Carmelo Anthony Makes Unlikely Claim About Nuggets, Nikola Jokić

 

Former basketball player Carmelo Anthony spent seven-and-a-half years in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the Denver Nuggets, and said Thursday that he believes the franchise wants to erase his contributions after it gave Nikola Jokić his old jersey number.

On the latest episode of his podcast, 7PM in Brooklyn, with Joel Martinez, better known by his professional personality The Kid Mero, Anthony—who requested a trade from the Denver Nuggets in 2010—said he believes the team gave Jokić his old number in an effort to make people think about someone else in relation to the number 15 instead of him.

“It was a petty maneuver,” Anthony said. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we’ve got numbers to choose from.’ It was like, ‘Here. You got 15.'”

Anthony added that he felt disrespected by Jokić getting his number.

“The disrespect and you offering that shows me that you just wanted to erase everything that came prior to that right there,” Anthony said. “Right? So f*** y’all. You said f*** me, dead smack to the rest of the world. Cool. I ain’t never said nothing bad about y’all. You booed me.”

Anthony said the Nuggets put Jokić in the middle of his drama with the team by giving the two-time MVP his old number, since Jokić didn’t know “what the f*** is going on,” although Anthony also theorized that Jokić might have chosen the number to “pay homage” to him.

“But what I believe is that they gave him 15 to try to erase what I did,” Anthony said. “Because now it’s like they want you to play that game. When you think of 15 in Denver, now to this generation, you thinking the Joker. And there’s no hard—there’s nothing towards that, it’s just it was two different generations. So that just goes to show me that y’all not passed that moment.”

There are a few holes in Anthony’s theory, however. For one thing, another player wore No. 15 in between himself and Jokić: Anthony Randolph, who played for the Nuggets from 2012-14.

In addition, the Nuggets likely weren’t expecting Jokić to be the caliber of player who could erase Anthony’s legacy. They drafted Jokić with the No. 41 pick in the 2014 draft, so if they predicted they were drafting a five-time All-Star, five-time All-NBA selection who would lead his team to the 2022-23 NBA title, they have impressive foresight.

But perhaps the biggest hole: Jokić has said he chose 15 for a reason that had nothing to do with the Nuggets. Interviewed by Orlando Magic player Paolo Banchero in June 2023, Jokić was asked how he chose the number. The origin traced back to his childhood in Serbia.

“I was chubby,” Jokić said with a chuckle. “I was big, and number 15 was the biggest jersey. I just stuck with it, but I like it.”

Newsweek reached out to both the Nuggets and Anthony’s representation by email requesting comment.

For his part, Anthony said on his podcast that he believes sports teams are very willing to be petty.

“They’ll do s*** like that in sports,” he said. “They’ll do s*** like that. ‘Okay, f*** you.’ Give somebody your number.'”

Former NBA star Carmelo Anthony raised eyebrows on Thursday after some comments he made about the Denver Nuggets and star center Nikola Jokić during the latest episode of his 7PM in Brooklyn podcast. Anthony, who played 19 seasons in the NBA, the first eight of which he spent with the Nuggets, voiced a complaint about how the franchise was quick to offload his No. 15 jersey to Jokic.

Anthony described the act from Denver as a “petty maneuver” and admitted that he felt like it was a means for the organization to minimize his legacy.

“It was a petty maneuver. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we’ve got numbers to choose from.’ It was like, ‘here, take this one, you got 15,'” said Anthony to co-host Joel “The Kid Mero” Martinez. “And y’all put Jokic in the middle of that. He don’t know what the f— going on.”

“He could’ve been trying to pay homage, I don’t know… But what I believe, is that they gave him No. 15 to try to erase what I did,” he added.

Anthony was famously traded to the New York Knicks during the 2010–11 season, more than three years before the Nuggets drafted Jokić with the No. 41 pick in ‘14. Jokic didn’t debut for the franchise until ’15, four years after Anthony last played for Denver.

The No. 15 jersey was worn once in between Anthony’s exit from the franchise and Jokić’s entrance, as Anthony Randolph was given the uniform number during the 2013–14 season.