Carmelo Anthonyby the numbers:
20.7 points per game
9.3 rebounds per game
45.6 Total field-goal percentage
36.5 Three-point percentage
35.3 Minutes per game
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The mind and body that once caused Carmelo Anthony so much grief will make him very rich very soon. In the interim, America's other 6-foot-8, 18-year-old basketball prodigy is getting kicks that beat driving a $50,000 SUV.
How peculiar, that while the hoops world turns on the status of his Hummer-driving, throwback jersey-wearing buddy, LeBron James, Anthony has found a cocoon in the Carrier Dome, home of the world's largest regular-season crowds.
Considering the baggage-free zone at Syracuse University where Anthony resides, is there an NBA team that might pass on James, this decade's version of the greatest high school player ever, and instead make the No. 1 pick in next June's draft a freshman forward who's two years removed from Towson Catholic High?
Exactly how big is Anthony's upside?
As wide as his considerable backside and as vast as the floor game that has sent opponents scurrying for defensive stoppers.
"His age is what makes him so intriguing," said an NBA scout, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We would all feel less excited if he was 22, but we see him at 18, and wonder, with normal progress, what will he be like in a few years? What we know is that he can shoot, put the ball on the floor and that he plays within himself. He's got a great basketball IQ."
Anthony absorbs the comparisons to the talent of Tracy McGrady and savvy of stars of an earlier vintage, like Magic Johnson. He hears the praise for his physique and smarts, and can't help but laugh as he recalls his rocky entry into high school.
Anthony was academically ineligible at the start of his freshman and sophomore seasons at TC, and in between he was reduced to tears by the growing pains that stretched him from 6 feet to 6-6.
"Those struggles? I can laugh about them now," Anthony said, "I'm enjoying life right now."
Sprawled in a couch after a light session of lifting weights, Anthony asked if he could turn on a TV. It was the day that Ohio high school officials suspended James, and Anthony was searching for news the old-fashioned way, checking CNN and ESPN. It would be hard to get through to his contemporary's cell phone, not that chatting up the best players in the world is ever a problem for Anthony.
Steve Francis and Baron Davis are among the acquaintances who regularly check in, to ask Anthony if he's eating properly and how many points he had last night.
"It seems like every time I have a bad night, get only 14 or 15, Steve has a bad night and gets only 16 or 17," Anthony said. "Whenever I say, 'Man, these double-teams are getting on my nerves,' Steve says, 'You're going to face that all your life.' I don't know. I think they lifted [allowed] the zone rule to stop Shaq [O'Neal], but the NBA is still a one-on-one game."
Francis was among the crowd who made misleading statements about how long he would stay in college, but Anthony has made no disingenuous guarantees and it seems taken for granted here that he will be one and done. Asked if his mother will accompany him to what would be his fourth address in as many winters, Anthony said, "if I go to Miami or Atlanta, she would go, but she wants to move back home to New York."
A boost from Boeheim
Jim Boeheim took a team to the NCAA final in each of the past two decades. He is in his 27th season as the coach at his alma mater and knows that Anthony is the one who could finally get him a title, but Boeheim understands the deal, embraces it in fact.
"A lot of one-year guys, whether it was Stephon [Marbury] at Georgia Tech or Tim Thomas [at Villanova], they killed programs," Boeheim said. "Carmelo has helped our program tremendously. I'm not talking about wins. I'm talking about attitude, recruiting. We haven't had a guy like him in a long time, an outgoing guy who doesn't look at himself as a big deal."
It wasn't that long ago that Anthony was hanging at the Mount Royal Recreation Center, quarterbacking football teams in the fall and playing baseball in the spring. He wanted to go to Dunbar, and be a two-sport star like St. Louis Rams linebacker Tommy Polley, but Mary Anthony ordered her son to Towson Catholic.
He went from little notice as a sophomore to The Sun's Player of the Year as a junior, in 2000-01. One of Mike Daniel's assistant coaches caught the movie Get Shorty and stuck the nickname on Anthony. In times of distress, "Find Shorty" became the Owls' mantra.
Boeheim does not have a good track record with Baltimore players. Lake Clifton coach Herman Harried helped his first Final Four team, but Mike Brown, Rodney Walker and Michael Lloyd had short stays here. That was of no relevance to Troy Weaver, an Orange assistant who in the mid-1990s ran the DC Assault program that dominated the local AAU circuit.
Weaver was already on his trail by the time Anthony had a monster performance at a tournament in Las Vegas a few summers ago. His game grew with his frame, but Anthony's schoolwork was shaky. To escape the dangers near his mother's rowhouse in West Baltimore and coattail-grabbers, Anthony spent his senior year at Oak Hill Academy in rural Virginia.
Until he got the standardized test score that made him eligible for the NCAA and put to rest rumors that he might go to the NBA, the highlight of what he calls his first college season was the 36 points he dropped on James and St. Vincent-St. Mary in their February 2002 shootout.
After leading the United States to the bronze medal in the world junior championships in Venezuela last summer, Anthony made his college debut in Madison Square Garden, where Memphis overcame a Syracuse freshman-record 27 points and 11 rebounds, the first of his 11 double doubles.
Anthony is the only freshman who's a finalist for both the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and Wooden national Player of the Year awards. He has been Big East Conference Rookie of the Week five times, and the record of nine was set by Georgetown's Allen Iverson.
He's on pace to establish Syracuse freshman records for scoring and rebounding, but Carmelo mania dipped along with his production in a series of close-to-the-vest Big East Conference games. A local columnist didn't name him to his midseason all-conference team, and talk show callers rip him for smiling after missed free throws.
