The Whiteboard: Dispatch from the multiverse, where Carmelo Anthony is redeemed

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The refusal to acknowledging aging is a special sort eye-rolling microaggression. It’s not just someone facing a universal truth with intentional obliviousness, it’s the way choosing fantasy over reality creates such an embarrassing aesthetic — think Amy Poehler’s try-hard mom in Mean Girls, and all the actual people that character is inspired by. There’s no harm in cos-play, nostalgia or all the other ways people try to stay connected with their past. But watching someone refuse to accept that they’re not the same person they were a decade ago can be excruciating.

Luckily, the expansive theory of the multiverse presents an easy solution. If there are infinite variations of the universe we experience as reality, then there are infinite universes in which we are all aging gracefully, accepting our new limitations and learning how to thrive within them.

In one of those universes of graceful aging, there is also a COVID-19 pandemic that has interrupted the NBA season and necessitated a 22-team dog and pony show at Walt Disney World. In this universe, the teams not currently in playoff position have to play their way in over the course of an eight-game regular-season restart and a two-game play-in. In this universe, the Trail Blazers welcome a healthy Zach Collins and Jusuf Nurkic back into the lineup. They are lifted by a furious and focused Damian Lillard, the off-the-dribble precision of CJ McCollum. But it is Carmelo Anthony who puts them over the top.

Imagining Carmelo Anthony, redeemed.

In this world, Anthony is the connective tissue. He willingly and enthusiastically takes a backseat, ceding shots to Lillard, McCollum and Nurkic. For the most part, he eschews the mid-post spending more time in the corners and around the break, drilling spot-up 3s, using his gravity to tug at the outer edges of the defense and attacking sloppy closeouts with vigor. He screens hard, holding contact to secure precious fractions of seconds for his ball-handlers instead of instantly slipping into a laconic roll towards the basket with his hand in the air. He rebounds. He moves the ball. His defense is not without problems but he brings effort and throws himself into banging with bigger players to make his stretch-4-ness viable.

There are moments in this run where circumstances demand the old, Melo. He has more than one 30-point game, picking apart a specific mismatch with grinding jab steps and pull-up jumpers. But when the moment ends, he devolves quickly and without complaint. In this universe, he understands that the passage of time has eroded his skills and his legs, and that the world has changed around him. He understands that his primary value is no longer “scorer,” that he is now just “Carmelo Anthony, basketball player.”

In this universe, the Trail Blazers begin with the improbable — playing their way past the Grizzlies and into the playoffs. From there, they begin to deconstruct the impossible — beating the Lakers, Jazz, Clippers and Bucks in order. It is a historic, legacy-making run for Lillard, establishing him as one of the greatest playoff performers in NBA history. On paper, Anthony is outplayed by LeBron and Giannis, by Kawhi and Paul George and, heck, even Joe Ingles. But he understands that it’s not his job to outplay anyone in particular anymore. He doesn’t double-check the box score in the locker room to make sure his listed point total matches his memory, he’s too busy reliving the prescient outlet pass he made to get Anfernee Simons an easy bucket.

In this universe, Anthony is redeemed. Not by a title or a ring, but by a postseason run fully inhabiting his omnidirectional potential. When he enters the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame a few years later, the speeches mention his devastating ability as a one-on-one scorer, the power and grace he brought to the first arc of his career. But they also focus on the bookend, the awareness and intention he brought to his final act and the way in which it changed everything.

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