Putting the NY in Anthony

Carmelo Anthony is at what many would call a "crossroads" in his now decade-old NBA career.

Blessed with talent that saw him run step-for-step to the finish of an ROY race with a player currently being legitimately questioned as the best ever, Anthony has faded somewhat amid his star-studded Draft class, perceived by many as "only a scorer", "a me-first player", "he hasn't grown up", "he doesn't make his teammates better", or most damning "he doesn't win".

Just as those perhaps jaded reputations appeared ready to manifest themselves - coming off Anthony's most disappointing season, this was seen by many as his year to put up or shut up as an elite NBA player - Melo came out and beasted the season's opening quarter, legitimately putting his name in the MVP debate for the first time in years by leading the Knicks to a 23-10 mark heading into last night's home showdown with the Celtics. He was playing more inspired defense, passing more, playing within the flow of the game and attacking from the inside/out as defenses and the needs of his team dictated. More importantly, Melo was having fun, feeding off his teammates, and winning; he was beginning to look like a leader.

As most of you probably know by now, things didn't generally go very well for the Knicks last night, for three reasons:

1) They let an aging Celtics team employ their just-as-aging bullying tactics against them, gaining a mental upper edge (in what is now an absolute rivalry) through physical play and merciless Kevin Garnett-fueled vitriol to offset the absence of their best player.

2) They allowed said Celtics team - who have looked quite lost for most of this season - to beat them on their home floor.

3) Following the game, Melo decided to try and confront the Celtics (it appears Garnett in particular) not only outside the locker room, but on the way to their team bus, in an apparent attempt to show them that he's either "hard as fuck" or a very sore loser, which regardless of intent is bad for its own set of reasons:

a) It was videotaped, all over ESPN and Twitter within the hour, and surely drawing tons of negative attention to the Knicks, and in general the NBA (any time "police were on hand as a precaution" to get a basketball team to its bus, people tend to look at it negatively).

b) Emperor Palpatine, sorry David Stern in his increasing senility will probably suspend Melo for 15 games and fine him $5 million as he continues his "Fuck You, I Made You" Retirement Tour, harshly penalizing anyone who's dared defy his Orwellian reign.

c) This says a lot about who Carmelo Anthony still is. And frankly, it's not good. While he's putting it together on the court this year, a childish mentality still prevails: "It was like being in the schoolyard" recalls one witness.

Melo certainly hasn't helped himself much over the years.

This incident adds itself to portfolio that would make any self-respecting professional (or amateur criminal) blush: a vicious sucker-punch in the middle of an in-game skirmish followed by his running away like a scared rabbit, a DUI arrest following his worst game of the season, an appearance in a DVD bootlegged in his native Baltimore that advocated violence against those who co-operated with police, a confirmed affair with a teammates' wife, a well-publicized bar fight with someone approaching his own wife, and an arrest at an airport for marijuana possession that was cleared when his friend "claimed he owned the bag" (now go ahead, try and figure out which of those colorful moments I just made up).

This isn't a matter of basketball; the man's clearly very talented. It's a matter of being a man at all; not acting like a child. It's realizing that you're not in the schoolyard anymore, but on a professional sports team, hell, in the highest-profile city in the World, and that people are tired of asking "when will he just get it?".

Melo's spent most of his career cultivating an image of on-court selfishness, strongly buoyed by his off-court antics. When things seemed to turn the corner basketball-wise this season, the evident hope was that he'd, for lack of more eloquent deliveries, stop being such an idiot. I'm sure he thought he was being "hard" last night, letting the Celtics know he wouldn't back down or be rattled, but he showed not only that he is very rattled by a not-even-midseason loss, but that he's not yet ready to put the team above himself. He might've looked like a leader the past couple months, but this is hardly evidence of it.

What a truly effective leader does in that situation is highly subjective and dependent on those he leads, but pretty much universally dubious would be to draw more attention to the loss - and the whole organization - in a negative light through a selfish act that drums up a whole new round of questions about your character.

This obviously comes at an inopportune time for New York, who seemed to be in the midst of a dream season, and are now seeing the first of seemingly increasingly inevitable signs that something about the Knicks will come undone, be it Patrick Ewing's knees, Isiah Thomas' sanity, James Dolan's chequebook, or Michael Jordan's sense of mercy.

For Melo's Conscience not to add itself to that list of reprehensible Manhattan basketball terms, he needs to put himself in perspective here; realize the importance of his behavior off the court, as well as on it. His reputation is on the line, and even if that doesn't worry him, the balance of millions of dollars, the hopes of millions of fans, and the fate of a franchise is. He needs to embody a more mature mentality, one that focuses on beating KG on the court instead of off it, or at the very least resolves things in their next meeting instead of in the parking lot. This team wants to win a championship, and that takes more than what Melo's demonstrated thus far.

Carmelo Anthony has to realize once and for all that the team - much like this situation he very easily could've walked away from - is bigger than himself.