Carmelo Anthony is devoted to the Denver Nuggets. A five-year, $79 million deal tends to keep your focus on the franchise.

But increasingly, Anthony's thoughts turn to his other team - the board of directors of what could be called Carmelo Incorporated.

The 22-year-old CEO on a recent afternoon dashed off an e-mail to his trusted business advisers, trying to assemble Team Melo members to discuss the brand.

"If we can make this happen before the season, I would truly appreciate it," he wrote.

"P.S.," he added, "WE ON OUR WAY."

Indeed, they are.

Team Melo is driving the company into new realms, from music and movies to technology and retail, and the Nuggets forward is taking a more active role all the time, maturing into a confident boss.

Anthony, who recently acquired a taste for shiraz and has a baby on the way, is growing up fast, personally and professionally. Once clueless, or just indifferent, about the business world, he now is giving Nike creative advice, is tweaking a documentary his entertainment company is financing and is poised to take a seat on the board of an emerging Los Angeles-based tech company.

Along the way, the group is emphasizing Anthony's missteps, rather than playing them down, depicting him as imperfect, but authentic.

Catching his breath after a recent practice, Anthony shifts into financial mode, explaining the education he has received over the last few seasons.

"In my first year, I pushed it all to the side," the former Syracuse University phenom said. "Now I really want to be involved, to know the ins and outs of the business, to know where my money is going."

The 6-foot-8 star has been hustling up and down the court shirtless, revealing all his tattoos, in a recent scrimmage against fellow Nuggets. Minutes earlier, he had dunked explosively over J.R. Smith.

The Nuggets had lost an ugly preseason game 127-107 to the Utah Jazz the previous night, and coach George Karl wasn't pleased.

Talking about Magic Johnson and Jay-Z, the business figures he admires, is probably a relief.

"He's a marketing genius," Anthony said, referring to the rapper who recently ended his retirement. "He's business-savvy."

Beyond endorsements

Endorsements - like his lucrative shoe deal with Nike's Jordan brand, a relationship with video game company EA Sports and a new contract with the makers of a product called Perfect Jumper that helps hoopsters sharpen their shots - remain a key part of the plan.

But the business has plotted a different course. Anthony is not simply accepting a check to tout a product and moving on. Now he's taking stakes in projects or agreeing to partnerships that will deliver a big payday only if the ventures succeed.

Anthony, at the moment, reels in $5 million to $10 million a year off the court, sources close to the athlete say, and the hope is that the ownership roles will create bigger revenue streams down the road, though the potential down side is that consumers will not appreciate his products as much as his play.

His Krossover Entertainment unit has provided a six-figure sum to help pay for a documentary, Prison Ball, and Anthony is in talks to invest in mStation, a maker of iPod stereos, in another six-figure deal. That arrangement would give him a board spot and a voice.

Other transactions include a partnership with another company to sell an "extreme" energy drink. C1.5, as it's called, is set to roll out initially in Denver, Baltimore, Syracuse, Asia and Puerto Rico. Anthony will get a cut of the proceeds, profiting only if people like the stuff. And his Melo Mobile venture will provide Anthony-related ring tones, wallpaper, interviews, pictures and other content to cell phone users. He'll share in the revenue from that.

Both of those are expected to hit the market this fall.

This isn't to suggest the company is doing anything daring with Melo's millions. Goldman Sachs and Smith Barney are managing his assets in an ultraconservative fashion, his advisers said, and the cash that is put to work is dished out carefully.

Accountant Larry Harmon figured Team Melo receives anywhere from five to 20 business proposals a month. They reply to few of them.

Harmon hosts Anthony at his home outside Sacramento from time to time and believes his love of wine has rubbed off on his young client. Anthony now prefers shiraz. Harmon doesn't. However, Carmelo and the CPA are finally in accord on more important matters.

"Melo used to get (mad) at me," he said. "He'd say, 'Why are you killing all those deals?' But a lot of these are terrible. They're junk. Now he's understanding a lot better how we analyze them."

Getting a feel for deals

Anthony does seem to get it, paying attention to numbers other than points and assists.

"I try to get a feel for the deals," he said at the practice session. "I always see what people have to say. But I'm not going to go spilling my money, investing, in just anything. They say you have to take risks to succeed, but I'm low-risk."

The operation may be conservative but it also is complex. In one sign of how sophisticated it has become, Issac Vaughn, a Silicon Valley lawyer and mergers and acquisitions specialist, has joined the team.

Anthony has lots of help. The informal board of directors includes his agent, Calvin Andrews, as well as his marketing guys, Bill Sanders and Chris Talbott - all associates of BDA Sports president Bill Duffy. Harmon, the money man, and now Vaughn have spots at the table, too.

"We all have different skills and come together when big decisions need to be made," Sanders said.

Vaughn sat down with Anthony a month ago in a trailer beside the set of a Nike commercial. He wanted to talk about potential business deals.

"I was impressed. For a young guy, he's not only thinking about where he is now, but what the future holds," said Vaughn, a partner at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati. "And I get the sense that he has grand plans and designs, while knowing that you can't get there overnight."

Anthony's pursuit of celebrity status off the court is gaining momentum, and stock in Carmelo Inc. is hovering at a 52-week high. Averaging 26.5 points a game last season, starring for Team USA at the World Championship and landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated have fueled the campaign.

Of active players (in other words, excluding Michael Jordan), Anthony reigns as No. 1 in shoe sales for the first nine months of this year, ahead of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and other marquee names, according to SportsOneSource data.

It wasn't always so easy.

