Carmelo Anthony is the 25th Member of the 25,000 Point Club
The 25,000 point club welcomed its 25th member on Saturday night, as Carmelo Anthony scored 21 points during Oklahoma City's 121-108 win against Detroit to lift his career total to 25,004. Inexplicably, the NBA only officially recognizes 21 members of the club, as the ABA statistics of Julius Erving (30,026 points; eighth all-time), Moses Malone (29,580 points; ninth all-time), Dan Issel (27,482 points, 11th all-time) and Rick Barry (25,279; tied for 22nd all-time) are not counted.Scoring 25,000 points is a significant milestone; every player who reached that total prior to Anthony is either already a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame or is a lock to be inducted upon becoming eligible. Think about that number: it takes elite scoring ability to average 25 points per game and it requires durability to play in 80 or more games--but even if you meet both of those standards for 12 straight seasons you still will be 1000 points short of 25,000!
Anthony's career scoring average is 24.4 ppg, which ranks 13th among the 25,000 point club members. Anthony will likely finish his playing days with a lower scoring average than that, as he has accepted the role of third option with the Thunder after being the number one option during his entire career. Anthony has well-documented limitations in terms of his all-around game and in terms of being a leader but there is no questioning his ability to put the ball in the basket--and if he continues to be willing to sacrifice individual glory to make the Thunder a better team then perhaps he can add the final piece to his resume: a championship ring.
Labels: Carmelo Anthony, Dan Issel, Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Oklahoma City Thunder, Rick Barry
posted by David Friedman @ 7:06 AM
2 Comments:
It's an absolute disgrace that the NBA won't acknowledge ABA stats when the NFL had no problem accepting AFL stats. Several players. especially Julius Erving, are getting absolutely railroaded by this petty denial. Keep fighting the good fight, David and maybe someday this will be rectified.
Speaking of Carmelo Anthony and the Thunder, it has been fun watching them reach their potential and it has inspirational watching Melo embrace his third option role. I can assure you that GSW is more concerned with an OKC match-up than a match-up with the Rockets in the playoffs. Everyone is talking about the Rockets possibly dethroning the Warriors but let's see them beat SAS in the second round first. Harden, CP3 and D'Antoni have everything to prove in the postseason and it will be interesting to see if they can live up to the hype.
Michael, how about we actually see RW win a playoff series as the best player on his team first before jumping too far ahead. So far, his track record is one playoff appearance and 1 win in 2 seasons, soon to be 2 playoff appearances in 3 seasons. OKC will likely finish in the 3-5 range in the West. If they're in the 4-5 spot, they'll have to face SA or MIN likely in the 1st round, possibly without homecourt advantage. I seriously doubt GS is that concerned with OKC, but they've had 3 Finals runs in a row in a tough conference. Sooner or later, it'll might catch up to them.
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