Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony recently spoke on his small role in the 2004 Olympics. But Richard Jefferson says Melo wasn’t ready for a bigger role
In the last few days we talked about how Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony had reflected on the 2004 Olympics and their disappointment on playing so few minutes on a team that ended their campaign with just a lacklustre bronze medal to show for their efforts.
Appearing on an edition of the UNINTERRUPTED: We Run This Station, Melo joined WNBA legend Sue Bird, businessman and partner of LeBron James, Maverick Carter and host Paul Rivera.
Melo candidly revealed how, after the Olympics, he and LeBron vowed to personally destroy the two players ahead of them in the 2004 Olympics rotation, Shawn Marion and Richard Jefferson.
You can see them talking about this in the clip below at around the 14 minute mark. Maverick Carter said that Melo and LeBron destroyed Marion and Jefferson in the next few seasons, which wasn’t entirely true….
Maverick Carter even said that Jefferson had told him that he had his ‘ ass kicked ‘ by Melo the next year, ‘ we may never know if this part is true though.
This was obviously a real thing at the time, but Jefferson wasn’t overly happy about it, so he cleared the air. On TV show, ‘ The Jump ‘ they showed Jefferson what Melo said to Maverick Carter.
Jefferson, was also very honest about the 2004 Olympics when asked to comment on what Melo had said. He explained how they had the youngest ever USA Olympic team with eight players under twenty-five-years-of-age. He then went on to say how Melo wasn’t ready to play in this Olympics, also saying he wasn’t ready himself.
Jefferson talked about how Melo is the greatest Team USA player of all-time, but that he checked back on the stats over the next matchup between himself and Melo, reading out the numbers in their next direct matchup.
Jefferson had 26 points and 11 rebounds, while holding Melo to just 9 points.
Jefferson still took the moral high road after being put on the spot by Rachel Nichols, he said he was just happy to represent his country and that the team was very young and not really ready to play in this version of the Olympics.
It’s funny how stories can change slightly over time, but maybe Carter was more referring to how LeBron matched up with Jefferson and Marion.
Melo did end up dominating Jefferson, but not until further down the track when Melo was a bit older. This story may not end here!