Jamal Musiala put three fingers to his head after racing to the top of the Euro 2024 scoring charts this week.
The Germany star continued his electric start to the tournament by scoring his second goal in his country’s 2-0 win over Hungary.
The 21-year-old has cycled through several different celebrations in his young career, from making an ‘M’ with his hands to bowing.
After finding the net against Hungary, the Bayern Munich playmaker celebrated with a gesture more commonly associated with the NBA.
Former England youth international Musiala is a keen basketball fan and was keen to pay tribute to one of his heroes.
Musiala hit NBA legend Carmelo Anthony’s three-point celebration after scoring his second goal of Euro 2024.
Bayern’s No.42 put three fingers to his head after opening the scoring in Germany’s 2-0 win over Hungary.
When asked by BILD about the celebration, Musiala revealed, “It comes from basketball. From Carmelo [Anthony].”
Former Los Angeles Lakers ace Anthony, a ten-time NBA All-Star, hit his ‘three to the dome’ gesture whenever he made a 3-pointer.
Ironically the celebration itself came from Anthony’s teammate Rasheed Wallace when the pair were at the New York Knicks.
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Iman Shumpert told the Athletic: “People don’t realize, Melo doing the three-to-the-head, how that started was Rasheed Wallace.
“He always had a three-point celebration. He started the three-to-the-head and then Sheed got hurt.
“But Sheed started this. And it was funny as hell because Melo, of course, is like, ‘Come on man, it’s Melo man’… once the God do it, everybody go rogue with it.
“So, everybody’s like, ‘yo the Melo three-to-the-head!’ We all thought it was funny…And Sheed comes in one day…and he says, ‘Melo I’m not even gonna charge you for that.’”
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Melo hit 762 threes during his time with the Knicks, compared to Sheed’s 22, meaning the celebration soon became the former’s.
The meaning of the celebration has never been explicitly confirmed, with the most likely just being aware of Melo making a 3-pointer.
Although Sheed, who admitted the NBA once tried to ban it, explained the original idea behind it was baseball legend Kirk Gibson.
He told KFTV: “When I was in Boston in 2010, every time I made a three, I would hold the three up, and kind of sort of the Kirk Gibson.
“So when I was up there, I was like ‘You know, I just gotta try to do something funny that everybody likes, so I came up with three to the dome. Then, the few minutes that I did get in some of the games and made a shot, the NBA hit me like, ‘Yo, you gotta stop doing that.’
“They thought it was, one, a gang sign, and two, they thought I was trying to represent, ‘I’m gonna shoot you in the head.”
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