"I'M AT PEACE"

After 19 seasons, six teams, more than 28,000 points-and no rings-CARMELO ANTHONY decided to call it a career. And he's never been more content

- CHRIS HERRING

THIS TIME, CARMELO ANTHONY IS AT PEACE.

That wasn't the case the first time he contemplated the end of his career, back in November 2018. After a bizarre, head-scratching stint with the Rockets that ended when the team unceremoniously cast him off 10 games into the season, Anthony was forced to confront life without basketball. "I ended up being away from the game for [a year], and that time showed me, Oh, this is what [the end] feels like? Nah, I'm not ready yet," Anthony says during a car ride on a May afternoon from midtown Manhattan to his childhood neighborhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "I knew I still had something to give-that I could help a team if I just got another opportunity."

He waited a year for that chance, but the Trail Blazers finally came calling early in the 2019-20 season, offering Anthony the shot at basketball redemption he so desperately craved. Things went so well with Portland that the club signed Anthony back for a second season, during which he shot a career-best 40.9% from three-point range. Then the Lakers reached out to Anthony in the summer of '21 to offer him a bench role at age 37, for his 19th professional season.

Anthony's rock-bottom moment following the Houston situation gave him a Scrooge-like perspective. By experiencing what, to him, felt like a firing from the Rockets, Anthony went through a form of basketball death. "It was this roller coaster of not knowing what comes next," he says. "Ups and downs. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally. On and off the court."

Yet going through it readied him for the decision to retire now. "It's weird to use the word happy, but I'm happy," he says, wearing a green-and-white, long-sleeve pullover, sunglasses and green baseball cap that covers his braids. "It took a lot for me to get to that point and to be able to see it all clearly. But I do."