Carmelo Anthony is set to appear in his fourth straight Olympics, the first U.S. men’s basketball player to do so. It might not have happened were it not for Jim Boeheim.
The U.S. assistant coach, who was Anthony’s college coach during his one championship season at Syracuse, reached out to his former player after his NBA season ended. Boeheim wanted to see if Anthony was in for Rio.
“He was squarely on the fence,” Boeheim said Wednesday. “I told him how he’d be good for our team. We knew LeBron [and others] weren’t going to come.