Carmelo Anthony’s retirement is a good time to remember his iconic Twitter insult.
Carmelo Anthony finally called it a career on Monday morning when he announced his retirement from the NBA. Anthony will go down as one of the best scorers of his generation, a 6’8 walking bucket who could splash jumpers all over the court against any type of defender. He was a 10-time All-Star, a six-time All-NBA selection, a three-time Olympic gold medal winner, the 2023 scoring champion, and of course helped lead Syracuse to the 2003 national championship as a freshman during his only season of college basketball.
The tributes have been pouring in since Anthony announced his retirement in a tremendous farewell video about his son. There are so many memorable moments from his career, but the one I keep thinking about has nothing to do with basketball. Nearly 10 years after it was sent, Anthony’s hilarious response to a fan telling him to win a ring still resonates as one of the most memorable social media insults ever.
Anthony had sent out a tweet wishing everyone a Happy New Year earlier in the day. A fan responded by telling him to win a ring. This exchange needs to be remembered forever, so we screen-capped it.
Hashtag never forget.
Our guy Seth Rosenthal wrote about “glazed donut face ass” on its one year anniversary way back in 2014, and his words still resonate.
And seriously, did you ever stop to analyze “glazed donut face ass”? It’s beautiful! It’s so rich, so layered with possibilities! Melo appears to use “face” as a part of a compound adjective and “ass” as synecdoche for the whole person, but what if that’s not what he meant? What if Melo was suggesting his attacker has a glazed donut’s face on his ass? What if this guy has an ass on his face of the glazed donut variety? Melo arbitrarily pointed a sniper rifle at one out of 5 million people and fired a single, confounding bullet.
Beautiful. Some will remember Melo for kick-starting the one-and-done era at Cuse. Some will remember him for dragging the Nuggets to the 2009 Western Conference Finals almost by himself. I will certainly remember him for his activism off the court, which I chronicled in a story in 2016. From his Olympic success to his ability to light up Madison Square Garden, Melo was one of the true greats of his era despite never winning a championship.
Just don’t forget “glazed donut face ass” as a part of his legacy. I know I never will.
