Carmelo's future is now
It's the championship matchup most NBA fans, including myself, wanted to see when the playoffs began a month ago: LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant.
Commissioner David Stern is licking his chops at the ratings possibilities, and Vitaminwater and Nike have advertising campaigns built around it. Even here at ESPN, the release of Spike Lee's "Kobe: Doin' Work" seems to be playing up the notion that the Lakers will be playing deep into June.
I can't help but wonder what everyone is going to do when Carmelo Anthony crashes the party.
no reason the Nuggets can't topple the Lakers.
Armed with a battle-tested point guard in Chauncey Billups and the toughest frontcourt tandem still playing in Kenyon Martin and Nene, Melo finally seems to be in position to take his place among this generation's greats. He's an All-NBA player, but you didn't hear his name in the MVP conversation. He's a Redeem Team member but the Great Debate is going on without him.
Ever since LeBron stole Melo's Rookie of the Year award five years ago, the kid from Baltimore has been the Ringo Starr of the NBA -- fab, but not quite fab enough. Isiah Thomas lived in the shadow of Magic, Bird and Jordan; Melo has Kobe, Bron and D-Wade. But if Anthony can shoehorn the Nuggets past the Lakers, then maybe, just maybe he'll get to sit at the big kids' table.
To do that, Anthony has to continue to walk the fine line between go-to player and unselfish teammate.
He's never had a problem being the man. He demonstrated that as a 19-year-old rookie, averaging 27.3 points over a six-game stretch in late April 2004 that got the Nuggets into the playoffs for the first time since 1995.
But I have always had the sense that Melo equated being an unselfish teammate with getting an assist. In actuality, that still indicates you have the ball in your hands.
What has made the Nuggets so difficult to defend this postseason is that Melo has really embraced the notion of making plays for others without touching the ball. By merely cutting across the lane, he draws attention, making it easier for his teammates to get open looks. The willingness to sacrifice touches to be a decoy is something the great players tend to do early in games in order to make their teams more difficult to defend later. Sometimes a second-half explosion is the result of a guy getting a hot hand. But sometimes it's because a defensive adjustment was made at halftime in response to a player around the superstar having a better game than expected. Now defenses are hesitant to leave a man open, and the superstar has a little more room to operate.
That's one way a superstar such as Melo lets the game come to him. That's one way a team can get better shot selection. That's the one and only way Denver's going to beat the Lakers.
What Melo cannot do is get caught up in the hype and try to outscore Kobe. It's not that he can't, it just isn't what's best for the team. As he approaches his 25th birthday, Melo is becoming dangerously close to falling into the Dominique Wilkins/Alex English caliber of player -- lots of buckets and not much else. If he wants to avoid that, it's critical he doesn't approach the Western Conference finals with a youthful sense of immortality, trying to prove he's as talented as Kobe, but rather with the calculated urgency of a grizzled veteran who may be making one last postseason run.
Understanding when to shoot.
Sensing when to pass.
Knowing when not to touch the ball at all.
Mastering that balance will not only push him past Kobe, but LeBron as well. If Melo can do that, he won't have to worry about being overlooked in the MVP talks, great debates or puppet commercials.
For the first time in his career, Melo won't be in anyone's shadow. Instead, he'd be the one casting it.
LZ Granderson is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and a regular contributor to Page 2. He can be reached at l_granderson@yahoo.com.
