Carmelo Anthony is glad Damian Lillard found his way out of the Portland Trail Blazers organization.
It has nothing to do with Portland, Melo qualified, but everything to do with what kept Dame in Rip City for so long in the first place.
Carmelo Anthony had some expletive-laden advice for Damian Lillard
"I was telling Dame, man get the f**k out here ."
Well, it doesn't get more blunt than that.
Melo revealed his advice to Lillard on the 7pm in Brooklyn podcast (h/t Clutchpoints), which he passed down during their time together in Portland.
Anthony was drafted by the Denver Nuggets in 2003 and had one deep playoff run with the franchise in the 2008-09 season before forcing his way to the New York Knicks in 2010. He wishes he would have made the move sooner, apparently.
According to Melo, he and Dame share the same character virtue - one that eventually turned into a flaw that wasted some prime NBA years.
" It wasn’t like a knock to Portland but it was, ‘Champ, you in the same situation I was in, in Denver. Our loyalty gonna kill us. It’s gonna kill us!’ What do we have to see or know to make the decision? For me they had to hit rock bottom for it to be like alright I’m gonna go…So I’ve been telling Dame that, and finally, he was like ‘My loyalty is stamped in Portland.' They better put a statue of Dame in Portland. It’s that deep of a connection. But I be telling him, ‘You gotta go’ because I knew what was gonna happen."Carmelo Anthony, 7pm in Brooklyn podcast
Melo's situation in Denver and Dame's with the Blazers isn't exactly an apples-to-oranges comparison. Lillard's loyalty to Portland runs far deeper. There won't be any Carmelo Anthony statues outside of the Nuggets' arena.
Anthony's post-Denver odyssey took him to four more franchises after the Knicks, including his stint next to Lillard in PDX, but he never won that ever-elusive NBA title.
Dame now gets his opportunity with Milwaukee next to Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton - a much better situation than Anthony ever had.