SAN ANTONIO — Carmelo Anthony sat on the dais contained in the information convention room on the Alamodome with a smile splashed throughout his face.
A couple of hours earlier, his inclusion into the Naismith Basketball Corridor of Fame had been introduced.
He was nonetheless floating.
“That is it,” the prolific scoring ahead mentioned. “That is it. It don’t get no higher than this. It don’t get higher than this. All of these issues, these accomplishments that you’ve got talked about, this simply places a cap on that and it makes all of it definitely worth the whereas.”
The school basketball nationwide champion, 10-time NBA All-Star and three-time Olympic gold medalist was joined within the 2025 class by Dwight Howard, WNBA legends Sue Fowl, Maya Moore and Sylvia Fowles, Chicago Bulls coach and two-time faculty basketball champion Billy Donovan, Miami Warmth proprietor Micky Arison and NBA referee Danny Crawford.
Howard and Anthony have been really inducted twice, as members of the 2008 U.S. Olympic males’s basketball crew, also called the “Redeem Group.”
That group received gold on the Beijing Video games after current disappointments in earlier worldwide competitors.
Enshrinement weekend begins Sept. 5 on the Mohegan Solar in Uncasville, Conn., and the Corridor of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Anthony, 40, received the decision in the course of the week. When he noticed the quantity was coming from Springfield, the previous Knicks star knew what that meant. Days later, it was nonetheless sinking in.
“I’m happy. It was value it. I’m right here,” Anthony mentioned. “Once more, it simply comes again to being happy. When you’re an athlete and also you’re taking part in, you’re competing, your coaches let you know, by no means be happy. So you’ve that mentality till you possibly can sit again and take your self out of that scenario in that second and notice, ‘I’m good on basketball.’ I’m happy.
“That is the gate, these are the doorways. And it’s nothing that anybody can take away from me now.”
It was becoming that the announcement got here on the Last 4, the primary actually massive second of his profession. Twenty-two years in the past, Anthony led Syracuse to a nationwide championship as a freshman.
He was then chosen third general within the NBA draft by the Nuggets.
Throughout 19 years within the NBA, he reached 10 All-Star video games, acquired six All-NBA honors and a spot on the NBA seventy fifth Anniversary crew.
He additionally led the league in scoring in 2012-13.
Anthony by no means superior previous the convention finals within the NBA, however he did win three Olympic gold medals.
Maybe his biggest crew achievement was that 2003 run with Syracuse to a nationwide championship.
The Orange have been a No. 3 seed, not some powerhouse that was favored to achieve the Last 4. Anthony carried Syracuse to its first and solely crown.
“Coming to New Orleans in 2003 was a really particular second,” he recalled. “And realizing the sport of basketball, and being a pupil of the sport, I additionally knew that Coach [Jim] Boeheim misplaced in that very same enviornment to Indiana years, years in the past to Keith Sensible in that very same nook, identical shot. In order that play saved taking part in alongside in my mind.”
Syracuse received the sport and Anthony was named the Most Excellent Participant of the Last 4.
Over 20 years later, Anthony was again on the largest stage of school basketball.
It was one other “One Shining Second” for him.
“I maintain attempting to give you issues to say for these moments and there’s nothing that I can say that’s really going to specific the best way that I really feel or the best way that I’m simply attempting to take this second in,” Anthony mentioned. “It’s loads to place into perspective. You get the decision about coming to be entered into the Corridor of Fame for what you’ve achieved in your profession and as a person and what you’ve dropped at this sport of basketball.”
