Lakers News: Why LeBron James Knew About Carmelo Anthony's Retirement Ahead Of Time

The two former LA teammates are also longtime friends.

10-time NBA All-Star power forward Carmelo Anthony, who spent what wound up being his final NBA season in 2021-22 as a reserve sharpshooter for your ill-fated 33-49 Los Angeles Lakers, officially announced his retirement last Monday following a Hall of Fame 19-year career.

The 39-year-old certainly could have pulled a Stephon Marbury and kept playing in the Chinese Basketball Association for many years, even though no NBA clubs ultimately had come calling in 2022-23. But he opted to call it a career instead. To be fair, he didn't need the money, having netted $262.5 million in on-court earnings alone. He also didn't need to keep piling on the hoops accolades. Despite never making an NBA Finals, he led several teams deep into the postseason, most prominently the 2009 Denver Nuggets (who lost to your title-bound Lakers in the Western Conference Finals) and the 2013 New York Knicks.

One of the smoothest shooters in the history of the league, Anthony hangs up his sneakers having earned career averages of 22.5 points on .447/.355/.814 shooting splits, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.7 assists across 1,260 regular season games.

His fellow 2021-22 Laker and 2003 draftee LeBron James, a longtime friend, revealed that he had known Anthony would retire a week before everyone else did, by benefit of helping Anthony set up the video shoot were he made his touching announcement.

"I kind of knew the announcement was going to happen cause I shot the video a week ago," James told gathered media following the Lakers' four-game sweep at the hands of the Denver Nuggets. "So people will probably think I'm lying about that too."

Absolutely no one is questioning the veracity of James' statement, it should be noted. The man runs a media empire, after all, so him aiding his pal makes plenty of sense.

Basketball will miss you, Melo.

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