by Doug Ammon

Knicks superstar Carmelo Anthony didn’t know much about the 6’9” forward matched up with him when the Sixers came to Madison Square Garden in late November.

“Can he shoot?” Melo asked an assistant coach during a timeout. The coach’s response: “Just put a hand up.”

The 20,000 fans in attendance likely didn’t recognize him either. Heck, even Sixers fans were just beginning to learn his name. But nowadays, Robert Covington is one of the biggest reasons behind the Sixers recent success.

He goes by many monikers today: RoCo, RC3, Bobby Buckets, Lord Covington… but it was on that night against the Knicks that the soft-spoken Tennessee State product began his NBA rise.

At the mecca of basketball that is The Garden on November 22, Covington went for a then career-high 14 points in just 14 minutes of action. It was just his fourth game with the Sixers, and in his previous three Covington had tallied just 14 combined points on 3-of-14 shooting.

By December, Covington had staked a claim for significant minutes on a nightly basis with the Sixers, even enjoying a stretch in which he topped 20 points in four of five games. Things were beginning to change for the 24-year-old, and head coach Brett Brown looked into his crystal ball before a game against the Celtics in late December to predict what the future would hold for the player whose arrival one month prior had come without much pomp or circumstance.

“I think he’s a scorer, but he’s more than just a shooter,” he said. “I think Mike [Carter-Williams] has found a new Christmas toy.”

With the All-Star Break upon us, the city of Philadelphia has seen Covington burst out of his Christmas wrapping to become one of the Sixers’ chief contributors in the scoring department.

He enters the break as the Sixers’ second leading scorer, with Tony Wroten sidelined for the foreseeable future after knee surgery. Covington’s 13.2 points per game are right behind last year’s Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams, and have come predominately from Covington’s ability to convert from long range.

On the season, he has converted 180 shots, 126 of which have been jump shots; 114 of the 126 have come from 10 feet and beyond. Covington leads the Sixers in three-point percentage, knocking down 38.9% of his shots from deep. He currently finds himself in the top 20 in the NBA in the made threes, with 103. His overall 39.5% shooting from the field is second on the team among non-big men.

Covington isn’t showing signs of slowing down either. In fact, his month of February has been his best. He is averaging a team-high 18.8 points per game, including back-to-back 20+ scoring nights to end the team’s pre-break stretch. He’s shooting a scorching 44.1% from the field to go along with 41.9% from behind the arc this month.

What’s even more impressive is that Covington is second in the NBA this month in three-pointers made, eight shy of Stephen Curry, who’s played one more game than the Sixer sharpshooter.

Fittingly, the next chapter in Robert Covington’s story takes him back to New York, where he’ll be the replacement for Michael Carter-Williams in the BBVA Compass Rising Stars Challenge across the bridge in Brooklyn. The annual contest showcases the next generation of NBA stars, pitting first- and second-year players against one another.

It’s likely that hometown star Carmelo Anthony will be in attendance, but unlike three months ago, he, along with everyone watching, will know it takes more then a just hand to stop Robert Covington.

Catch the action Friday at 9pm (EST) on TNT.