In a podcast called “7PM in Brooklyn”, hosted by Carmelo Anthony, the NBA legend said he felt disappointed when the Denver Nuggets decided to give jersey number 15 to Nikola Jokic.
Carmelo Anthony has 19 seasons playing in the NBA. In particular, the first 8 years of this legendary career played for the Denver Nuggets and was famous for the shirt number 15. Therefore, he considered the Denver Nuggets giving this shirt number to Nikola Jokic as an act of disrespect and disrespect. trying to erase his own contributions in the past.
“It was a disrespectful decision for me. Of course, Nikola Jokic can wear number 15 and he deserves what he has done. However, what I see is that the Denver Nuggets want to erase everything memories of the number 15 shirt I used to wear when I played there. What they want is that when it comes to the number 15 of the Denver Nuggets, it’s Nikola Jokic,” Carmelo Anthony said.
The reason why Carmelo Anthony feels dissatisfied is because he had a time when he was loved as the No. 1 star of the Denver Nuggets with the number 15 shirt on his back. Selected third in the 2003 NBA Draft, Carmelo Anthony averaged 24.8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.1 assists in eight seasons playing for the Colorado team.
Carmelo Anthony was praised as a hero, a player who could compete fairly with LeBron James at the Cleveland Cavaliers at that time. However, everything changed 180 degrees when Carmelo Anthony moved to the New York Knicks in the 2010/11 season after a series of disagreements with the team’s leadership. This decision led to Denver Nuggets fans viewing Carmelo Anthony as a traitor.
However, Carmelo Anthony himself said he had no disagreement with the fans: “I never said anything bad about you (Nuggets fans). All you did was boo me. I Still scoring 40, 50 points in a match, while you guys don’t understand what you’re booing for. You think I’m a dissatisfied player and don’t want to stay on the team. You boo for that. That’s because of what the media spreads in the newspapers.”
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Why did Nikola Jokic choose shirt number 15?
Nikola Jokic wore the number 15 shirt for most of his career. Above all, he chose shirt number 15 for an extremely unexpecteԀ reason.
According to Nikola Jokic, he wore shirt number 15 once when he participated in Serbia’s youth team. He was the tallest player and at that time, 15 was the largest shirt number in the number system from 4 to 15 according to FIBA’s old standards.