Carmelo Anthony will be on “Nurse Jackie” this Sunday
When Carmelo Anthony made it clear he wanted to be traded to the New York Knicks, one of the assumed reasons was that he desired the celebrity profile that comes with playing in New York. That rationale seemed weak to many basketball fans — it's not caring only for wins and championships. It's also his prerogative, though, and the career of his wife La La Anthony must have played some part in the decision.
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Melo is now on TV fairly often apart from NBA games, with regular appearances on his wife's (actually pretty interesting and humanizing) reality show "La La's Full Court Life" and a spot on "Law and Order: SVU" way back in September. This Sunday, he'll be on the Showtime half-hour dramedy "Nurse Jackie," starring Edie Falco. From Andy Clayton for the New York Daily News (via SLAM):
Anthony will make a guest appearance on Showtime's hit dark comedy 'Nurse Jackie' playing a fallen pro hoops player. In the episode, scheduled to air Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, Anthony plays one of an eclectic group of patients who participate in a group therapy session with the show's title character (played by Edie Falco) at a Manhattan rehab facility.
Falco plays an emergency room nurse at a Big Apple hospital with a weakness for prescription drugs in the Showtime series which is currently in its fourth season. [...]
"It's things that people like myself and athletes wouldn't normally do, especially Nurse Jackie," Anthony told HuffPost Sports at the time of his SVU appearance. "So, I definitely wanted to just do that, just do something different."
Melo is right that most athletes would not appear on "Nurse Jackie," mostly because even my parents stopped watching "Nurse Jackie" after a few episodes. But we should accept that Melo wants to do these things, and as long as they don't interrupt his basketball career they're not the worst thing in the world. Walking on to a Hollywood set for a few days every August isn't going to hurt anyone, except maybe Showtime executives and the creative team at "Nurse Jackie," who presumably think they're making a legitimate show.
So watch Sunday, if you like. I don't know what Melo's scenes will entail, but I assume he calls Edie Falco "Carmella" and asks her whether or not Tony died in the "Sopranos" finale. Then, in an effort to embrace the zeitgeist, Nurse Jackie will diagnose him with "Linsanity" and say that the only cure is going to more Knicks games. The scene will end with Melo dunking on costar Anna Deavere Smith, stealing her Pulitzer Prize in the process.
Laugh if you want, but people have won the Golden Globe for less.
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