Tracy McGrady: Carmelo Anthony Should Just Retire

Soon-to-be former Rocket Carmelo Anthony missed his third straight game tonight with what the team is calling an “illness,” though he’s really been held out since a disastrous game against the Thunder because the Rockets are in the process of getting rid of him and want to save face as they unceremoniously dump him only 10 games after signing him. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski has reported that Melo and his representatives are in the process of finding a team to sign him after the Rockets inevitably waive him, and it sure seems that he won’t ever play for the Rockets again.

Tracy McGrady had a suggestion for Melo: retire. On this afternoon’s episode of The Jump, he and fellow ESPNer Jackie MacMullan agreed that Melo has done enough and that he’s doing a disservice to his legacy by hanging onto a career with diminished horizons.

While Carmelo Anthony has obviously fallen off hard from the all-star level he was playing at two years ago, he can still at least score at an NBA level. He hasn’t really changed his game the way many of his aged peers have, but he never had much of a chance to settle in with Houston since their season got off to such a rotten start. Melo might not even be, say, even a seventh or eighth man on a championship-level team, and that’s fine. This season may have been total shit so far for Melo, but he shouldn’t punt on whatever is left of his career in service of something as abstract as his legacy.