Eli Saslow is covering Carmelo Anthony’s freshman season. This is the fourth story in a series.

Prankster. Goofball. You wanted that reputation, just so long as attention came with it.

One afternoon during your freshman year of high school, the entire student body sat quietly during an assembly and listened to a monotone voice. Not you. You stood up, hollered and tried to start the wave. You got a few laughs and detention. But the attention made you happy.

Now you’re perched at a college basketball buffet, and attention’s being shoveled at you any way you look. At 18, you drew the largest on-campus crowd in college basketball history. Ten days ago, 33,071 people packed the Carrier Dome and begged you to stay in college for another year.

Attention comes with responsibility now. It comes with big choices and bigger consequences. Everyone wants to choose for you, Carmelo Anthony, but the only choice that matters is your own.

You could return to college for a second year, invigorate a city, pose for the cover of Sports Illustrated’s college basketball preview and be the superstar for a national title contender. Or you could turn pro, sign a multi-million dollar contract and buy a new house for your mom.

The sports world is waiting.

Scary, huh? You’ve never made these big decisions before. When you switched high schools, it was your mom’s choice. When you waffled between Syracuse and the NBA as a senior, friends and family gave you the answer.

This time, they’re telling you the choice is all yours. Attention’s left you alone on an island. All you have to rely on are the survival skills you’ve learned the past five years.

When you turn on the television, you hear the media talk like you’ve already declared for the NBA Draft. You’re one and done. A one-ride pony. As good as gone for next year.

Scouts and general managers expect you to leave because, well, who wouldn’t? You’re averaging 23 points and 10 boards as a freshman. You’re likely to be the No. 3 pick.

Even Troy Bell, the two-time Big East Player of the Year, thinks you’d be crazy not to go: ‘In terms of your draft status, you’ll never be hotter. And for a kid without much money, those dollars have got to be tempting.’

Million-dollar contracts were pure hyperbole on Murdle Avenue — better known as Murder Ave. — where you grew up. A block from Baltimore’s worst projects, you saw drugs, prostitution, crime and killing. Not money.

The one day you did have money, somebody robbed you. Fourteen years old and walking home from school, you got held up for $20. You stewed over losing that money for a week. Well, you can get it back now. You can fill a pool with twenties and show it off on ‘MTV Cribs.’ All you have to do is reach out and take it.

You’re leaning toward staying in college.

It’ll shock people. And that’s one of the reasons you want to do it. Just a few weeks ago, you called up Syracuse assistant Troy Weaver and told him you were leaving for the NBA and you should have gone to Maryland. He had to call a couple of your friends before he figured out you were joking.

Keep people on edge. Shock them. Surprise them. That’s how you work.

You’ve always done your own thing. Back in high school, you’d come out for warm-ups in a self-decorated T-shirt. Your teammates would wear the same colored shirt to look unified. You’d wear a white shirt with a slogan written on it. After a six-game, academic suspension, you came out in a T-shirt proclaiming, ‘I’M BACK.’

The habit’s stayed with you, though it’s a bit milder now. For the Big East tournament, you wore a short-sleeved warm-up while the rest of the team wore long-sleeved shirts. You stood out, looked different. It brought you attention.

You’re a people pleaser. That’s the main reason you think you’ll come back. You’ve always wanted — no, needed — to be liked. During a junior high baseball game, you missed your turn in the batting order because you were arguing. Your coach, Steve McClain, told you he was disappointed. So you spent the next three weeks showing up early and running wind sprints to appease him.

If you leave, a whole city will be disappointed. Fans have created a Web site, www.onemoreyear.com, on which they write messages to you. One poster wrote: ‘The bottom line is that we need you here. The fans, the basketball team, the University and the city need someone they can claim as their own, someone they can idolize.’

A big request. But you want to give it to them because, if you do, they’ll love you.

Billy Edelin, Josh Pace and Hakim Warrick — teammates who’ve become your closest friends — have told you that, if you come back, Syracuse could win a national championship. You don’t want to let them down.

College life has won you over. For the first few weeks, you couldn’t stop calling home. By Winter Break, you couldn’t stand being more than a few blocks from your Syracuse friends. You were home in Baltimore for less than a week, and when your friends stopped by, they had to beg you to get off the phone with Warrick.

You’re Big Man on Campus. Your team is winning. Awards are flowing in. Girls want a slice of you like you’re everlasting pie. You’re living every 18-year-old’s dream. Hold off on your bling-bling, and you can do it all again next year.

One problem: Academics. First semester, you did great. You worked hard, went to class and finished with well above a 2.0. This time around, things aren’t going quite so well. The travel and distractions of the Big East season have you hurting. Weaver called you into his office and told you: ‘If you go to the NBA, let it be your decision. Don’t let being ineligible make the decision for you.’

You took his words to heart. You’re not in huge academic trouble, and it seems highly unlikely you could be deemed ineligible for next year. Still, you’ve rededicated yourself just in case.

A few days ago, your confidant Troy Frazier flew into Syracuse. He wanted a ride from the airport.

No, you told him. You had class.

‘Damn, you really do want to stay another year,’ Frazier said. ‘Otherwise, you’d just be blowing this stuff off. This is a new Carmelo.’

Just a matured one. And it took some tough lessons to get you here.

A bullet in the back took Tavares Graham, your older cousin, when you were a sophomore in high school. He’d lived with you, guided you, taken you under his wing like an older brother.

You called Eric Skeeters, a mentor of yours who’d coached Graham, and delivered the news.

You said: ‘Tavares got shot messing with the wrong people. I can’t go like that.’

Right away, your friends saw you grow up. Still a prankster, no longer a trouble maker. Calmer. Capable. Self-reliant.

So now they’re telling you to make this decision on your own, to block out the thousands of voices whispering — if not chanting — in your ear and listen to your heart.

They’ve started to see you leaning.

A few weeks ago, BET came up to Syracuse to do a special on you. They wanted to feature a college athlete. They hoped to ride around in your car and hang out in your dorm room. Typically unexcited, you nearly slept through the interview. When Frazier asked you about it, you said:

‘No big deal. If I’d slept through it, they could have just come up here and done it on me next year.’

‘So you’re sure you’re staying?’

Silence.

The sports world is waiting.

Published on March 19, 2003 at 12:00 pm