Marcus Camby, the Denver Front Court, and the Surprise

This is the Nuggets 1 response to the Hollinger ESPN evaluation and prediction for Marcus Camby.

I don't really have a substantial complaint to make on this one, it all seems on point.

Especially on point is the point that Camby needs to be combined with a physical big man to produce an effective inside defense. The expensive Brazilian, Nene, is supposed to fill that role, and there is bad and good news on Nene heading into the new season. The bad news is that he's been out for most of camp with a calf strain, and that he has been overweight coming into the season, just like last year. But last year he was coming off knee surgery, and his knee was all too frequently still hurting. The good news is that, this year, his knee has had one more year to be rehabbed. The other good news is to recall that, when he got into his groove last season, he was sometimes too much for even the likes of Tim Duncan to handle. "Nene is back" became a lockerroom rallying cry for the Nuggets last year. And if his knees and calves cooperate, and he sheds some fat pounds, we can expect him to be able to be Camby's needed assistant up front. On Nene, the good news is bigger than the bad as of now.

And all that assumes that Kenyon Martin gets little playing time on his rehabbed knees. To the extent K-Mart gets the burn, Nene keeps the pounds off, and Camby dodges the injury bullets, the Nuggets will have the big 4 front court they have been dreaming of and working hard on since the 44-120 record of 2001-03. As Hollinger implies, a fully intact and working Denver front court would be good enough to present a serious obstacle in the way of any of the Texas teams, the Suns, or the Jazz from easily knocking the Nuggets out this season.

The thing I most like about Camby is that he is a calm, serious, thinking player who is never going to allow another player, team, offense, or defense to get under his skin and cause him to lose concentration. He is unflappable. The intensity and control of his mind and body he uses for his shot blocking, rebounding, and defense in general make him sort of a non-Asian with martial arts skills applied to basketball. I, for one, vote for a Rockets-Nuggets West final this year; Yao versus Camby alone would be priceless, to say nothing of the other matchups.

Could what I am seeing in Camby be the mental toughness that Coach Karl claims the Nuggets in general lack? I'm not sure, because that term is a little too vague for me to be sure what it means, and the Coach has certainly not explained himself enough. But I will continue in my never ending quest to figure out what Coach means whenever he starts using philosophy words.

Camby came under alot of fierce criticism for taking too many midrange and longer jump shots from hard core Nuggets fans last season but, as Hollinger reports, his shooting improved from the prior season and, at .473, wasn't bad enough to demand that he be traded. If he just banged for layups all the time like his detractors want, he would be injured and out of action in no time. Of course, that's what his detractors actually, secretly want.

As of the beginning of the season, I see no reason not to be content, for now, with the Melo + Camby + Nene combo for the front court cake, and whatever we can get from K-Mart for the icing on the cake.

Oh, and the Nuggets have a front court surprise for the West. It isn't going to be a surprise for very long, so I'm not harming anything by revealing what that surprise is. The name of the surprise is Bobby Jones.