“Y’all starting early”: $160M worth Carmelo Anthony leaves a cheeky comment on early 2026 NBA mock draft prediction

NBA legend Carmelo Anthony, whose net worth is around $160 million, per celebritynetworth.com, has one very big reason to be interested in the 2026 NBA Draft. This is because his son, four-star Syracuse signee Kiyan Anthony, would be eligible to play in the NBA in 2026.

ESPN and Draft Express released a mock draft for 2026 and this got the former New York Knick's attention.

The mock draft has current Prolific Prep star and Kansas signee Darryn Peterson at No. 1 and current Utah Prep star and BYU signee AJ Dybantsa at No. 2. This got Carmelo Anthony to comment on the post:

"Damn yall starting early😂," said Carmelo Anthony.

Carmelo Anthony reacts to a 2026 mock draft (Source: Instagram/ sportscenternext)

Darryn Peterson had been very successful late in the season with Prolific Prep, beating AJ Dybantsa's Utah Prep for the second time last January. Meanwhile, Dybantsa's Utah Prep had been struggling in its last few games.

As for No. 3 in the mock draft, it had Cameron Boozer being drafted by his dad, Carlos Boozer's old team, the Utah Jazz.

As for Carmelo and the NBA draft, the basketball legend is part of one of the greatest draft classes in league history, 2003, which also included LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. He was drafted third overall by the Denver Nuggets and went on to have a legendary basketball career.

Carmelo Anthony has some important financial advice for son Kiyan Anthony

It took years of playing in the NBA for Carmelo Anthony to get a net worth of around $160 million. Because of his experience, Carmelo Anthony knows a lot about what to do with money, and he imparted some of this wisdom to his son, Kiyan Anthony, whose NIL value is around $1.1 million.

“I got to talk to you about taxes at 17 years old. I got to talk about how you budget at 17 years old. At 17 years old, I was running around, we ain’t know nothing about no budget," said Carmelo.

The former New York Knicks star recounted a conversation he had with his son, admitting that he is getting him ready to earn a lot of money in the future.

“I told him the other day, I said, you in my tax bracket now. You 17 in my tax bracket … you part of the 1%. So now, I can’t hide that information from you. I got to tell you, you’re getting 60% of your money taken. Don’t ask me where it’s at. I ain’t got it. You know what I mean?” he added.

Kiyan is currently just counting the days to when he can start playing for Syracuse, previously saying that he wants to surpass what his father has done there. This will be a tall task given that Carmelo led the Orange to an NCAA national title as a freshman.