Carmelo Anthony announced his retirement from the NBA on Monday, May 22, 2023. Anthony played 19 seasons for six different teams and scored 30,203 points to leave the league as the 12th leading scorer in NBA history. as presented a lot of money in his career, and one stat he’s certainly aware of is that Carmelo Anthony’s career earnings are much higher than what the player has coined at the one point before him: the infamous NBA bust, Darko Milicic.
Carmelo Anthony Career Earnings
After nearly two decades in the NBA, the earnings of Carmelo Anthony’s career have been impressive. The 10-time NBA All-Star earned $262,523,093 in salary during his time as a professional basketball player, per Spottrack.
Carmelo Anthony’s initial contract for the six-time All-NBA forward was a record-breaking rookie deal with the team that drafted him, the Denver Nuggets, followed by a Rookie Maximum extension with the same team and two veteran deals at the maximum level with the New York Knicks.
Finally, Anthony signed an rookie deal, was optioned, signed two extensions, and five free agent deals. Its date looks like this:
- December 2003: Three-year, $10.4 million contract with the Nuggets
- October 2005: Nuggets picked her up at $4.7 million for one year
- July 2006: $80 million five-year extension with the Nuggets
- February 2011: Three-year, $64.2 million extension with the Nuggets (as part of trade with the Knicks)
- July 2014: Five-year, $124.1 million contract with the Knicks
- August 2018One-year, $2.4 million contract with the Houston Rockets
- November 2019: $2.16 million, one-year contract with the Portland Trail Blazers
- November 2020: $2.56 million one-year contract with the Trail Blazers
- August 2021: A one-year, $2.64 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers
Between fines, takeovers, and a partial paycheck for the season in 2019-21 due to COVID-19, those are the contracts that have resulted in Carmelo Anthony’s career earnings of more than $262 million.
Anthony vs. Darko Milicic
As a member of the 2003 NBA draft class, Carmelo Anthony will always be associated with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. However, after breaking into the world of college basketball and winning a national championship at Syracuse, Anthony should have been the second pick in the draft behind James.
However, the Detroit Pistons were seduced by a Serbian teenager named Darko Milicic, and Anthony slipped to third place before being led by the Nuggets.
As the second pick, Milicic earned an impressive four-year, $16.81 million rookie contract. After two or more years averaging 5.8 minutes, 1.6 points and 1.2 rebounds per game in the Motor City, the Pistons traded Darko to the Orlando Magic.
With slightly better results on the floor (7.9 points, 5.1 rebounds) in Orlando, Milicic secured a three-year, $21 million deal from the Memphis Grizzlies. After two or more seasons, the Grizzlies had seen enough, too, and traded him to the Knicks. Then, in 2010, he was traded again to the Minnesota Timberwolves, and they gave him another four-year, $20 million contract.
Darko was eventually pardoned by the Timberwolves, and the Celtics gave him one last chance on a one-year, $1,229,255 contract. Boston released him less than three months later after only one game.
Finally, Darko Milicic’s career earnings are $53,078,335. That’s something to scoff at, especially for a player who’s averaged 6.0 points and 4.2 rebounds in his career. However, Milicic’s bank account pales in comparison to the player picked just after him, with Carmelo Anthony’s career earnings of over $200 million at $262,523,093.
