Michael Wilbon has a nice column in today’s Washington Post about Denver’s rise in the Western Conference. There’s a lot of talk about Camelo Anthony’s maturation. A favorite excerpt:
Anthony doesn’t waste time playing the silly I-don’t-care game. He cares deeply, some have said too much, about how he stacks up with his 2003 draft mates, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. “Yes, I do compare,” he said. “We talk about it all the time. D-Wade got his championship first. LeBron took three years to get to the playoffs, but then the next year [2007] he got all the way to the NBA Finals. Me . . . it took me five years just to get to the second round. It was a longer walk for me. And getting swept by the Lakers last year was really difficult.”
But Anthony, unlike the rest of his teammates, could use the Olympics to get over last year’s playoff disappointment. Anthony looked around at the players assembled, which included LeBron, Kobe, Wade and Chris Paul, and decided, “We’ve got enough scoring here” and for the first time challenged himself to be a great defender. Turned out to be a good thing since the international teams had Dirk Nowitzki, Luis Scola, and Pau and Marc Gasol playing power forward, opposite Anthony. “After the Olympics, I just remember thinking, ‘Why not bring this back to my own team?’ ” Anthony said. “It’s always been to a lot of people about what I didn’t do. So I said: ‘If I need to rebound better, I will. If I need to pass it more, if I need to play better defense, okay, I’ll do it. I know I’ve had seasons where I score more, but I think this has been, by far, my best season.”
It’s been an even better postseason for Anthony. His shooting percentage is up, three-point shooting percentage is up, free throw shooting percentage is up, steals are up, blocked shots are up, turnovers are down and assists are up. And his all-around approach to the game and attitude are what a star’s should be. Remember, Anthony is still a week away from turning 25. He and Karl seem to have found a peaceful co-existence. “I feel George and I have turned the corner,” he said. “I think we got to a place of me letting him coach me and him letting me be the player I can be.”
And if the relationship with Karl has taken some time, and is still a work in progress, accepting Billups as the team’s unquestioned floor leader took zero adjustment. “I told Chauncey when the trade was made, ‘Look, it might be my team but I want you to run it.’ I’m not going to cry about Chauncey being tough on me. He’s what I needed.”
