Immaturity shadows Nuggets' Anthony

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Two days before the NBA season ends, as the Denver Nuggets mount their final playoff drive, Carmelo Anthony is arrested for investigation of drunk driving at 4 a.m. on I-25.The blood test won't be back for a couple of weeks. We won't know until then if he was legally drunk. We do know he was driving erratically on I-25 at 4 a.m. in a week when his team needs him more than ever.And now, if the Nuggets are eliminated in the first round again in the NBA playoffs, Anthony's arrest will be linked with that outcome, and, in a larger sense, with the immaturity and lack of focus for which his team is known.On the bright side, at least we know why players sleep until 3:30 or 4 in the afternoon, as Allen Iverson described the other night.Not that Iverson does stupid stuff like this anymore. He did some stupid stuff as a young man, owned up to it publicly and moved on. But then, Iverson is 32.Anthony is 23. He's still basically a kid. And he acts like one.The one oddity of the arrest was the police explanation that Anthony's failure to dim the headlights on his silver Mercedes was a clue to his probable inebriation. If they arrested everyone who fails to dim his lights on I-25, we would need all Denver's hotel rooms for jail cells, and then we wouldn't have any room for the Democrats.Unfortunately, for Anthony it's still all about Anthony, and you don't have to check his headlights to know it. Take a guess at the first question for every Nuggets player at practice today.Um, Marcus, is Melo's drunk-driving arrest a distraction for you guys?Um, A.I., what do you think about Melo being arrested for drunk driving on the eve of the playoffs?Uh, 'Khouba, do you think you might get more playing time now that Carmelo's been arrested for drunk driving?Uh, Melo? Melo? You talking, Melo?Blame the wretches if you like, but that's life in the fishbowl and everybody in there knows it. In exchange for these annoyances, you get paid millions of dollars and wear diamond earrings the size of small sailboats.This is what Anthony has brought down on his team. Not on purpose. Just out of young, self-absorbed carelessness. Just out of not appreciating the magnitude of the moment, out of not caring enough that this would be a good week to get his rest and try to lead the Nuggets out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time in his career.Instead, he's out partying and driving close enough to drunk that police say he failed roadside sobriety tests.The Nuggets front office, of course, had no comment. The lack of leadership here starts at the top.Look, I'm the wrong guy to deliver a moral lecture on drinking and driving. I was stopped years ago on the 405 in L.A. Melo's lucky he didn't spend the night in jail. I did. They took my belt and shoelaces. Somehow, I couldn't stop thinking about how I would go about hanging myself with shoelaces.We've come a long way in our understanding of the costs of drunk driving since I was a kid, when the phrase "designated driver" did not yet exist.We see the small memorials and bouquets for the victims, so many of them defenseless young people, on rural roads and city streetlamps and highway guardrails.We like to think we've beaten it. And yet, there are, what, a million restaurants and bars out there serving alcohol every night of the week? And the vast majority of their customers are paying their checks and getting into cars to go home. That remains a fact of American life.Sometimes, it takes an event like this one to knock some sense into the fool who does this. It did for me. With any luck, it will for Anthony.After all, he has an easy solution. As an e-mailer put it, "These guys have millions of dollars. Get someone to drive!"Maybe Anthony has had so much trouble with his posse that he figured he was better off on his own. But the truth is, he's developing a public image of immaturity and indifference that gets harder to shake with each incident.We have already seen the infamous "Stop Snitching'' video, the pot in his luggage at the airport, the pot in a car registered to his company just before he signed his $80 million contract extension. You don't see this stuff from LeBron James or Dwyane Wade, rivals from his draft class who have taken their teams farther already.It is past time for Anthony to care more about his team and the messages he sends to his vast public. Past time to accept the concept of responsibility. Past time to grow up.(Contact Dave Krieger of the Rocky Mountain News at kriegerd(at)rockymountainnews.com.)