Schonbrun: For Anthony and Greene, legacies couldn't be more different

By: Zach Schonbrun

Posted: 10/20/08

Hours before the opening tip, long before the Carrier Dome would open to the public, fans peered over the Gate B balcony overlooking the back entrance to the stadium, anticipating the Denver Nuggets' team bus to arrive.

Thursday's headlines caught Shaquille O'Neal in tabloid-like hourly updates - he ordered waffles on Marshall Street and popcorn at the Carousel Center? But who was he with? - and, in the greater NBA universe, perhaps Allen Iverson, Steve Nash and Grant Hill have better Q ratings as bonafide basketball celebs.

Carmelo Anthony, though, has a second home like few others, and fans here in Syracuse oozed to his every breath. They swelled around the tunnel before he entered for warm-ups. Their camera flashes lit the Dome during his introduction. And in the game's closing minutes, despite Anthony having already taken off his sneakers, they chanted to Nuggets' head coach George Karl: "We want Melo!"

Idolization was personified, and the 24-year-old soaked in the nightlong embrace from a community that hardly knew him. No one wondered whether the one-year wonder would embrace back.

"It brought back a lot of memories here tonight," Anthony said. He spoke of revisiting Cosmo's, using his old locker and stopping by the construction site of the Carmelo K. Anthony basketball practice facility being erected next to Manley Field House.

No one asked if he'd need to Mapquest his way there.

In the five years since he left, as his NBA image has inflated, he has grown to encompass Syracuse as much as any athlete ever. He's the defining basketball player for a university that has quickly become a basketball school. And unlike the others - Jim Brown, Donovan McNabb or Ernie Davis - he was on campus for only one year.

Fans filled the student section, yet no current student was enrolled in 2003. Members of the present men's basketball team sat in wide-eyed amazement along the sidelines, though its two freshmen, Mookie Jones and Kris Joseph, weren't even in high school when Anthony left town.

And another Anthony worshipper would've loved the show if he could've seen it. Instead, Donte Greene was in Dallas, getting set for a preseason game as a rookie for the Sacramento Kings.

Adoration is indeed a two-way street, with winning percentage as its double-yellow line. Anthony's one year crowned him city king; Greene's decision to leave as a freshman last season made him vilified among the Dome faithful.

Greene jumped off the ship Anthony helped set afloat. He keeps tabs on his old team, too.

"I'm hoping and praying," Anthony said of Syracuse getting back into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in three years. "We need that. This town is looking for that again. They're looking for that great basketball season, looking for that great team."

Last year, Greene and Jonny Flynn were the one-two punch of Syracuse's own redeem team, the heralded recruits of Jim Boeheim's envied 2007 class. Greene was the 6-foot-11, Baltimore native, a former member of "Team Melo" in the Maryland AAU ranks and a friend of Anthony himself, seemingly hand-picked to attend Syracuse and fulfill legacy's order.

Despite his reiterations that he was no 'Melo, the comparisons kept coming. He finished with the second-best freshman season, statistically, in Syracuse history - behind Anthony.

And when the season was over, he saw the pot of gold, too. Greene left Syracuse without a ring, though. No preseason NBA game will be scheduled in the Carrier Dome in his honor.

No large throng of fans will wait for hours just to see him back in town for a game. He's largely been forgotten already (his name came up only once in Boeheim's press conference at men's basketball media day on Thursday), this after months of verbal harassment from Syracuse fans after he declared his intentions in April.

On Friday, Anthony reveled in the worship he'd find at few other places.

"It's good to actually play in front of a bunch of people that know, you know, I was here," Anthony said. "They were rooting for me every game. I played a season here, I brought a championship. And to actually come back and have a preseason game, it feels pretty good."

Was Carmelo the Great humbled by Syracuse's warm welcome home? He spent the night smiling, not weeping, during his reunion tour.

He said after the game it's been seven years since he left, but it's only been five. Time flies when you're one of Nike's top sales reps. The Air Jordan 'Melo sneakers he flung into the stands may already be on eBay, tokens for fan obsession.

Anthony may no longer be Syracuse's sole star to fly for the NBA after one season. Greene joins him on that list. No one will ever need to question, however, the disparity in the legacies they left behind.

Zach Schonbrun is The Daily Orange sports columnist, where his columns appear every Tuesday. He can be reached at zsschonb@syr.edu.