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Carmelo’s Rebirth as ‘Hoodie Melo’ Is a Viral Sensation With New Season Hope
Carmelo Anthony’s summer workout regimen includes donning his Hoodie alter ego, and a healthy dose of basketball revenge.
It’s time to be honest.
The 2016–17 season will be known as the lowest part of Carmelo Anthony’s career. The sloppily constructed “super team,” the conglomerate of athletes that would have been a premier roster in 2011, was actually a masterful act of self-sabotage. As a team, the early start was promising, even though Anthony only had a lukewarm first leg of the season.
The events leading up to the Christmas game gave fans the illusion of hope, but it dissipated as quickly as it had manifested. There was never legitimate hope; there was simply a desperate wish for a miracle to take place on 34th street (Penn Station). Lord knows Carmelo tried his damnedest to keep the ship afloat. Alas, wishes are employed by losers who lack preparation–and the Knicks lacked preparation on multiple fronts.
From Derrick Rose’s A.W.O.L. fiasco, to James Dolan’s feud with Knicks legend Charles Oakley, to President Phil Jackson’s personal beef with him, it was a rough year for ‘Melo. The ugly rumors about his personal life didn’t help much either.
By the end of the season, ‘Melo had his worst season since his 2011 slump by averaging 22.4 points per game on 43 percent from the floor (per Basketball-Reference). The mumbles of Carmelo Anthony being moved around the trade deadline turned into full-blown conversations by the biggest voices in sports media, especially after Jackson’s comments during his end-of-season presser. Like every year, factors out of the ten-time All-Star’s control were cited as weaknesses, such as his age and his lack of being LeBron James.
That’s where we were. Sacrilege and hate speech in the year 2017.
It was a dark time. Then, there was a light in the darkness, or a pink slip. Jackson was fired and Dolan hired Scott Perry, a non-celebrity, to restore honor to the Knicks tarnished name. At that point in time, ‘Melo was all aboard for a trade that would send him to the Houston Rockets. Since then, however, the buzzing has subsided substantially.
For a while, ‘Melo had seemed to go quiet. As free agency wore on, it appeared he was enjoying being free from the mad king Phil Jackson. Two names brought ‘Melo back into the media’s eye: one was Chris Brickley, a trainer who is becoming immensely popular due to his Instagram videos and reputation among NBA players, and the 2nd was his long-time friend and rival LeBron James.
Both of these names converged to give birth to the social media sensation and basketball demigod known as Hoodie Melo.
Like all epics, it began with a humble tale. ‘Melo’s offseason workout videos with modest viewership received a signal boost when James tweeted the following on a tranquil Wednesday morning:
Brickley, the aforementioned trainer, had already been doing work with premier NBA shooters like C.J. McCollum and J.R. Smith. It would only be right if these connections amalgamated to bring about some of the greatest pickup games of all time:
Brickley’s own Instagram page has garnered over 400,000 hits alone. That doesn’t include the videos floating around Twitter, Youtube, and other forms of media. These pickup games taking place at an NYC gymnasium that ‘Melo himself helped design have basketball fans salivating at the mouth. A basketball court boasting the likes of James, Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade, and Anthony at one time is enough star power to make any fan ignore society's ills, at least for a couple of days in Twitter time. (Note: Time on Twitter is comparable to the Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, meaning 5 Twitter years counts for about about 30 seconds in real time.)
Although this was a joyous occasion for basketball aficionados all around, it was exceptionally momentous to Knicks fans for one reason. Carmelo Anthony was preparing to resurrect his fading career in order to bring Knicks fans the one thing the false prophet Phil Jackson took from them: hope.
The sky hook left fans in awe, but Captain America cooking King James on more than one occasion turned Knicks loyalists into reaction GIF’s.
It looks like it’s comeback season for Carmelo Anthony, and there’s a historical precedent.
As mentioned before, the 2011–12 season was a statistical low point in his career as well, before the 2016–17 season. The following season (2012–13) he lead the Knicks in scoring with 28.7 points per game, his 2nd highest career mark, and led the team to their first conference semi-finals series since 2000. He and his veteran supporting cast brought fun, competitive basketball back to Madison Square Garden. He brought the noise, he brought his A-game, and he brought ambition.
This time around, no. 7 is the most important 30-plus-year-old vet on the roster. Carmelo’s often been criticized for lacking leadership qualities. Funny, considering he just won an NBPA for best teammate. Only Hoodie Melo’s gentle influence before the full metamorphosis can be accredited to this accolade.
Hoodie Melo defies all expectations and logic. Hoodie Melo doesn’t care about facts. He’s here for one thing, and one thing only: buckets. It’s rumored that Anthony has a reluctance to play at power forward due to a fear of bruisers roaming the paint. Hoodie Melo knows no fear. Doctors, trainers, and basketball historians alike say that ball-handling skills and capabilities tend to deteriorate as age and health wear on the body. Hoodie Melo will cross you and your whole family of Lannister apologists over. Carmelo Anthony hasn’t shot above 45 percent since 2014. As of today, Hoodie Melo is still shooting 100 percent from 3.
Hoodie Melo isn’t just the next LeBron James: Hoodie Melo is a phenomenon. The Cleveland Cavaliers’ sharp-shooter J.R. Smith even gave his take:
“Hoodie Melo doesn’t play with a conscience. ‘Melo Melo’ has a guard up…I like the ‘Hoodie Melo’ better.” (via Taylor Rooks/Twitter)
The proof is in the pudding, folks. Your favorite shooter’s favorite shooter, the “Shooter’s Shoot” Shooter, praised Hoodie Melo as the superior ‘Melo, the exemplar ‘Melo. Everyone knows Smith plays better when he’s in good spirits. That’s another testament to the phenomenon: Hoodie Melo is making his teammates better while they’re not even on the same team.
Hoodie Melo isn’t Michael Jordan wearing number 45 to save a middling team from irrelevance. Hoodie Melo is more akin to 31-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shooting lights out in 1979. Both comparisons sound insane to those who haven’t witnessed the glorious jumper, but if there’s one thing Hoodie Melo has taught us already, it’s that anything is possible as long as you have a hoodie on (preferably sleeveless).
Brickley’s Instagram account now features a couple of appearances by Knicks rookie Frank Ntilikina, and if you watch closely you’ll even see Lance Thomas running some game in a video, undoubtedly under the guidance of the lesser deity known colloquially as Hoodie Melo. It’s great to see Knicks working hard in the offseason after a discouraging year since a select few Eastern Conference rivals have been bolstered over the course of free agency.
D’Angelo Russell’s move to Brooklyn gives the cross-borough teams a quasi-nemesis matchup at point guard for years to come, and in Philadelphia, where they were told to “trust the process,” The Process has finally arrived. Well, in New York, there isn’t a mantra, or a credo, that’s been born, but a promise. A promise to hoop with conviction, to rain three-balls and step-back mid-range jumpers alike. A promise to rescue the Knicks from ugly, insipid basketball. And that promise, that covenant, is to be fulfilled by New York’s very own patron saint, the patron saint of buckets: Hoodie Melo.
— Ty Jordan, staff writer
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