how can people keep saying steph and lebron teaming up would mean they have the most career points among nba duo in history, isn't carmelo anthony ahead and he played with lebron
No — that claim mixes up a few different things. Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James did play together, but “most career points among an NBA duo” is usually being discussed as the combined scoring total of two players who are teaming up now, not just any two players who have ever shared a roster spot.
Why the claim gets repeated
People usually mean:
- Steph Curry + LeBron James would create an absurd combined scoring total.
- That total would be compared with other famous pairings in NBA history.
- The “duo” framing is about the two players together as teammates , not about whether one player has ever played with someone else before.
Why Carmelo doesn’t settle it
Carmelo Anthony did play with LeBron, but that was not the kind of long-term star pairing people are talking about in these discussions. The point is not “has LeBron ever shared a team with someone who scored a lot?” It’s “which two-player teammate combination has the biggest career points total?”.
The key distinction
There are two different ideas here:
- Any former teammates who have played together at some point.
- A current or hypothetical superstar duo being measured by combined career points.
Carmelo fits the first idea, but the Steph-LeBron conversation is about the second. That’s why people still talk about Steph and LeBron as a record- setting duo even though LeBron has had other high-scoring teammates before.
Bottom line
So your skepticism is fair: Carmelo being ahead in career points does not automatically make him the answer to this duo debate. The viral claim is about which two-player team combination would have the highest combined career scoring total, not just who has the most points among any players associated with LeBron.
In plain English: Carmelo can be ahead individually, but that doesn’t cancel the Steph + LeBron duo argument.
TL;DR: The statement is about combined teammate scoring , not “who LeBron has ever played with,” so Carmelo doesn’t invalidate it.