Carmelo Anthony claimed the Denver Nuggets had another motive when the club assigned the No. 15 jersey to Nikola Jokić. Anthony apparently was the first superstar who made No. 15 popular in the Mile High City, but clearly, Jokić has stamped this number.
Carmelo Anthony believes the Nuggets gave Nikola Jokic the No. 15 jersey as a "petty maneuver" to "erase Melo's accomplishments".
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On Thursday, appearing in the podcast, 7 PM in Brooklyn, presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment, he talked about the same jersey given to Jokić, a number he wore in Denver,
"A petty maneuver. It wasn"t like, Oh, we got numbers to choose from. It was like. Here, you got 15. Y"all put Jokić in the middle of that. He doesn"t know what the f–k is going on. … He could have worn it because he wanted to pay homage, but what I believe is that they gave him 15 to try to erase what I did. I used to think about it. But I don"t think about that sh*t no more."
Anthony also addresses the fact that Jokić is now the face of the franchise and said,
"When you think of 15 in Denver now, to this generation, you [think the] Joker. And there"s nothing towards that. It"s just, that it was two different generations. So that just goes to show me that y"all [The Nuggets] are not past that moment. This is 2010. This is 13 years ago. So if you are, you are holding on to something that was 13 years ago."
Anthony was drafted by the Nuggets as the No. 3 overall pick in the 2003 draft and his first eight seasons with the team, winning the national championship with Syracuse.
Before being traded to the New York Knicks after eight seasons he was a six-time All-Star averaging 24.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game.
