Photo: AP/ Bahram Mark Sobhani, File

In a recent interview, Chauncey Billups spoke about his former teammate Carmelo Anthony and why Melo isn’t in the NBA right now. Billups said that “scoring 30 meant too much to Melo. He could have games where he had 20, 22, we win the game and he’s mad”.

Carmelo Anthony’s reaction to Billups’s comments:

Per ClutchPoints: “Coming out from high school, to college, to the NBA, I had a different mentality. It was kill or be killed. I had to go eat. I was 23, 24, I had to eat, and whatever I had to do to put us in a situation to win, I was willing to do that. I was doing that.

To his comments, if I didn’t score 30, it was 40, it was 50. If I didn’t score those points, I felt like I didn’t do my job, because that was my mentality – it was to go all out at that point in time. I don’t take his comments any type of way. I take that as a learning tool and I think a lot of people out there, up-and-coming athletes should take that as a learning tool.

My only issue was the timing of his comments. Because of everything that surrounded me on these comments, on this narrative around Melo, I don’t think it was the right time for him to say, “Oh, he liked scoring 30 in a loss, but he didn’t like scoring 20 in a win”. I just think that narrative, that conversation, was [happening at] the wrong time,” Anthony said.