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Jim Boeheim says Carmelo Anthony 'unlikely to win an NBA title'

Jim Boeheim says that Carmelo Anthony is unlikely to win an NBA title in his career
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Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim thinks that New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony is unlikely to win an NBA title in his career.

Anthony, the first U.S Olympic male basketball player to win three gold medals, has said that he will still consider his career great even if he never wins an NBA Championship.

"He's unlikely to win an NBA title," Boeheim said to the Syracuse Post-Standard. "He's never been on a team that even had a remote chance of winning an NBA title. As a player, all you can do is try to make your team better, and every team he's been on he's made them a lot better. Denver hadn't done anything prior to him getting there and he took them into the playoffs. They weren't going to beat the Lakers or the Spurs. In those years, they won the championship most of the time."

Boeheim coached Anthony to an NCAA championship in 2003, and was an assistant on the Team USA that won the gold medal at the Rio Olympics.

Since coming to the New York Knicks in the middle of the 2010-11 season via a trade, the Knicks have won one playoff series, and have not reached the postseason in the last three years. The Knicks finished with the third-worst record in the Eastern Conference last season.

"He wants to win in New York," Boeheim said. "I know the general opinion is if [new additions Joakim] Noah and [Derrick] Rose are healthy then they'll be a better team. It's just a question of if they will be healthy. They've been off and on the last two years. They've both been hurt. I think if both those guys are healthy, it certainly would make a big difference and [Kristaps] Porzingis continuing to progress. If those things happen, they can be better.

Anthony, 32, has three years left on a five-year, $124 million deal he signed in 2014, and he is set to make $24.6 million for the 2016–17 season.

- Scooby Axson