Carmelo Anthony on Michael Jordan Friendship: 'He Doesn't Miss Anything'
With all the buzz in the sporting world surrounding Michael Jordan and the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls after ESPN aired the first two parts of its The Last Dance documentary series Sunday night, Carmelo Anthony joined SportsCenter anchor Sage Steele on the Jumpman Instagram account to speak about his friendship with Jordan.
"He doesn't miss anything," he said. "Nothing is happening until MJ texts you... and you know when the text is coming."
Anthony's teammates also had some thoughts on Jordan and The Last Dance Sunday night. Damian Lillard commented on Jordan's work ethic, intensity and talent, calling him "different different" while also tweeting about Scottie Pippen and former Bulls general manager Jerry Krause:
CJ McCollum also took to Twitter during the miniseries, focusing much of his attention on Pippen:
Anthony, who debuted in the 2003-04 season, just missed playing against Jordan, who retired for the third and final time after the 2002-03 season. Instead, he came up in the NBA during Jordan serving in his role as the principal owner of the Charlotte Hornets.
And Anthony said in a 2016 interview with Complex that Jordan did more for the game of basketball at large than simply just dominate on the court:
"The game was looking for an identity, and he came in with the swag, with the short shorts, the long socks, and the chain—he brought something different to the game of basketball. Globally. Now the game is already global. We're just taking advantage of what was already created, from a global standpoint. And we're enhancing it, but he set that stage. I mean, nobody knew about NBA players like that before '92. They wasn't watching NBA games over there. So when they saw that Dream Team in '92, a new era had started. It was a new vibe, a new aura, a new respect for basketball."
But it was that dominance on the court that led to six titles, forever sealing his legacy as arguably the greatest of all time. Turns out on the court he didn't miss much of anything, either.
