Portland Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony is firmly in the twilight stage of his NBA career, providing scoring off the bench and filling a role in a highly effective manner. Anthony was a star-level player for a long, long time, however, and he is working his way up the NBA’s all-time scoring list as a result. In fact, Anthony entered Monday night’s game against the Atlanta Hawks just nine points shy of cracking the top ten and, in the second quarter, he surpassed Elvin Hayes on a trademark pull-up jumper.
Buckets!
Carmelo Anthony has now passed Elvin Hayes for No.10 on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.#RipCity #StayMeloStream: https://t.co/Qw6YqQ11wx pic.twitter.com/cTCZ8xGEPF
— NBC Sports Northwest (@NBCSNorthwest) May 4, 2021
Anthony scored 12 points in his first 11 minutes of action against the Hawks, connecting four of his six shot attempts. With this jumper, Anthony reached 27,316 career points in his 18-season career, and his career scoring average (23.0 points per game) speaks for itself as one of the game’s best scorers in history.
It takes a tremendous amount of talent and consistency to reach the top ten in any all-time statistic, and Anthony’s career will unquestionably be honored with a Hall of Fame induction when he is eligible after retirement. The 10-time All-Star forward’s next task on the all-time list is attempting to pass Moses Malone, who has 27,409 points, and there is a chance that could happen before the end of the 2020-21 season.