"The reason he came to college is that he's a young kid, and he knows it," Boeheim said. "Most young kids think they're ready for the NBA. He's a smart enough kid, and his mother is a very smart lady who understands that it was best for her son not to go running to get the money. Most guys in his situation, they're just waiting to go - 'I'm just wasting my time here' - but he's having fun."
Shades of McNabb
Boeheim said that the Orangemen haven't had an athlete this charismatic since Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was doing double duty in football and basketball. With apologies to Baltimore's late, great Memorial Stadium, the Carrier Dome was the world's largest indoor insane asylum last Saturday night, and Anthony reveled in a crowd of more than 30,000 that watched Syracuse deny Pittsburgh its first-ever No. 1 ranking.
The scene reminded Boeheim of the late 1980s, when Derrick Coleman would pause during warm-ups for photos. Anthony wears a headband, crushed velvet Nikes that glitter and the audacity of a native New Yorker. He was born in the borough of Brooklyn, in Red Hook.
One draft Web site warns that Anthony, who has grown from 190 pounds to 225 in 18 months, needs to get quicker to dominate on the wing, since he isn't as athletic as James or Kobe Bryant, but he is gifted with a vision that allows him to alter the flow of a game and his shooting range seems to grow every day.
He got Syracuse started with a putback, a laser feed inside to Kueth Duany and a three-pointer in transition. Pittsburgh is as mature as Maryland was last season and ferocious defensively, and coach Ben Howland rotated three rugged perimeter players on Anthony in a game that took on the feel of a football game with a lot of three-and-outs.
A few minutes before Anthony got his fourth foul, those three Panthers players had combined for nine. Anthony finished with only 14 points, but he took Pittsburgh out of its game. He kept Boeheim in it, as he got between the coach and an official with two minutes left. Anthony told his teammates where to position themselves on defense, cursed after a missed free throw and talked trash with Panthers guard Brandin Knight.
At the end of a rowdy win, he was standing on the scorer's table.
"He's great off the court, one of the funniest kids I know," said Gerry McNamara, a classmate who runs the point. "He's just a jokester, always trying to do something to make you laugh. He's a big favorite on this team, and not just because he makes everyone better."
Distractions in past
A year ago, Syracuse was in a free fall that took it from No. 8 to the National Invitation Tournament. Now it is No. 19 with a bullet. There were nights in December when his teammates had a tendency to fall back to a "Find Shorty" mode, but they have learned to open their eyes and keep moving, that all of the attention opponents pay Anthony means more lanes for them.
Anthony's adjustment to the NBA may be rocky defensively, since Boeheim is a zone coach, but he plays a pro game at the offensive end, comfortable posting up, on the perimeter and in transition. He's made 36.5 percent of his three-point attempts, 68.5 percent at the line. His focus lapses there occasionally, but he said distractions of the big picture don't dominate his view the way they did in November.
"At the beginning of the season, I used to sit around my apartment and think, what would be happening if I was playing in the NBA?" Anthony said. "If I didn't do something here, what would the NBA scouts think of me? Then I realized that my name is already out there. I just have to go out there and perform, and don't worry about what other people are thinking about me. I got that out of my system."
He also has made his way around the more than 100 inches of snow that have fallen on the region. Remember the snowstorm that altered your Christmas Day plans? Boeheim called a mandatory practice that night, and Anthony didn't make it all the way up Interstate 81, as he was stranded midway between Harrisburg, Pa., and Scranton.
"I left Baltimore and got as far as the Minersville exit," Anthony said. "It seemed like the only building in town was the hotel I stayed in."
Anthony was behind the wheel of his 1998 Chrysler. It was the one time he wished he drove a Hummer.
Rookies to the rescue
Carmelo Anthony isn't the only freshman having a major influence in the major conferences.
Player, college Ht. Pos. Skinny
Chris Bosh, Ga. Tech 6-10 C Tops Yellow Jackets with 16.3 points and 9.3 rebounds
Dee Brown, Illinois 6-0 G Tops in assists (5.0), second in scoring (11.9)
Ike Diogu, Arizona State 6-8 C Texan tops team in scoring (18.5) and boards (7.2)
Torin Francis, Notre Dame 6-10 C Best New England big man since Patrick Ewing?
Rashad McCants, N.C. 6-3 W 18.0 ppg and 5.4 rpg with little help
J.J. Redick, Duke 6-4 G Three-point ace averaging 16.2 ppg
Craig Smith, Boston College 6-7 F 21.7 ppg, pushing Anthony for Big East rookie honors
Matt Walsh, Florida 6-6 W Averages 14.2 points and 3.5 assists for No. 1 Gators
Antoine Wright, Texas A&M; 6-7 W Gets 16.2 ppg and 7.6 rpg in rugged Big 12
Bracey Wright, Indiana 6-3 G Tops in scoring (17.2); also gets 5.4 rebounds
Instant impact
Carmelo Anthony is on track to set Syracuse freshman records in both scoring and rebounding.
Scoring
Player Season Avg.
Anthony 2002-03 20.7 Lawrence Moten 1991-92 18.2 D. Washington 1983-84 14.4 Billy Owens 1988-89 13.0 Derrick Coleman 1986-87 11.9
Rebounding
Player Season Avg.
Anthony 2002-03 9.3 Derrick Coleman 1986-87 8.8 Dale Shackleford 1975-76 8.8 Roosevelt Bouie 1976-77 8.1 Billy Owens 1988-89 6.9