Carmelo Anthony has, for most of his career, been one of the best basketball players alive. What else do you think when you see career averages of 25 points and 6.6 rebounds? Over the span of 13 years, that’s downright dominant.

However, the conversation surrounding Melo will always be that he’s been unable to win the big one: an NBA title. A promising future in Denver evaporated into front-office and coach tension, and outside of a couple bright spots, his tenure in New York has been largely disappointing, though it’s no real fault of Anthony’s per se.

That said, Anthony is no stranger to winning championships. He carried Syracuse to an NCAA title during his long collegiate season, and he’s on a quest this summer to become the first Team USA player to ever win 3 gold medals. Don’t think it’s a participation award, either. Anthony became his nation’s all-time leading scorer with his 31-point performance yesterday, and had it not been for last night’s prolific scoring, Team USA might have found itself on the losing end of a tough contest against Australia.

Clearly, the Olympics mean a lot to Melo. So much so, that he told ESPN’s Marc Stein that he wouldn’t be disappointed if his career legacy’s bottom-line looked something like ‘3 Olympic Gold, 0 NBA titles.’ In Anthony’s words:

Most athletes don’t have an opportunity to say that they won a gold medal, better yet three gold medals. I would be very happy walking away from the game knowing that I’ve given the game everything I have (and) knowing I played on a high level at every level: high school, college, won [a championship at Syracuse] in college and possibly three gold medals.

Could you blame him? In the past, Kobe Bryant has said that winning Olympic gold for the U.S. carries much more weight than winning the Larry O’Brien for an NBA franchise. And Kobe won 5 Larry O’Brien trophies–he’d know.