Carmelo Anthony’s first NBA coaches believe he should be headed to the Ball Arena rafters as well as the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Jeff Bzdelik and George Karl agree Anthony’s inclusion in the class of 2025 was a straightforward decision. Anthony was selected in his first year on the ballot when the class of nine was announced Saturday ahead of the Final Four games in San Antonio.

“This is it. It don’t get no better than this. It don’t get greater than this. All of those things, those accomplishments… this just puts a cap on that and it makes it all worth the while. I keep going back to the journey. You all hear me talk about the journey. It’s a journey when you are doing this for two decades. You have to take the good, the bad, the ugly with that,” Anthony said at a press conference.

“If you go through that process with the good, the bad the ugly and you come on the other side of it, and this is the blessing I get for going through that, this is the greatest accomplishment that I ever will accomplish. Let me tell you that.”

The Nuggets’ decision to raise his No. 15 to the rafters — or not — has been more complex.

Anthony left Denver in 2011 after requesting a trade, and Nikola Jokic, a future first-ballot Naismith Hall of Fame pick, has worn the same number for his entire career with the Nuggets.

Karl was diagnosed with cancer the year before Anthony’s trade request but returned to coach Anthony’s final games with the franchise.

“That made the challenge of those seasons difficult,” Karl told the Denver Gazette on Saturday. “More difficult than you want, but hey, that’s life, man. That’s basketball life and that’s life. Obstacles come your way.”

Karl and Anthony have endured a prickly relationship in the years since, but the 73-year-old coach is ready to move on. He thinks the Nuggets should, too. Retiring a number that’s being worn by the franchise’s most-decorated player is tricky, but Karl has a solution.

“I have no problem retiring both Jokic and Melo’s number. I mean, it’s an exception to the rule, which probably doesn’t always look good. But, hey, they both deserve it, and I think we all know that,” Karl said. “So, why don’t we just let it go, put 15 up there with Melo on the bottom of it. When Jokic wants to go up, we put him up.”

Few know Anthony’s impact on basketball in Denver as well as Bzdelik. When he got the job coaching the Nuggets in 2002, the franchise hadn’t been in the playoffs since 1995. Then, the Nuggets drafted a 6-foot-7 forward who led Syracuse to the national championship in his lone collegiate season. Denver took ‘Melo’ with the No. 3 pick in the historic 2003 NBA Draft.

“Carmelo obviously brought excitement. He was instrumental in engineering the turnaround. Denver went from a playoff drought to starting a playoff run. Carmelo, obviously, was a huge part of that,” Bzdelik told The Denver Gazette.

“I told Carmelo this several years later when our paths would cross. I said to him, ‘I really appreciated what he did for the city of the Denver, for the franchise and for me personally,’ and I mean that.”

As a rookie, Anthony did something draft classmates LeBron James or Dwyane Wade could not do. He led his first team to the playoffs. The Nuggets were a postseason fixture for the remainder of Anthony’s time in Denver, including a run to the 2009 Western Conference finals, one of Karl’s favorite memories of their time together.

After Anthony’s exit, there was a shorter playoff drought before Jokic brought the franchise back to the postseason. When Anthony was traded to the Knicks, he switched to No. 7. The Knicks already had two No. 15s in the rafters — one for Earl Monroe and another Dick McGuire.

The Nuggets currently have six retired numbers: No. 2 (Alex English), 12 (Fat Lever), 33 (David Thompson), 40 (Byron Beck), 44 (Dan Issel), 55 (Dikembe Mutombo) and 432 (Doug Moe). No. 15 is going up there one way or another.

“They both should have their jersey retired,” Bzdelik said of Denver’s duo.

“Honor that by saying no one is going to wear No. 15. When you really think about it, that’s probably the thing to do. That’s just my opinion, and you know what opinions are.”

When Anthony played his final game in 2022, he had 10 All-Star appearances, six All-NBA selections, one scoring title and more than 28,000 points, good for 12th all-time. He also won three Olympic gold medals over the course of his 19-year NBA career, including the 2008 “Redeem Team” that’s also part of the Naismith class of 2025. It all started with Denver in 2003.

“I know when you’re drafted in the top five of the NBA draft, everyone thinks that’s the savior of the franchise. … I don’t know the numbers, but I would bet 75% of those people fail. Melo came in knowing he was the savior or was looked at as the savior,” Karl said.

“Melo held the fort down, got it going in the right direction, and the Kroenkes now have a trophy that really in a lot of ways started with Melo being drafted.”

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Naismith Hall of Fame Class of 2025

2008 U.S. Olympic men’s team

Carmelo Anthony (player)

Micky Arison (contributor)

Sue Bird (player)

Danny Crawford (referee)

Billy Donovan (coach)

Sylvia Fowles (player)

Dwight Howard (player)

Maya Moore (player)