Carmelo Anthony made his debut with the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night during their 2021-22 season opener against the Golden State Warriors. It didn’t take long for the future Hall of Fame inductee to be at the center of a memorable moment in his new digs, although that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Anthony went to the free throw line with a little less than 90 seconds to go in the third quarter while the Lakers were trying to push their lead to double-digits. Because he is pretty good at free throws, Anthony made the first, but then, when it came time to attempt a second shot from the charity stripe, this extremely weird thing happened.
Melo pump faked the free throw
pic.twitter.com/5KWrGAtErq
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 20, 2021
Anthony’s pump fake is one of the best in league history, but for some reason, he decided to bust it out while shooting a free throw. Let us review the NBA rulebook, specifically Rule 9, Section I:
The more you know! Anyway, Anthony was able to laugh this off, presumably because this was very funny, while LeBron James was caught on the sideline totally flummoxed by what the heck happened. Anthony will assuredly give an explanation for what happened after the game for why he thought this was the ideal time to go to one of the most effective things he has in his bag of tricks.