Having won a national championship with Carmelo Anthony as his lead horse at Syracuse in 2003, Jim Boeheim is known to have sincere and utter confidence in Anthony as a player and leader. Boeheim has been able to coach Carmelo again while on staff with Team USA, and Anthony just won his third straight gold medal with USA Basketball in the Rio Games.
When it comes to Anthony’s NBA career, Boeheim shows support from afar. But when talking about Anthony’s chances of winning a championship, he kept it extremely straightforward.
via Ian Begley of ESPN:
“He’s unlikely to win an NBA title,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said, according to the Syracuse Post-Standard. “He’s never been on a team that even had a remote chance of winning an NBA title. As a player, all you can do is try to make your team better, and every team he’s been on he’s made them a lot better. Denver hadn’t done anything prior to him getting there and he took them into the playoffs. They weren’t going to beat the Lakers or the Spurs. In those years, they won the championship most of the time.”
“He wants to win in New York,” Boeheim said. “I know the general opinion is if [new additions Joakim] Noah and [Derrick] Rose are healthy then they’ll be a better team. It’s just a question of if they will be healthy. They’ve been off and on the last two years. They’ve both been hurt. I think if both those guys are healthy, it certainly would make a big difference and [Kristaps] Porzingis continuing to progress. If those things happen, they can be better.”
The task for Carmelo Anthony to win an NBA championship is tall. Thus far he hasn’t been part of any credible “super team”, but to Boeheim’s point, he’s able to make any team he’s on competitive. At 32 years old, Anthony is entering the home stretch of his career. The Knicks are more talented and possibly more formidable, but a lot of things need to go well for them to be considered a legitimate elite.
Anthony recently alluded to the fact that he would still be happy not winning an NBA title having won three Olympic gold medals. That notion will be put to the test if Boeheim’s opinion holds true. If not, it means Anthony and the Knicks will have done something to defy the conventional odds.
