Our first guest was born
right here in Brooklyn,
and yet he just joined the LA Lakers.
So it sounds like we're switching places,
cause I'm from California.
I don't know if you could tell by my accent,
he is one of thee greatest NBA players of all time.
He's a 10 time NBA all star, and a four time Olympian,
but his journey to the top wasn't easy.
He has a new memoir out, it's titled
'Where Tomorrow's Aren't Promised'
and it gives readers a very real look
into the obstacles that he faced
and the odds he had to beat.
So please welcome Carmelo Anthony
(audience cheering and clapping)
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(mumbled talking)
(audience clapping)
These are comfortable.
Comfortable, comfortable, comfortable.
(clapping fading)
I'm feeling a very velour on velour
velvety vibe going on with you.
It's fall, it's fall, it's fall.
You gotta tap into the fall season now.
I love it, you look so good.
Thank you, thank you.
You just signed a one-year contract with the LA Lakers.
Yeah.
(audience cheering and clapping)
And obviously I'm gonna get into the old friend,
LeBron of it all, but why did you make that choice,
may I ask?
I almost got forced to do it.
Okay.
I almost got forced, I think LeBron forced me to do it.
Okay.
He waited to the right time.
He waited to, you know,
we at the end of our careers, and he said,
"The time is now, if you don't do it now,
we ain't gonna never do it."
And we were both going into our 19th season.
I mean, that's, that's very,
it's not too many people that can say that
and still at the top of the game
and still doing it at a high level.
So, you know, early on,
I don't think it would've worked out between us
because he was on his path. I was on my path.
We had, we had different lanes.
I just think everything happens for a reason, you know,
and timing is everything.
I'm so in love with the title of your book,
because it has so many overarching themes of life.
I work every day because I know that most of the jobs
that I've had in life are gonna end.
They are not permanent.
I know that if I don't work my butt off,
there probably won't be a tomorrow.
And that's my work ethic.
What is it for you that incentivizes you?
Understanding that tomorrows aren't promised,
and understanding I come from
where tomorrow's aren't promised.
And I really just wanted to tell that story of,
of actually where the true essence
of where tomorrows aren't promised.
I mean, those environments,
there's no promise,
and there's no hope in those environments.
Why did you decide to share that now in this book?
I think now where I'm at in just my life,
and just my career, it's a sense of discovery,
like trying to figure out, you know, who I am,
who truly, who is the true essence of Carmelo Anthony?
And in that discovery,
I came to write that book, because for so long,
I had those stories and that information
kind of just tucked in a closet somewhere.
I didn't want that story out.
I didn't want that feeling to relive those stories.
So I decided, you know, imma try to be vulnerable.
Imma try to open up.
Imma allow myself to let people into my world,
but into that world,
cause that's a totally different world than my career.
That's the prequel to my career.
The origin story
Absolutely
I, when I wrote a book,
I realized writing it that when I spoke about my mom,
who I've been through so much tough stuff with her.
I just had nothing, but like dignity,
grace, appreciation, objectivity.
I wasn't coming at this as a wounded child.
Mhmm.
And I realized that I had gotten over certain guilts
and resentments and just that I was a different person
than I was when I was a kid.
And had I not written this book, I,
I couldn't believe like how much grace and appreciation
I had for things.
I felt that, it's kind of speaking about my mom,
cause me and my mom, we have a great relationship,
but we've never sat and had like a real, real, real,
true conversation about the upbringing.
And it took until just recently,
right prior to I started writing the book,
I sat with her and we would just talk telling stories.
And she told me, she was like,
"Baby, look, you need to get your story out there."
So once she blessed it, it was like, I'm okay, I'm good.
I'm good now.
You were free
I was free.
I was free because it's a lot of stories.
And I speak on my stepdad in there too.
And for so long, I kind of just put a lid on that,
and I didn't want to touch that at all.
And nobody, nobody knew that, even my mom didn't know
a lot of those stories.
I feel like I am feeling a true shift in our world
that because athletes are coming out
and talking about their past, their spirits,
their heads, their hearts, their bodies, their brains.
I think, athletes like we,
we're naturally depressed being an athlete.
I mean, what we have to go through on a day-to-day basis,
dealing with media, competing at the highest level,
we spend more time with our teammates
than we do with our family during the year.
So you miss holidays, and so on and so forth.
So it's a lot of things that, you know,
the average person don't really understand
that an athlete have to go through.
So it wasn't until I started actually writing a book
and going through that process
where I was able to kind of get the real true meaning
of kind of who I am,
and putting everything into perspective.
Taking a step back.
You have to, you have to.
And I've realized from a lifetime of holidays
with no family. Holidays with friends.
Holidays, with my children now,
how to co-parent, how to be a parent,
how to be a child looking at your parents
that I now tattooed "home is where we are"
because in an uprooted, inconsistent life,
you just got to say wherever we're connected,
that's home for the day.
And I love you.
I appreciate it, I love you too Drew.
I don't mean to be creepy about it.
(audience clapping)
I just believe in everything you're saying,
and I'm hanging on your every word.
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