One-upmanship never ends

It’s getting ridiculous, this “Can You Top This?” competition between LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony.

LeBron scores 37 against the Celtics on Dec.13, so Carmelo scores 37 against the Rockets two weeks later.

LeBron scores 38 against the Wizards on Feb.1, so Carmelo scores 39 against the Trail Blazers the very next night.

LeBron scores 41 against the Nets on Saturday, so Carmelo scores 41 against the Sonics on Tuesday.

Back and forth they go, like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa swapping homers in 1998. Well, maybe not that dramatic, but give ’em time. They’re just kids — barely old enough to vote.

At halftime of the Seattle game, Anthony was so certain he’d surpass James’ 41 — he had 27 at that point — that he made a bet with Nuggets teammate Rodney White. Alas, he only managed to tie LeBron’s career high, so he owes White dinner.

“White promised to order an 88-ounce steak at the fanciest restaurant in town,” the Denver Post reported.

Of course, if that happens, James will have to buy one of the Cavs an 89-ounce steak, just to stay one up on Anthony.

In the locker room afterward, Carmelo explained, “I couldn’t let LeBron get 41 without me getting 41. I talked to him about that.”

I talked to him about that. James and Anthony are developing a relationship the way Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain developed a relationship. Russ and Wilt, in fact, did much more than talk on the telephone; they took turns eating at each other’s homes on Thanksgiving.

“I used to get on Wilt to be more aggressive on the court with Russell,” former Philadelphia coach Frank Ramsey says in “Tall Tales,” Terry Pluto’s book about the old NBA. “But Wilt, he liked Russell. They would go to dinner together after the game. One day, I saw Bill and Wilt together in a hotel elevator the afternoon before they were to play that night. A few hours later, I ran into Wilt alone, and I asked him what he was doing with Russell.

“’We always eat together before the game,’ Wilt said. ’Sometimes I even go to his house.’

“I tried to tell him that Russell did that just to soften him up, but Wilt was too nice a guy to believe that.”

Ah, those were the days. By Philly statistician Harvey Pollack’s count, Russell and Chamberlain faced each other 162 times (with Russ holding a 88-74 edge), so there were plenty of opportunities for dinners and elevator rides. They had such a rivalry that in 1966, when Wilt signed a contract for $100,000 a year, Red Auerbach gave Russell a deal for a dollar more.

With James and Anthony, it’s a little different. They communicate with each other mostly by cell phone … and box score. When Carmelo sees that LeBron has raised the bar, he feels compelled to inch it a little higher himself, just for the sport of it. ’Tis a pity, in this expansion age, that they can’t be on the court together more than twice a year. But unless the Nuggets and Cavaliers meet in a couple of NBA Finals — and perhaps they will, once they surround their young stars with better supporting casts — that’s how it’s going to be. (It was the same with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Their teams met fewer than 50 times in 13 seasons, hard as it is to believe.)

Where did these guys come from? (Other than St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and Syracuse University, I mean.) You just don’t take over an NBA franchise at the age of 19, much less an entire league. But James and Anthony appear intent on doing exactly that.

I’m reminded of an “X-Files” episode — “The Unnatural,” it’s titled — in which a star baseball player (played by Jesse L. Martin of “Law and Order”) turns out to be an alien. “All the great athletes are aliens,” the player tells an FBI agent. Which makes you wonder if James and Anthony didn’t arrive on the same spaceship. Their stats, after all, are eerily similar. Both average 20.9 points a game. Both have a high game of 41. Both get about six rebounds a night. Both stand 6-8. And how’s this for freaky? Through Tuesday, LeBron had taken 1,355 shots, Carmelo 1,353.

Where are Mulder and Scully when you really need them?

Ted Williams had his Joe DiMaggio. Arnold Palmer had his Jack Nicklaus. Chris Evert had her Martina Navratilova. And LeBron James, thankfully, has his Carmelo Anthony. If we’re lucky, they’ll be trying to outdo each other for the next decade or so, forcing each other to be better — and maybe even collecting a few rings along the way.

Unless, that is, they get summoned back to their planet — in which case, I might hitch a ride.