Summer basketball tournaments, such as the Drew League in Los Angeles, have always been another avenue for NBA players to generate more hype, but very few have found ways to develop hype through workout videos like Carmelo Anthony.
During the offseason, many NBA stars try to find different ways to stay relevant to their fan bases and with the help of social media, anyone who has access to a smartphone can view highlights of their favorite NBA stars, in action, as the tournament is taking place. The reason why these highlights gain so much attention is because fans get a chance to see their favorite players, in their natural habitat, without the rules and regulations of the NBA restricting their creativity with the ball in their hands. The creativity expressed in those videos is what makes those videos exciting to watch, but Chris Brickley has found a way to combine the creativity of the streets and his workouts to help transform Anthony into an internet sensation.
Brickley is well known as one of the top NBA workout gurus in the U.S., and the list of players he has trained can probably stretch from New York City to the beautiful scenery of South Beach. He has over 280,000 followers on Instagram, which is an impressive number, and he has helped many players develop their game, but one of his greatest accomplishments is raising the hype around Anthony, who has split the opinion of many Knicks fans.
Wearing the orange and blue will always come with a lot of scrutiny, which Anthony has handled extremely well. Some fans want him to stay in New York because they believe his offensive game is second to none — well only second to Kevin Durant — and he still has more to offer, while others would like him to be traded because he’s not seen as the type of player who can potentially lead the Knicks to a championship, which hasn’t been achieved since Richard Nixon was in office. Even though fans have mixed feelings about Anthony, the one thing fans can agree on is the awesomeness of his workout videos.
In these videos, Anthony can be seen wearing a hoodie with no sleeves. Now, this style may not be approved by the fashion police, but who cares what the fashion police think when Anthony is making bucket after bucket in his hooded armor. It’s almost as if the word “miss” is not in Anthony’s dictionary, and if anyone mentions the word “miss” to him, he will probably jab step his opponent ten times with sheer force before dribbling the ball on the ground. What will follow is a series of moves which will probably include a crossover between the legs, and ultimately ending with a pull-up jumper being nailed in his opponent’s grill.
For NBA players, there is no offseason, and Anthony is making his offseason count by practicing his handles, his passing, and his shooting. From watching the video clips, it doesn’t seem like Anthony is the same Anthony that came off an average season, by his standards, with the Knicks. He looks slimmer, his moves seem sharper, and in the pick-up games, he seems unstoppable. The seemingly new, and improved, Anthony may be the product of Brickley’s intense workouts or, as most sensible people would think, the product of the powers vested in him through his hoodie.
There seems to be an invincibility emanating from Anthony when he dons the hoodie. He becomes a whole different beast, and this had led to the internet creating memes to showcase the greatness of Anthony in a hoodie — even NBA 2K came out with a rating for Anthony when he’s basking in his hooded glory.
Anthony has broken the internet with his workout videos, and now, a new legend has been born, and that legend is called Hoodie Melo.
Check out Hoodie Melo’s workout videos on Chris Brickley’s Instagram account @cbrickley603!
