NBA James-Anthony rivalry gets center stage

The Syracuse forward is expected to be taken with the third pick.
THE BALTIMORE SUN
For two guys barely old enough to shave, Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James have spent quite a bit of time circling in each other's basketball orbits.
Their paths have crossed more than once in the two years since they first met at a USA Basketball festival in Colorado Springs, Colo. -- from hanging out as friends to signing massive endorsement deals to locking horns on the court.
And they will meet again Thursday night at Madison Square Garden when James, 18, is taken first in the NBA draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers, while Anthony, 19, is expected to go third to the Denver Nuggets.
The two buddies, who talk weekly by phone, seem poised to stage the NBA's next great individual rivalry, and the friendly battle may already be joined.
"LeBron called me the other day and told me to get ready because it's a race for the Rookie of the Year," Anthony said at the NBA's pre-draft camp in Chicago earlier this month.
Second pick
Darko Milicic, the 7-foot Serbian teenager who is expected to go second to the Detroit Pistons, may have something to say about that, but from all accounts, Anthony, the Baltimore native, and the Akron-born James are expected to be the Batman and Superman of their era.
"If Carmelo Anthony is as good as LeBron James, the NBA is going to be doing really well, because LeBron James is the real thing," ABC analyst and Hall of Fame center Bill Walton said.
Perhaps because James, the 6-8, 245-pound phenom from Akron's St. Vincent-St. Mary, who won every high school player-of-the-year award imaginable, has been the subject of a super-sized hype campaign, while Anthony, a 6-7, 233-pound forward, has been less noticed by NBA types and the public.
Or unnoticed as one can be as the Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four, which Anthony was in leading Syracuse to its first national championship in April in his freshman season.
Selling points
Jay Bilas, an ESPN college basketball analyst who worked as a sideline reporter on the channel's telecasts of some of James' high school games, said both players have their selling points.
Bilas said James is the best non-point-guard passer he has ever seen coming out of high school and may already be a better passer than Kobe Bryant. As for Anthony, Bilas said he was the best second- and third-effort rebounder in college last year.
In addition, Bilas likes Anthony's post-up skills and praises James' size and body. As for weaknesses, Bilas said Anthony doesn't have the ability to blow by an opponent off the dribble with his first step, and James will likely never be much more than a good shooter.
All that said, Bilas said he doesn't think the Nuggets or the Cavaliers will go wrong with their choices.
"What do you do, just for argument's sake, where you have a year where you have Larry Bird and Magic Johnson coming out in the same year?" said Bilas. "Or the year you had Hakeem Olajuwon and [Michael] Jordan? What do you do? That's a tough call. Hakeem Olajuwon had a Hall of Fame career.
"You take a little bit of a chance on a guy like James, but let's not kid ourselves. You take a bit of a chance on Anthony, too. How is he more proven than LeBron James?"
And both are likely to take a few lumps, considering their relative lack of experience against NBA-level players.