Las Vegas – Twenty-four hours later, YouTube was jammed with videos of the newest dunk-du-jour. Basketball message boards were crammed with every adjective anyone knew. Carmelo Anthony was the toast of technology town.
Anthony’s dunk over Argentina’s Martin Leiva late Thursday night was, by his own admission, one of his best – ever. By outside observation, it was a classic.
“That’s a dunk we’re going to be seeing for a long time,” teammate Chauncey Billups said. “I had a good angle looking at that joint. It was unbelievable.”
The fury with which the facial was delivered had its roots in a hard screen Anthony took just moments before.
“I told him I was going to get him back,” Anthony said. “I guess he thought I was going to foul him, but I got him back on the dunk.”
It was an exclamation point on Anthony’s meteoric rise this summer from another disappointing playoff appearance with the Nuggets to arguably the best international player in the world. Two consecutive years of being the best player on Team USA has raised his profile to the point that he is perhaps the most beloved player on a team full of superstars that is running through the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifying tournament.
Anthony has been the team’s most effective offensive player, averaging 21.9 points. But the eye-opening stat: He’s done that in just 19.4 minutes per game. Why?
Anthony said he is helped by the wider lanes and higher tolerance for physical play in the international game.
“That’s my style of play,” Anthony said. “It’s different than the NBA. You can play physical. We can fight, we can bang.”
It’s the type of game U.S. assistant coach Jim Boeheim, Anthony’s college coach at Syracuse, said has been largely overlooked. But none of what Boeheim has seen from his courtside seat at the Thomas & Mack Center has surprised him.
“From the first day, I saw he was a dominant offensive player,” Boeheim said. “He did that his whole freshman year (at Syracuse). And he’s pretty much done that in the NBA. I think on the court he’s had very few, if any, problems.”
Anthony has stood out on a team that features NBA players with higher profiles, such as LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.
Anthony has scored more points in an Olympic qualifying tournament than any other player in U.S. history, eclipsing Gary Payton’s 160 points in 1999. Anthony’s scoring average is the highest of any U.S. player in an Olympic qualifying tournament – by nearly five full points. Charles Barkley averaged 16.3 points for the Dream Team in 1992.
Anthony smiled.
“It just comes naturally,” he said. “It’s not like I’m trying to go out there and score 20, 30 points. It’s just something that I was born to do. It comes from knowing what I want, which is a gold medal. Knowing the type of team that I’m on, knowing my position, knowing my role. When you know all of that, things come easy to you.”
Billups agrees with Anthony that the style of international ball helps the Nuggets star.
“Melo is really good in this kind of setting because when he gets the ball it’s really not a lot of messing around,” Billups said. “Either he’s going to attack, or he’s going to get off it. He’s not going to isolate and take eight or nine seconds to get his move off.
“He rebounds so well, he’s so explosive off the floor. The way that he (plays) inside and outside, it’s just impossible to guard.”
Said Boeheim: “He’s probably the best offensive player in international basketball.”
The common factor in this, and last year’s world championships, after which Anthony was named the USA Basketball male athlete of the year, is the fun factor. It’s a different environment from 2004, when Anthony feuded with U.S. coach Larry Brown and sulked about not playing.
“He plays his best when he’s having fun,” Boeheim said. “When he’s in a situation where he’s not happy or not having fun, he’s not playing his best. That’s the way it is with him.”
So much fun he’s leading a team of USA stars that will travel to Beijing, site of the 2008 Olympics, for an exhibition game Sept. 14 against the Chinese national team.
Said Anthony: “I love it. I love U.S. basketball, I love international basketball.”
Staff writer Chris Dempsey can be reached at 303-949-2203 or cdempsey@denverpost.com.
