Whenever Carmelo Anthony decides to retire, he’s determined that no one else is going to break the news, writes Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register. Anthony discussed the topic after Friday’s practice but gave no indication that he’s thinking about ending his career. At age 37, he remains a valuable weapon off the Lakers' bench, averaging 13.6 points per game and shooting 38.7% from three-point range.
“I’m going to tell you that right now: You ain’t going to hear no whispers,” Anthony said when asked about retirement. “You’re going to hear it straight from me.”
Anthony and teammate LeBron James are the only active players from the 2003 draft, and he wants to keep his career going as long as possible after finding himself out of the league nearly three years ago when it seemed nobody wanted him. He has remained durable despite his age, appearing in 64 games so far this season and missing only 15 combined over the past three years. Anthony credits that to his mental approach to each season.
“If coming into it you’re thinking, ‘Oh I want to play 70 games or 72 games,’ you’re not going to be really locked into that,” he said. “You’ll be worried about something going wrong or this happening.”
There’s more on the Lakers:
- Anthony Davis didn’t take part in contact during Friday’s practice, but his workload has been increasing. The team remains hopeful that he’ll be available before the end of the regular season, Goon states in the same piece. Davis hasn’t played since spraining his right foot in a Feb. 16 game.
- There’s less optimism surrounding Kendrick Nunn, an offseason free agent addition who hasn’t played all season, Goon adds. Nunn still isn’t able to practice, and coach Frank Vogel acknowledged that it’s “a good question” why he hasn’t been ruled out for the season. “I haven’t circled back with a recent update on that other than to know that’s he’s trying to (come back),” Vogel said. “I’m not sure when the next MRI is. But the intent is for him to continue to ramp up activity to where his imaging is coming back clean. I think there’s been some improvements, but not enough to see him back in practice.”
- Vogel is touting James for MVP honors but admits the Lakers’ poor record will affect his chances, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN. James is the league’s top scorer at 30.0 PPG, but L.A. is fighting to hold on to a spot in the play-in tournament. “He is as deserving for MVP consideration as anybody in the league,” Vogel said. “I know how the voting goes — the team with the best record or top couple of records usually gets most of those considerations, so the win-loss record definitely would probably hurt him. But you can’t tell me that anybody has played a better season than LeBron James has this year.”
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