Carmelo Anthony after gold medal win: ‘I know this is the end.’

However, there is still a chance Anthony could compete in future Olympic games, since he is eligible through his father, Carmelo Iriarte, to play for Puerto Rico. But not in the minds of the United States players, said Durant.

Becoming the first basketball player to ever win three Olympic Gold Medals is quite the feather for Melo’s cap.

“I think I’ve given enough to Team USA Basketball”, Anthony said in the afterglow of his third gold. Anthony was one of Team USA’s best players at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio, where he also became the Americans’ all-time leading scorer in Olympic play.

Anthony was on the 2004 team who settled for bronze, a hard-to-swallow result that sparked a re-organisation of the USA programme.

“Despite everything that’s going on right now in our country, we’ve got to be united”, Anthony said on the telecast. “I believe that. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but it’s one step at a time and I’m glad we represented in the fashion that we did”.

“It was a special moment for me”, he told an NBC Olympics reporter, tearing up. He later clarified those comments, but the damage was done in the eyes of many fans who have had a rocky relationship with the National Basketball Association star during his time in NY.

He will not go for a fourth gold, however. “I’m excited for me, but also for the guys that have never experienced this before”. That would seem to make Anthony eligible to play for Puerto Rico in Tokyo 2020 and there are plenty of fans who would love to see him do it. He admitted that he was trying to be too unselfish in earlier games. Jerry Colangelo nearly caused the fail of The Games when he dropped a gold medal whilst shaking Durant’s hand…