ESPN personality Elle Duncan put together a video of herself arguing with … herself ... about the ‘legacy’ of Carmelo Anthony and released it to the world on Monday afternoon.
This would have gone relatively unnoticed -- it’s mostly generic basketball talk about a player the NBA has moved on from -- if she hadn’t included this line:
“[Melo being in the Hall of Fame] doesn’t really mean much with names like Dražen Petrović there. Dražen Petrović didn’t leave his mark on the game like Melo did.”
First off Carmelo was a great player with a sour end. He’s a HOFer. Debate over.
Here are some Petrović facts:
Dražen Petrović died in 1993 in a car accident when he was 28. The season before he averaged 22.3 points a game for the New Jersey Nets and shot 45 percent from deep.
He and a few others like Vlade Divac were the first crew from Eastern Europe to break the NBA’s geography barrier.
He is internationally and nationally revered as a trailblazer and a great player. If you don’t believe us, watch this video of Goran Dragic sobbing when being given his Nets jersey.
LeBron James called him the greatest international player ever.
Reggie Miller called him the best shooter ever.
ESPN made an excellent documentary about Petrović and Divac. (Which she could watch whenever she wants! She works there!)
Petrović won a silver medal in the Olympics in 1988, four years before the Dream Team came around.
The Hall of Fame is definitely flawed, and our go-to example of this is Mitch Richmond, but to offhandedly make a comment with such condescending inflection about a great player who died when he was 28 in a car accident is lazy.
To work for a company with bottomless pockets that’s willing to fund you talking to yourself about Carmelo Anthony, and to somehow come to the conclusion that that was an OK thing to say, is insulting.
(To the sport, and to many others.)
Anyways, put Sidney Moncrief in the Hall of Fame.
[WATCH: Vice Sports on the legacy of basketball legend Dražen Petrović]
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