Troubles begin in Athens

Anthony's troubles began at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Criticized by the coach of the U.S. team, Larry Brown, and labeled selfish, Anthony barely played.

He also was caught with a small amount of marijuana in his backpack at Denver International Airport. Charges were dropped after a friend said the marijuana was his.

Anthony hit the front page again when three men tried to extort millions from him with a videotape of a New York nightclub scuffle involving Anthony.

Finally, a controversial DVD surfaced showing Anthony hanging out in Baltimore with a man who threatens to kill drug snitches. Anthony appears mostly in the background of the bootleg video, yet the association, needless to say, made him look bad.

Andrews acknowledged the turmoil tarnished Anthony's image on the corporate level, prompting the business team to "go out of the box and create new and different opportunities for him."

The Fortune 500 companies were leery. And that meant concentrating less on endorsements and more on investments.

Still, the team soon came to the realization that the incidents actually might have boosted Melo's appeal.

"In some ways the mistakes he made, the ones that appeared in the papers, actually helped identify who he was as a brand," Andrews said. "If not the corporate executives, the common people loved him for who he was because he's real."

There are athletes embraced by the hip-hop community, and athletes beloved in Corporate America, said Sanders, the marketing maven.

"You have the super clean-cut guy like Michael Jordan, the All-American boy, and then Allen Iverson on the other end of the spectrum," he said. "We're saying, 'Let's be Allen Iverson and Michael Jordan combined, and let's be the first one.' "

Greater expectations

Anthony begins his fourth season and faces even higher expectations this year. While focusing on the Nuggets, he also deals with hours of off-the-court distractions posed by the expanding business.

On a Sunday evening earlier this month, he showed up at the Pepsi Center to shoot a segment of a reality TV program showcasing top players of a basketball video game. The show, coming soon on ESPN2 and created jointly with EA Sports, kept him there until midnight.

Still, he seemed to enjoy it, bouncing around the players lounge in a brown winter hat, his cornrows sticking out, smiling the entire time.

"I'm in the zone," he shouted, sitting in a red leather chair, playing NBA Live. "I'm in the zone."

Just a few days before the opener against the Los Angeles Clippers, he was back in front of the cameras, doing a commercial at Metro State for Perfect Jumper and Hedgewood International, the investment firm funding the training product.

As Anthony matures, and distances himself from the bad press, he's growing more assertive.

At first, filmmaker Jason Moriarty devoted a lot of his documentary Prison Ball to criticizing U.S. policies and how much money the country spends on keeping people in jail. The movie, which features inmates playing ball and examines the factors that drove them from tough streets to prison, probably was "too political," Moriarty admitted.

When his company, Bombora Pictures, signed up with Anthony, the tone changed practically overnight.

"Melo came on board, and we reshaped it," Moriarty said. "The film is still shedding light on problems. But after we talked about it - and I kind of agreed with him - we made it more marketable, more fast-paced, more basketball. It appeals to a broader audience now."

Anthony, who said he has aspirations to spend more time in the coming years doing movies that tackle social issues, was happy to lend a creative hand to Prison Ball. He's also the narrator of the film.

"I wanted it to sound more true," said Anthony, whose entertainment unit also is aligned with the rap artist Berg. "More real."

The project has unfolded more slowly than Moriarty anticipated. But the film is in its final editing stage, and Bombora and Krossover plan to shop it around soon, perhaps to television channels.

Anthony also helped spark the concept for the commercials coming out soon touting his latest shoe line, the Melo M3, said Roman Vega, Jordan brand manager.

Two sides to Melo

Anthony, whose birthday is May 29, liked the idea that he's a Gemini and has two dimensions.

"He's about performance on the court," Vega said. "But there's another side to Carmelo."

That's the budding businessman who likes to give back to kids and to the community. Anthony is proud of the abandoned rec center in Baltimore he's turning around, to cite one example, raising the subject every chance he gets.

The print ads, Vega said, will show two Melos, back to back.

"It's been interesting to see him grow through the years," Vega said. "As an 18- or 19-year-old kid, he lacked experience. He didn't know what questions to ask.

"It's clear now that he's the CEO of the Carmelo brand."

Carmelo on the set

Carmelo Anthony is shown on the set for a commercial that was shot at Metro State on Sunday night for Perfect Jumper, a new training system that is supposed to help improve the shooting accuracy of players at all playing levels. While endorsements remain a key part of Team Melo's investment strategy, Anthony and his advisers are also taking stakes in projects or agreeing to partnerships that will deliver a big payday only if the ventures succeed.

The highlights of Carmelo Anthony's endorsements, investments and corporate partnerships:

Sneaker deal with Nike's Jordan brand. The Melo M3 is set to launchin November. By the time the Jordan deal expires, it should be worth more than $20 million.

Pitchman for video game company EA Sports. Melo was on the cover of the 2005 version of NBA Live, the basketball video game, and will be used in connection with a new game hitting the market soon, according to the company.

New endorsement with Perfect Jumper, the maker of a product thataims to help players perfect their shot.

Ownership stake in a local custom car shop, C&C Kustomz.

Krossover Entertainment, which has a record label with the rapartist Berg and a film division that has helped bankroll the documentary Prison Ball. He narrates the film and wrote a six-figure check to finance the movie.

MeloMobile, a soon-to-be launched venture that will allow cellphone users to call up Carmelo wallpaper, ring tones, interviews andpictures. The idea is that he will share in the revenue generated from the monthly fees users will pay.

Anthony is in talks to make a six-figure investment in mStation, anemerging Los Angeles-based company that makes stereos for the iPod andother technology. Carmelo is a gadget freak and also would have a seat on the company's board.

patonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2544

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