How should we remember Carmelo Anthony?

Where were you on April 5, 2003? If that date doesn’t ring a bell, it was the night 19-year-old Carmelo Anthony dominated Texas to get Syracuse to the NCAA championship game. He scored 33 points, which is still the freshman record for a tournament game.

If you watched that game — or really almost any Syracuse game that season — you probably thought that this kid was a lock to be a star in the NBA. And, he was.

Or, was he?

There’s no denying that Anthony had a very prolific career, one of the best of all time if you go by the numbers. Here’s a stat that may surprise you: He’s ninth on the all-time scoring list. He’s a lock for the Hall of Fame, but many don’t consider him an all-time great, and there are a couple of reasons for this.

He consistently underachieved

While it’s true that Anthony never won a title, he’s far from the only great player on this list. What separates Anthony from people like Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone is the fact that when they were in their prime, they almost always took their teams deep into the playoffs.

During Anthony’s seven-year run with the Nuggets, they qualified for the playoffs every year. Impressive, right? Well, not so much when you learn that they lost in the first round six of those years. While they did get to the Western Conference Finals in 2009, that was the one and only time Anthony made it that far. His record in the playoffs is a ghastly 28-55.

He’s not LeBron

Perhaps the biggest knock against Carmelo Anthony is something he had no control over: He entered the NBA at the same time as arguably the best player the league has ever known. For a moment, imagine that there is no LeBron James. (If you want to also imagine that there’s no "Space Jam 2," go right ahead.) With no LeBron, Anthony is probably the No. 1 pick in the draft. But aside from that, he gets to have a career that’s not in LeBron’s shadow.

Even if his career played out exactly the same way, without the frequent comparisons, without LeBron winning titles every other year, people would probably see Anthony in a different light. (By the way, it has to rankle Anthony a little that the day after he announces his retirement, LeBron also floats the idea. Can’t you give him the spotlight for once, LeBron?!)

So, how should we remember Carmelo Anthony?

It depends on who you are. If you’re a Syracuse fan, you remember him as perhaps the best player the school has ever had. (Maybe you hope that he has a kid who will soon be enrolling.) If you’re a Nuggets or Knicks fan, it’s probably hard not to think about what could’ve been. However, with the Nuggets, especially right now, any lingering bitter taste in your mouth probably won’t be there for long.

If you’re a fan of basketball in general, you should remember him as a pretty damn good player who played some great basketball for a couple of decades. That should be enough, right?