Carmelo Anthony and Mark Aguirre are two of the best players ever to play the small forward position. Although the two played in different eras, their styles shared uncanny similarities.
Former Detroit Pistons captain Isiah Thomas grew up with Aguirre and was his teammate in the NBA. Thomas also watched Melo go from Syracuse to the NBA and become one of the league's top all-time leading scorers. According to Zeke, there is a striking semblance to how the two operated on offense.
"One of the Top 75 players of all-time, Carmelo Anthony, he's a great post up player, left box, right box, turn around, shoot and then he can stretch out fo the three-point line, and not only did he have three-point range, he had mid-range, he really had the total package," said Isiah.
They had similar offensive packages
Like Anthony, Thomas said his childhood buddy Aguirre could shoot, pass, take opponents off the dribble, dunk on them, and post them up. Before he was traded to the Detroit Pistons, Aguirre was one of the NBA's top scorers and averaged 20.0 points per game during his 13-year NBA career.
Meanwhile, Anthony posted a career scoring average of 22.5 points per game in 19 seasons played. The 2013 NBA scoring champion is currently ranked as the 10th all-time leading scorer in the NBA and one of only 10 players in league history to score at least 28,000 career points.
"When you look at Carmelo Anthony and the type of scorer he became in the NBA, and what he can do from shooting a basketball to putting the ball in the hole, these two eerily remind me so much of each other in terms of scoring the basketball," added Thomas.
The similarity did not end in their playing styles
Melo was the 3rd overall pick of the 2003 NBA Draft, and if Thomas' former backcourt partner Joe Dumars had drafted wisely, Anthony could have ended up playing for the team that Aguirre helped win back-to-back titles. But as fate would have it, Carmelo went to the Denver Nuggets.
The scoring forward led the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals in 2009, his sixth NBA season, while Aguirre took the Mavericks to the 1988 WCF in his seventh. Two seasons after Melo's playoff run, he was traded to the Knicks. Similarly, one season after the Mavs' 1988 WCF appearance, Mark was traded to the Detroit Pistons.
Perhaps the biggest difference in the careers of these two all-time greats was that Aguirre won a pair of title rings in Detroit while Melo never played in another Conference Finals after 2009. But as far as their offensive repertoire is concerned, you can argue that the Syracuse product was the new-age Mark.
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