Kiyan Anthony didn’t have a potential NBA career in his sights until relatively recently.
One might have thought this would be a natural ambition for Kiyan, the son of former Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony and actress La La Anthony, since soon after birth, but it came much more into focus as his game elevated exponentially over the past year.
Kiyan is the subject of a new six-part docuseries on Overtime’s YouTube channel entitled “The Evolution”, with the first episode debuting on Saturday.
“The NBA wasn’t in the picture [a year ago] because I didn’t know how good I was and I didn’t know how good I was going to be,” Kiyan told The Post in a phone interview earlier this week.
Both father and son that Carmelo told Kiyan at an early age that he wasn’t going to force basketball on him, but would be there for him if excelling in the sport became his dream.
“Once I started going to work out and play with my AAU team, I realized, ‘Oh this is actually fun,'” Kiyan continued.
“When I got to high school, I didn’t think I was really good, but this past year I took a big leap and now I feel like I can compete with the best in the country.”
Kiyan plays for Long Island Lutheran High School in New York and for his father’s Team Melo EYBL (AAU equivalent) team.
Carmelo, as an NBA player, was constantly on the road until his final season last year; now he is working out with Kiyan every day.
“I feel like a father now,” Carmelo told The Post, with a bounce in his voice.
“I feel like an everyday father — somebody who’s there, waking up with you, I get to plot and plan and strategize the way parents do with their kids, and not doing it from afar, in another city, in a hotel. I can really guide him now. I’m more excited about that than anything.”
This time last year, Kiyan wasn’t in ESPN’s top 100 players in the class of 2025, and now he’s approaching the top 50 and is the top-ranked player in New York.
Kiyan has offers from and is hoping to visit Indiana, Michigan, Florida State and Syracuse, where his father won a national championship.
Other offers include Maryland, Illinois, Pittsburgh, Seton Hall, Memphis and Tennessee.
“If you had asked me a year ago, I would have said I wanted to go to D-1. I had an offer from Memphis then, but I feel like it wasn’t really genuine, because going out there against competition, I didn’t feel like I could really keep up a year ago,” Kiyan said.
“I really developed. Now I see myself guarding the best players on the other team and going at them on offense. Before I would have relied on someone else on my team to do that.”
Carmelo attributed the growth to “patience” and “believing in the process.”
“Things are all starting to come together for him and formulate the way we had a plan for him,” Carmelo said.
“Now he has his confidence, and he’s playing against bigger and stronger guys, and he’s playing very well. At this age it’s all about how you feel as a young man — your confidence and mentality — and I’ve seen those rise the past 5-6 months.”
When Carmelo starred at Syracuse, there were not many other options besides college for playing basketball in between high school and the NBA.
Now, players also could join Overtime Elite — where the fourth and fifth overall picks in the 2023 NBA Draft, Amen and Ausar Thompson competed — or the G League, where third overall pick Scott Henderson played.
Carmelo is an investor in Overtime, which has more than three million YouTube subscribers, and in addition to basketball runs a helmetless football league and boxing matches.
Kiyan said that “for now” his plan is college, but he’s keeping his options open.
Carmelo said he is there as a sounding board, but that they are “not in a rush” and they still aren’t having conversations about exactly where Kiyan wants to go.
“I still want him to go through the process of being recruited, and what that’s like as a kid. I want him to experience that,” Carmelo said.
“As far as the schools go, I tell him, ‘This is a decision that you make. I’m not putting any pressure on you to go to one school. What I’ll do is when you want to sit down and go through these things, I’ll give you the pros and cons of each situation, and my perspective on what situation I think fits your style of game. After that, you make your own decision, and as a father I’ll be proud of the decision that you make.’ ”
As far as what Kiyan wants viewers to take out of the “Overtime” series, he said that “I just hope that they’re able to see the other side of my life — not just basketball, because I feel that’s all people see of me in the media, so I just want everybody to see me for who I really am.”
Carmelo concurred, saying, “I want people to understand what kind of kid my son is. He’s still a kid. He’s only 16 years old. He’s still going through things as a teenager as a young man and trying to figure life out, so I want people to see his personality and who he is — the kid that I see every single day.”