Basketball - NBA Does Not Select Carmelo Anthony For 

Carmelo Anthony must be highly disappointed in not figuring in the All Star reserves. When the reserves were announced Anthony’s name was not there and from the looks of it, NBA is using this opportunity to turn the All Star game as an award for good behavior.

This is the obvious conclusion one can draw because Anthony is leading the league with 31.3 points scored per game. He is two points ahead of Gilbert Arenas. Besides being the highest scorer in the league, Anthony is also extremely popular. His jersey is the highest selling jersey in the NBA followed by Kevin Garnett’s and Time Duncan’s, both of who have been selected as All Star forwards from Western Conference.

Anthony is also very popular as a teammate. All Iverson has only words of praise for him while USA Basketball named Anthony as the Male Athlete of the Year.

After seeing and hearing this, one wonders what went wrong. After all an All Star game is suppose to be the platform for the best players of NBA to demonstrate their skills and prowess on court. Anthony, being the leading scorer in the league, should have made it to the game. Unfortunately this is not the case. It is quite obviously that he is being punished and reprimanded for his involvement in the December 2006 fight at the Madison Square Garden.

There is no doubt that the NBA is trying to clean up its image after fight that took place in The Palace two years ago, specially with the players spending a lot time in courting defending their names and serving sentences. But Anthony has made a concentrated effort to clean up his image to such an extend that the NBA were touting him as a role model in the beginning of season.

If good behavior is the passport for entry into All Star, then there are players on the team who should be removed. NBA has to realize that Anthony has paid the price for the brawl. He served out his 15 game suspension without palming the blame onto someone else.

Given Anthony’s talent and his fan following, NBA has made a huge mistake in not selecting him for the All Star game. Las Vegas would not be a happening place for NBA without Carmelo Anthony.