(Photo : Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Former NBA player Carmelo Anthony looks on during the first half of the Houston Rockets vs. New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 17, 2024.

On episode five of "7PM in Brooklyn," Anthony attempted to clean up any confusion concerning his statements regarding Denver's No. 15 jersey being worn by other players since he was traded to the New York Knicks in February of 2011.

Drafted third overall in 2003 by the Nuggets, the 6-foot-7 forward represented the current NBA champions on four all-star teams and just as many All-NBA teams, averaged 24.8 points on 45.9 percent shooting, 6.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists, had a three-point shooting percentage of 31.1, and made 80.3 percent of his free throw attempts over 564 games (all starts) before he was traded to New York in the middle of his eighth season.

Carmelo Anthony has reacted to the reaction to his recent criticism of the Denver Nuggets. 

The number is currently being worn by all-star center Nikola Jokic, the reigning NBA Finals MVP. Jokic will go down as the player in honor of whom Denver retires its No. 15 jersey after the 28-year-old Serbian wraps up his career. Anthony's view is that his eight-year run wearing No. 15 in Mile High City should've warranted its removal from the rotation of numbers made available to players subsequent to his Big Apple-bound departure.

"Last episode there was a little confusion, and the Internet was on your ass about the whole jersey situation," Anthony's "7PM in Brooklyn" co-host Joel Martinez, also known as The Kid Mero, said to start the show off.

"I saw some of the comments," Anthony said. "I just think we ... like (we're) in a time where you can't say nothing. If people think that it's a shot or negative, they jump on you. What I was explaining was, in Denver, during that time, for one, I didn't ask to leave. It was just the circumstances, right?" 


Anthony clarified that his statements were not an attack or directed to Jokic. He said, "why is it against Jokic? It has nothing to do with Jokic, (he came) four, five years later. I was making a point." 

If, as Anthony believes, Nuggets officials were intent on erasing the 10-time NBA All-Star's legacy with the team, they moved with some haste. Anthony Randolph, one of the players involved in Denver's February 2011 trade with New York, was the first player to wear the Nuggets' No. 15 jersey after said transaction, doing so over 82 games from 2012 to 2014.

Jokic, who made his debut on Oct. 28, 2015, has been wearing No. 15 his entire NBA career. The 6-foot-11 center believes he's been wearing the number his "whole life," he recently told reporters.

It stands to reason, then, that Jokic requested the number from Denver because he's been wearing it since before his NBA career became a real possibility.

Even if the Nuggets did also give the number away again as an affront to Anthony, who retired after 19 seasons last May, reports during the NBA's 2010-11 season show that he wanted out of Denver. Anthony disputes the narrative that he forced the trade.

Fairly or not, Jokic's role in this forces comparisons of the two, and the Nuggets' NBA title last year gives Anthony's detractors in Denver the last laugh.