"We started and created a different culture here": Carmelo Anthony opens up about his time with the Nuggets

Carmelo Anthony’s best memory from his 7 1/2 year run with the Nuggets?

No surprise, it was Denver’s trip to the Western Conference Finals in 2009. But when ‘Melo looks back at his Nuggets’ tenure, it’s not the seven-consecutive playoff appearances or the three 50-plus win seasons that stick out. It’s how those Nuggets teams helped change how the city of Denver was viewed across the NBA.

When Anthony arrived in Denver prior to the 2003-04 season, the Nuggets were coming off a 17-win year. When he left town in 2011 after requesting a trade and was dealt to the New York Knicks, Denver was a locale where NBA teams feared playing.

“Western Conference Finals, that was a big moment, that team,” Anthony said Thursday morning. “But for me, it wasn’t even basketball, it was everything surrounding basketball. The way that we were able to grow this city into a place where it was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to Denver.’ At first it was like, ‘Where is Denver?’ Then over the years it was like. ‘Oh, we gotta go play. We’re going to Denver.’ It was exciting coming here to play against us. I’m happy we were able to create that, and that the guys now can benefit from that and can keep that going.”

Anthony is back in the city he helped put on the basketball map as a part of the Trail Blazers, who signed the forward in November after he spent the last 10 months out of basketball. The Nuggets, losers of five of their last six, host Anthony and the Trail Blazers, who have a 5-6 record since signing the 35-year-old, tonight (8:30 p.m. MT/TNT).

For its first home game in nine days, Denver hopes to have Jamal Murray (right trunk contusion), who left Tuesday’s loss to the 76ers in the first quarter and did not return, as well as Paul Millsap (left foot soreness) available. Both are listed as questionable although Murray posted on his Instagram account Wednesday that he plans to play.

For Anthony, returning to Denver, even though he was last a part of the organization in 2011 and has played at Pepsi Center as a member of the Knicks and Thunder since, still means a little something extra.

“It means a lot coming from the standpoint of I spent my first 7 1/2 years here,” Anthony said. “I kind of grew up in Denver here with these people.”

“It’s so far in the past but coming here is always–when you’re out here on this court, man, it’s different, and it will always be different. It will always mean something. Denver is Denver. My son was born here. I still go back to the places I used to go to so it means a lot.”

Anthony said the time he spent away from the game changed his perspective on basketball. He was traded from the Knicks to the Thunder in 2017 and averaged 16.2 points per game across 78 contests with Oklahoma City. That summer, the Thunder dealt Anthony to the Atlanta Hawks who waived the veteran. Anthony signed with the Rockets last August but was never the seamless fit in Houston that the team had hoped. He averaged 13.4 points and shot just 40.5 percent from the field across 10 games before the Rockets and Anthony agreed to part ways in mid-November. Houston later traded Anthony to the Chicago Bulls, who subsequently waived the forward in February.

He spent the last several months as a free agent staying in shape any way he could. Anthony said he did everything from standard conditioning drills, to boxing, to running hills on New York City’s West Side with kids who were in their PE classes.

“I’ve never taken anything for granted,” Anthony said. “I just think now, the opportunity that I’ve had and I’ve put it in perspective, it’s rarely done in sports for someone to be at the top of their game and then out of the game at the snap of a finger and then have an opportunity to put everything in perspective and see it from a different level and from the outside looking in. And then being able to come back into it with that perspective, I think that changes everything.”

Over the last couple of years, Anthony said he thought about a reunion in Denver and would have been open to the possibility of playing for the Nuggets, but the timing never worked out.

“I was open to it. We talked about it,” Anthony said. “People in my circle were like, ‘Go back to Denver.’ If it was that easy I probably would have done it. A lot of things came into play when it came to that. It was kind of out of my control at that time. The timing was off, similar to Portland. The timing has always just been off and all of a sudden that window of opportunity was there.”

Anthony put the Nuggets on the NBA map, and after seven playoff appearances in his first seven seasons with the franchise, his trade to the Knicks ushered in a new era of basketball in Denver. The haul the Nuggets got back for Anthony included Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov and several draft picks, some of which were used to construct Denver’s present day roster. The most valuable asset Denver acquired in the trade was the ability to swap 2016 first-round picks with New York which netted the Nuggets their franchise point guard in Jamal Murray.

Eight years after he last played a game for the organization, Denver still holds a special place in Anthony’s heart. The Nuggets selected Anthony third overall in 2003, and Denver’s standing in the NBA landscape has never been the same.

“I don’t think I’ve ever stopped appreciating my time in Denver,” Anthony said. “This is where it started for me. They drafted me. I had some great experiences here, some great times, great years. I spent my first 7 1/2 years here in Denver. I don’t think I can ever stop appreciating not just the organization, but the city as a whole.

“We were at a point in time where there was a shift and a team who had just only won 17 games prior to when we came in. We started and created a different culture here. The uniforms changed, we changed the colors of the uniforms. The vibe in Denver was different. The aura in the city, the energy was different. We were a part of that.”