
Carmelo Anthony: ‘Like now I’m ready to go to the season. They like ‘Noooooooo!’ There’s a clip of me laughing running back down the court like ‘Yo, my bad, my bad.’ And I had to catch myself.
And this is where, like, the ego comes into play, because I'm like—you want me to take away everything that I built my career off of, my game? This is why people know me. This is why people would want me on the team—to bring this right here. Especially with this team. This is what is missing. You missing a post-up guy. You missing somebody who can draw double-teams. You missing somebody who can score four or five different levels along with James Harden and Chris Paul and Clint Capela. Like, it was a hell of a situation. So, for me to come back and practice that week, and they put something on the board that says ‘mid-range shots’—they break it down. Or shots per game. Certain amount of threes, say 40 threes. If we had 90 possessions in the game, 30 to 40 threes, free-throws… Mid-range? 12 or less out of 90 possessions. And I’m sitting there like, ‘What?’
Source: YouTube
But after sharing the floor with Buzelis for the first time, Markkanen became the latest star to endorse Buzelis’ potential, joining Kevin Durant and the retired Carmelo Anthony. “As a rookie, you’ve always got some work that you can do,” Markkanen said.
“But I think he’s got the skill and the toughness and, obviously, the athleticism, as we’ve seen. I think he has a huge upside. And what I’ve heard from talking to his teammates, (Nikola Vučević) and those guys, is that he’s a hard worker and a great kid. I think he’s going to be good.” -via
New York Times / March 18, 2025
This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Carmelo Anthony on being told to stop taking mid-range shots in Houston: The ego comes into play