Et tu, Melo?

How a spot on MTV Cribs may hide the truth behind the demise of Carmelo Anthony.

The 2003 NBA draft will go down as the defining draft of the next decade of pro hoops. Six years later, that sentiment rings even louder.

LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, Josh Howard, Mo Williams, David West, Chris Kaman, Kirk Hinrich and T.J. Ford have all played major to semi-important roles on a number of NBA teams. And while the '03 draft may lack legendary depth, it's undeniably top-heavy, with LeBron and Wade as the two biggest, and best, stars in the league right now – and for the foreseeable future.

But it wasn't always that way.

The order of the actual draft has been muddled by history, and people forget Wade went fifth, a sure number two if we were to re-draft today. Bust Darko Milicic went two, with Melo and Bosh preceding Wade.

It was Anthony, not Wade, who was poised to battle LeBron for NBA supremacy the duration of their long and illustrious careers. They were pegged as rivals before they shared the same court – one a high school phenom, the other a polished NCAA national champ. Although they were a conference apart, they were expected to be the new Magic/Bird, meeting in multiple finals to decide who was king of the NBA.

Six years later, things haven't gone according to script.

I don't know Anthony beyond what I have seen on the court and I never will. What I do know about Melo is one surreal television moment – MTV's Cribs. On the surface it just seems like another successful and wealthy athlete showing off his whips and sneakers, and maybe it is. But there are moments in that five-minute TV spot that, looking back, are unbelievable. Could part of the answer as to why Melo went from the NBA's prodigal son to relative obscurity in such a short amount of time be in this tour of Anthony's pad?

One character trait Anthony shows immediately is an enormous ego. We get a look at his trophy case, which contains, of all things, an ESPY award for best male college athlete. Far be it for me to denigrate such a prestigious award, but it's a freakin' ESPY. Didn't you win an NCAA championship, nearly single-handedly? Shouldn't you be showing that off instead?

But then it dawned on me. The ESPY was for him. The NCAA title was for Syracuse. He tells the camera that he thanked himself, which, apparently, not a lot of people do these days. Think about that, he thanked himself. Only Kanye West does that. In a way, this hyper-inflated sense of self pride is not unexpected. Carmelo is fresh off being the alpha dog on a national championship college basketball team. He just went number three in the NBA draft and is primed for a launch into the stratosphere of stardom. He was also barely 20 years old. All his young adult life he's been the guy. Who else would he thank?

Next Carmelo shows us an arcade cabinet of House of the Dead 2. And why not, lots of stars have arcade cabs in their abodes. But why House of the Dead 2? “At the beginning if the season it was so dead out here [Denver] til I came out I just had to get a game.” What really gets me about this is not his ripping of the city he has yet to spend significant time in, it's how humorless he is delivering it. There is not one hint of jest in his face or voice when he says this. Carmelo actually thinks Denver was dead before he got there. And he got a video game cabinet to represent that.

This also represents Melo's immature side. His house is furnished with the taste and expertise of a professional interior decorator. But he has an arcade machine right in the middle of his living room. This isn't surrounded by an Asteroids or Galaga machine in a game room. It's totally out of place and he decided to show it off to the nation on MTV. Why? To deliver his (clever) jab at the city of Denver? The best part is, I can totally picture him shooting zombies while sipping $5,000/bottle champagne, sitting on a $1,000 ergonomic chair, laughing like a 10-year old.

But the best is yet to come. As we traverse Melo's hall to his bedroom, we see a number of magazine covers. Pretty standard fare. Until we come across a portrait of Carmelo and – this is real – Jesus Christ, our lord and savior. The caption on the painting: “Blood Brothers.”

Let's take Melo's thought process step-by-step:

1. I want a portrait of me in my house because I am great.

2. It has to be hand-painted, with oil paints because it's more expensive.

3. What about me with Jesus?

4. I don't think the imagery is strong enough, throw some text up there. But what...

5. Blood Brothers!

This is about ten levels of insane. Painting yourself in with the messiah? Crazy enough. But implying, in not so many words, that you and the son of God are brothers? This is of course acceptable because he's a famous, ultra-talented athlete and who am I (or anyone) to tell him not to do that.

All this leads me to my conclusion. That Carmelo Anthony, along with LeBron James, was handed the keys to the NBA. And it's not that he couldn't handle the spotlight or perform well enough – it's that they were simply taken away from him. Dwayne Wade is better. Chris Paul is better. Brandon Roy is better. Kevin Durant is better (and similar). Dwight Howard is friendlier. LeBron James is certainly better. The Nuggets have been notorious chokers come playoff time. His teams have had awful, awful chemistry. He has lost endorsement deals to bigger stars. He was suspended 15 games for fighting, something I don't think Wade or Bron would ever do. He told people to stop snitchin'.

He doesn't seem to have the switch, that leadership and killer instinct truly great NBA players have. So many things – even at the onset of his career, him not going second to Detroit, which could have changed everything – have happened to bring Anthony to where he is today. And it's not where he, or anyone, thought.

I bet Anthony still believes he's one of the best, most famous players in the NBA. The thing is, I don't think he'll ever prove it. Wade took his draft spot as a slight. “I'll show you,” he said. And he did, winning an NBA championship. LeBron has made a Jordan-like leap in terms of competitiveness and will win the 2009 MVP and should make it to the NBA finals, again. Wade is where Anthony should be, battling with LeBron for king of the NBA. But instead, he is fighting to make it out of the first round, again, and doesn't seem all that interested. The great NBA players – the LeBrons, the Wades – take it to another level come playoff time. I think Carmelo is happy playing in the NBA, as the star of a team. And hey, if they make the playoffs, cool, more TV time.

Maybe Melo has grown up since Cribs. Tossed out the Jesus pic. Upgraded his House of the Dead to a Ms. Pacman. Sold his ESPY on eBay. But one thing is for sure – he is no where near the level of LeBron and Wade. And maybe he never could have been. But he was supposed to. And that's the saddest part of all.