Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony is an American basketball player who currently plays for the New York Knicks NBA team. He was born in Brooklyn, New York on May 29, 1984 to Carmelo and Mary Iriarte. His father was Puerto Rican whereas his mother was African American. He had a difficult childhood growing up in Baltimore, Maryland. His father died when he was 2 years old and his mother worked as a housekeeper to support him and his three siblings. The neighborhood where he grew up was famous for its pervasive drug culture and street crime but Anthony had a strict upbringing which kept him away from these influences. Anthony’s mother was very particular about her children’s school performance and as a result, he always worked hard at school.

Using sports as a divergence from his brutal surroundings, Anthony turned to basketball at an early age. He studied at Towson Catholic High School where he made his name as a skilled and talented player. During the summer of 1999, he had a growth spurt of 5 inches which added to his strengths. Soon, he began to be scouted by colleges including University of North Carolina and Syracuse. He also received awards and media attention including being named Baltimore’s County Player of the Year, All-Metropolitan Player of the Year and Baltimore Catholic League Player of the Year. The sudden fame affected his personality and he was even cut from his high school team for a while for skipping classes. In the end, he decided to accept the offer made by Syracuse University but in order to bring his grades up to par, he first had to attend Oak Hill Academy, a private boarding school known for training several NBA stars.

Anthony enrolled at Syracuse in 2002 and led his team to its first national championships in the spring of 2003 for which he was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. In 2003, he decided to go pro and join the NBA, where he was enlisted by the Denver Nuggets. As in college, his rookie season with the NBA was extremely successful with a 21 point average and 6 rebounds per game. He was chosen in the All-Rookie team and  went on to become one of the game’s great scorers. He led his team to several major championships and  became the third youngest player in NBA history to reach 2,000 career points during the 2004-05 season. The very next season, he set another record by becoming the second youngest player to reach the 5,000 points mark.

During the 2006-07 and 2007-08 he was named to the  NBA All-Star teams, a feat that he repeated each year between 2010 to 2014. In 2011, he was traded from Denver to the New York Knicks, where he continued his streak as a top scoring player.  He was named the NBA scoring champion in 2013, in addition to winning Gold at the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics as well as a Bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Anthony is married to Alani Vazquez, with whom he has a son named Kiyan Carmelo Anthony. The wedding ceremony was filmed by VH1 to use as part of a reality series. He is involved with a charitable organization named the Family Resource Center which works for underprivileged children and also donates to other causes such as relief efforts for earthquake and tsunami victims. He has been charged with marijuana possession and was suspended for 15 games for being involved in a fight. He was also charged with driving under the influence, for which he was sentenced to one year of probation, 24 hours of community service and a thousand dollar fine.


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