Carmelo Anthony is the embodiment of USA Basketball

It’s afternoon in Rio, and the USA men’s basketball team is 5-0 in group play preparing for its first medal-round match against Argentina. In the final game in group play, the team edged out a narrow victory, 100-97, against a French team that sat point guard Tony Parker.

As they have against teams with guards who can handle on-ball pressure, the Americans struggled defensively, squandering a 16-point lead in the third quarter. France’s zone defense didn’t help, taking Team USA out of its offensive rhythm. It was Carmelo Anthony who struggled the most against France’s scheme, shooting 4-11 from the field and 2-7 from three following four efficient games from the field leading into the group play finale.

While Anthony struggled, he continued to play within the flow of the game, moving the ball (five assists) and hitting the glass (four rebounds). It’s this growth — maturing into a ballplayer who no longer needs to force the issue to have an impact on the game — that has led Anthony to become Team USA’s unquestioned leader.

Twelve years ago, Anthony was the young, physical embodiment of what was wrong with American basketball. Team USA lost three games during the 2004 Olympic Games and left Athens with a bronze medal. Anthony only recorded 17 points and 11 rebounds during the tournament while playing spot minutes under head coach Larry Brown.

However, it was his style of play and general attitude following each frustrating loss (or, in his case, frustrating win without minutes) that led many pundits to believe that the international game wasn’t the best platform for Anthony to display the gifts that came so naturally to him. The Olympic spirit and Anthony’s demeanor were at odds, and his future with Team USA was left in limbo with the poll sitting lower than the third-place podium. Today, things couldn’t be more different as evidenced by his patience against France and how his teammates talk about him.

"Carmelo is the veteran and a super-likable guy," DeAndre Jordan told the Associated Press. "We got 12 alphas in here. But he’s the leader of this team, and we follow him.”

Since the 2004 Olympics, it was never difficult to pinpoint whom the team looked to for direction. In 2008, when the Americans needed a basket in the gold-medal game against Spain, the team turned to Kobe Bryant. In 2012, the unquestioned alpha dog was LeBron James. Now in 2016, the Americans look for Anthony to give them tranquility in the most chaotic moments. Melo isn’t the engine that makes this team go, but he’s the ever-present timing belt moving about the engine to keep things running smoothly.

Contrary to early beliefs, Anthony is built for the international game. He is stronger than most small forwards and quicker than most power forwards. His penchant for shooting long twos in the NBA game turns into a positive as the international three-point line is one foot, eight inches shorter at the top of the key than it is in the NBA. A 22.5-foot jumper is a disaster with the Knicks; it’s an incredibly efficient shot with Team USA. And efficiency has always been the biggest knock against Anthony. His ability to score in more ways than anyone in the NBA has never been discounted, but the number of iso sets the Knicks run for him or that he’s forced into because of the offense or roster limitations has created a stark contrast between the kind of scorer he’s been in the NBA and the type of scorer he is internationally.

Spacing is so much more important for a guy like Anthony than it is for most of the NBA’s elite talent. Melo's physicality, combined with his understated first step, creates a fluctuating tempo that keeps individual defenders off-balance. Anthony’s ability to blow by defenders is equal to his ability to go through defenders, but the latter makes it easier for opposing defenses to load up on where he’d like to go, and his lack of surrounding help makes it easier for help defenders to clean up individual mistakes.

In the international game, Anthony is consistently surrounded by great talent and receives the ball in the space and time that allow for quick decisions. He is just as effective as a spot-up shooter as he is isolated in the pinch, and when double teams do come, he’s proved to be an effective passer when he has the right players around him to get the ball to.

When you look at the analytics, the most glaring difference between his game in the NBA versus what he does in international play is the number of times he ends possessions out of iso sets. With the Knicks over the last three years, more than 25 percent of his shot attempts have come out of iso sets. With Team USA, he’s hovering just above 10 percent.

The film corroborates the numbers. The Knicks run a run-down version of the triangle, and with Melo as the only real constant scoring option, passing and off-ball movement have to be incredibly precise, neither of which is the case. While Team USA’s offensive sets aren’t particularly great, the sheer amount of talent on the floor creates the space and angles that allow for Anthony to become his most productive self.

Carmelo is going to have a strange legacy when we look back on it. He’s had incredible success, just not in the ways that we expected when he was drafted alongside LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh back in 2003. Anthony has world-class talent on the same level as his draft mates but has never had the league success they have over the last 13 years — the other three even won two titles together.

Anthony, on the other hand, is the most prolific scorer in Team USA history. He’s surpassed Michael Jordan, David Robinson and LeBron James on the all-time scoring list during these Olympic Games and will add to a total — a total that will be difficult for any future American to surpass moving forward. Anthony is playing for his third gold medal over four Olympic Games. He played on the team that led to a change in organizational culture and became the face of what that culture meant as a world leader.

If there are no dramatic personnel changes in New York over the next three to four years, Anthony will finish his career without an NBA title — this much remains obvious. Every era has its stars who fail to reach the pinnacle of success, and Anthony is likely to belong to a fraternity of elite talent without a ring. But Anthony’s place as one of the most influential American Olympians will always have a special place in the narrative of an era’s elite class.

Team USA will begin the medal round against Argentina and will face either Spain or France in the semifinals, should it hold up its end of the bargain — both incredibly tough opponents. Should Team USA go on to win another gold medal as expected, it will be Anthony’s game and leadership that set the tone. These are undoubtedly his last Olympics, and he’s going to want to go out much better than he came in — setting his international legacy in stone: the unequivocal face of modern American international play.