Carmelo Anthony almost joined LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh with the Miami Heat in 2010
The Miami Heat became one of the most scrutinized teams in sports history when LeBron James and Chris Bosh decided to join Dwyane Wade in 2010.
But the Big Three almost was the Big Four.
Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony spoke on a podcast about how he considered joining the Heat that summer.
"I think one of them had to take like 16 and the other one 17," Anthony said. "All of them really had to sacrifice, which I tip my hat off to them for doing that because that's the hardest (bleep) to leave at that point in time in your career ... We all was at the top of the game and just to come together? When they did it, everybody was like, `Melo, you could've been the fourth one."'
Anthony missed out on being part of one of the best teams in NBA history. Behind Bosh, Wade and James, the Heat won two championships in four straight Finals appearances. After losing to the Dallas Mavericks in the first year, they captured consecutive titles against the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs. The run ended with a loss to the Spurs in the following year, causing James to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the summer of 2014.
While Anthony would have thrived on the team, he said it was just too difficult to leave the Denver Nuggets at the time. The only negative was Anthony never won a championship because he was unable to get past the conference finals.
"Imagine me being at 23 years old, being the fourth option on the team," Anthony said. I'm leading my team every single year and you want me to leave that to be the fourth option? I don't know mentally how I was going to be ready for that. It ain't got nothing to do with money. I would've had to figure out my role. These are all alphas coming together. `Bron is an alpha. D-Wade is an alpha. Don't nobody give Chris Bosh enough credit (but) Chris Bosh was ridiculous in Toronto. I'm like, `Hell no.' I can be that fourth guy."
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Shandel Richardson is the publisher of HeatRoundtable. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com