Carmelo Anthony: Nuggets giving Jokić No. 15 ‘was a slap in the face’

Patrick Mahomes. Vince Carter. Dustin Pedroia. Tim Tebow.

These sports stars come to mind when thinking of No. 15.

For the Denver Nuggets, there’s not a clear-cut answer as to who is most-identified with the digit.

Carmelo Anthony was the first superstar to make No. 15 popular in the Mile High City. But recently, Nikola Jokić has put his stamp on the number.

In an episode of his ‘7 PM in Brooklyn’ podcast that was published Thursday, Anthony shared with co-host The Kid Mero why he thinks the Nuggets gave Jokić his old jersey number.

‘It was a petty maneuver,’ Anthony said. ‘It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we got numbers to choose from.’ It was like, ‘Here, you got 15.”

Anthony was drafted by Denver with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2003 draft after he won the national championship with Syracuse. The Nuggets went to the playoffs in all of Anthony’s seven full seasons there, including a run to the 2009 Western Conference finals. He was named an All-Star four times and, alongside Kenyon Martin, Chauncey Billups, J.R. Smith and Allen Iverson, made the Nuggets a pop culture phenomenon with signature sneakers and powder blue jerseys.

Jokić is a two-time MVP and was named last year’s Finals MVP after Denver won its first championship. The Serbian star was picked up by the Nuggets in the second round of the 2014 NBA draft while the ESPN broadcast was showing a Taco Bell commercial.

Anthony said that Denver trading center Jusuf Nurkic in 2017 helped Jokić step into his own star power. At the time, Anthony was settled into life with the New York Knicks, where he started a new chapter wearing No. 7. Per his request, he was traded to the Big Apple after the 2011 All-Star break. There were reports that Anthony wasn’t happy in Denver and that he clashed with head coach George Karl.

Anthony, who officially retired in May after a 19-year career, said Denver giving his old number to Jokić continued a narrative that Anthony was a ‘disgruntled’ athlete who didn’t appreciate his role in the mid-market city. Anthony said giving the number away was a sign of ‘disrespect.’

‘I’m like, (expletive) is going on? 15?’ he said. ‘So now, just start thinking, this is because this is the narrative that they put out there. ‘He wanted to leave. He wanted to do this.’ Nah. But why would you disrespect by even offering that? The disrespect in you offering that showed me that you just wanted to erase everything that came prior to that right there. So yeah, (expletive) y’all. You’re saying, (expletive) me dead smack to the rest of the world. Cool. I ain’t never said nothing bad about y’all.’

Anthony and Mero cited Jokić’s nonchalant attitude as reason for believing that the MVP wouldn’t have cared about what number he was given when he joined the franchise. They said that because of Anthony’s international reach — he was an Olympic athlete and a face of the NBA — it is possible Jokić intended to show respect to Anthony with the number.

‘I don’t know. He could have worn it because he wanted to pay homage,’ Anthony said. ‘But what I believe is that they gave him 15 to try to erase what I did. … Only thing I know is what I believe is that that was done purposely. That was a slap in the face.’

Jokić has worn No. 15 since his days playing youth basketball in Serbia, including in the ABA League before joining the NBA. According to The Athletic, Jokić first started wearing the number because he was the biggest kid on the team and the No. 15 jersey was the largest one.