the native New Yorker took a team that had been a basement dweller and local laughingstock and transformed it — in just a few years, mind you — into a playoff contender that famously battled the Lakers in the 2009 Western Conference Finals. Some passionate fans even argue that Melo “saved” Nuggets basketball.

Before his arrival, Denver was a town that had come to expect success in its sports teams. The Colorado Avalanche had already won two championships not long after relocating from Quebec City to Denver, and the Denver Broncos had two Super Bowls under their belt. The Nuggets sucking for so many years just didn’t fit that vibe. But Melo changed that.

Where things start to get controversial is how Anthony departed Denver.

In the summer of 2010, the Nuggets offered the talented forward a contract extension. “We’re doing everything we can to make Melo the basketball version of John Elway, who plays with one team his entire career and becomes The Guy,” Nuggets executive Mark Warkentien said to the Associated Press at the time.

But Melo wasn’t interested in sticking around in Denver. He made that abundantly clear when he put his Littleton, Colorado, mansion on the market shortly before marrying actress and reality TV star La La Vazquez, a Brooklyn native who took Melo’s last name.

Not wanting to lose him for nothing in free agency after the 2010-2011 season, the Nuggets wound up trading Anthony to the Knicks in February 2011 for an absolute haul. The King of Park Hill, Chauncey Billups, joined Anthony in the trade, which saw Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov and multiple draft picks head to Denver. The deal had pluses and minuses for both sides.

The Nuggets were able to get assets in return for a great player, while the Knicks were finally able to put a true star on the court at Madison Square Garden — and it was a bonus that that star happened to be born in the Big Apple and raised in Brooklyn until age eight.

Despite excelling in New York and winning a scoring title, Anthony was never able to guide the Knicks past the second round of the NBA playoffs. He was swimming upstream against poor injury luck for teammates and an inept front office. The Nuggets experienced some success inspired by the play of Gallinari, but bad injury luck also doomed that particular Denver squad, as well.

It took time for the Nuggets to move on from losing such a scoring talent, but one aspect of the Melo deal helped: In 2016, a pick swap from the trade allowed the Nuggets to choose Jamal Murray in the first round of the NBA Draft. Since then, Murray has flourished as the starting point guard for the team and become one of the NBA’s best playoff performers.

While it was unrelated to the Anthony departure, the Nuggets also drafted Jokic during this time in the second round of the 2014 NBA Draft — a pick that ESPN deemed so inconsequential that the sports giant was airing a Taco Bell Quesarito commercial during the selection.

Jokic has become not only the greatest Nugget of all time, but one of the greatest NBA players to ever grace the hardwood. When all is said and done, his career will likely be mentioned in the same breath as Shaquille O’Neal, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and other dominant centers. So there’s no doubt that Jokic’s No. 15 jersey will be retired at some point in the future. But Melo’s should, as well.

Anthony’s departure from the Nuggets might have left a bitter taste in the mouths of fans, but the way he handled his career at the end of his Denver tenure actually doesn’t look so bad nowadays.

The trajectory of the NBA, like that of other major American sports leagues, has continued on an arc toward player empowerment. And players are becoming increasingly comfortable with requesting trades from situations that they don’t deem great fits. Denver was a perfect match for Melo at the beginning and part of the middle of his career, but that comfort level eventually faded. New York and Melo paired well with each other — and that’s okay to say. It’s not a knock at all on Melo’s tenure with Denver. There were fun times for both Anthony and the fans, which we can now sit and look back on.

Sure, there will be some understandably bitter Nuggets fans out there who feel like jilted lovers and argue against retiring two of the same numbered jerseys. But that point is belied by the fact that Anthony couldn’t wear the number 15 in New York — on account of there being not one, but two No. 15s already retired and hanging in the Garden.

The Nuggets just have to follow suit and raise two jerseys above the rafters: both Melo and the Joker.

It’s not as though Melo will be upstaging Jokic in all of this pomp, seeing how Jokic could someday have a much higher honor bestowed upon him when all is said and done: a statue outside of Ball Arena commemorating the greatest Nugget ever.