This particular set of comments is my reaction to the Marcus Camby giveaway.
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JULY 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES
Well, the Nuggets are saying "screw everyone who thinks winning a playoff is so important," because Camby is apparently out the door in a payroll butchering move. The Nuggets are apparently getting only a 2nd round pick for Marcus Camby!
Thus ends the whole confusing and all too lame management of the Nuggets failed attempt to put Allen Iverson into position to win a ring.
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The Nuggets are literally making fools of themselves. As I said before, they should have drafted a center.
They are getting only a miniscule amount for Camby, as the ESPN flash has it (posted at 11:32 eastern time, just a few minutes before me, lol). I hope the Camby haters are happy, although in fairness I doubt many of them will agree with this self-destruction of a team.
The correct move was to dismantle the coaching staff and either:
1. Assuming that Nene is really going to be healthy and play, draft the best center possible. Then and only then could you do what the Nuggets are doing (getting the big payroll cut) without looking like total, complete idiots.
or
2. Trade Camby + ??? for a center if Nene is still not certain to be available full time.
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I was really, really, really mad...
Thanks for showing up at the Nuggets funeral, lol.
The Nuggets players don't deserve this either.
To me the most important positions are center and point guard. Now the Nuggets are going to have both of those completely hosed up.
What a freaking joke this is. The Denver front office is saying, "OK, we know we are a relatively small market, and for mainly that reason, it's not meant to be in anyone's life time that we win a Championship, or get close to it really, and we got carried away with the payroll and all..."
Idiots, pure and simple.
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Even writers and bloggers who wouldn't have been caught dead not so long ago saying it should be AI at 1-guard and JR at 2-guard are now saying it. But if wouldn't matter if every single fan and every single writer insisted that AI and JR should be the backcourt starters. George Karl's vote is the only vote that matters, and his style and manners manual says no way to that combo.
So I personally don't think that the Nuggets will even get the consolation prize of an extremely dynamic and successful starting backcourt, because I think it's going to be Carter at 1-guard and AI at 2-guard. So Smith can be the best young SG since time begain, but he ain't gonna start.
So the Nuggets are going to be a total joke, and they have completely self destructed at this point. It is a suicide, and once the grim reaper arrives on the scene, the party is definitely over.
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Karl is upset about any of his older veterans going; he'd have the oldest team in the League if he had his way.
My mind is still spinning around about this, so I am going to use a wider range, for now, for my prediction. I'll change my prediction later if necessary.
That said, I'm gonna say the Nuggets will win just 34-41 games if JR does not start most of the year, and 42-47 games if he does start all year. Even if JR did start for the whole year, the Nuggets probably will not make the playoffs, or its 50/50 at best.
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If I was forced to predict the exact record, I'd say it will be 37-45 if JR does not start during most or all of the season, and 44-38 if he does start most of the year.
With the kind of defense the Nuggets are going to have now (I don't even want to think about it) even starting JR Smith will not be enough for the Nuggets to ensure a playoff spot, let alone win a playoff.
If Nene doesn't play, you could be looking at a 30-33 win team.
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How do you give JR 28+ minutes, while refusing to start him?
If AI plays even just 38, which would be shockingly low, you would have two 2-guards for 66, meaning that you would, under your and Coach Karl's theory that AI is not a good PG (and under my theory too, which is that just saying he is the PG is not enough) be without an effective PG for 18 minutes out of a 48 minute game! How can you possibly expect to win close games without a true, responsible, designated PG for 18 out of 48 minutes?
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The owner of the Nuggets is apparently going from one extreme to the other in his funding of the Nuggets, from being well over the payroll cap to being under it. It may be a full crash and burn of the payroll, which automatically puts the team into rebuilding mode, whether rebuilding is intended or not.
If cutting the money itself is the objective and the plan, and the rebuilding is an accident, then this is about the worst thing any basketball franchise could possibly do: a sudden, unplanned, out of the blue rebuilding, with much of the public unaware that a rebuilding is underway, and possibly parts of the front office and coaching staffs unaware that a rebuilding is underway by default.
But how could a team possibly do a rebuilding correctly if some, most, or all of the management is not aware that this is a full rebuilding situation? They couldn't. You can't do any project correctly if you don't even know that you are involved in that project. At least Oklahoma City knows they are in rebuilding!
A rebuilding that has not been anticipated and planned is a rebuilding that has a much highly likelihood of failing than a planned rebuilding. Success of any Nuggets rebuilding is even more unlikely given that Karl is well known for being stingy toward and biased against younger players, who are obviously crucial in any rebuilding.
If my description of the situation here is even half right, then this 2008 off season is an unmitigated disaster for the Nuggets franchise and will lay them low for an unknown number of years.
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No one is going to begrudge Mr. Kroenke's right to stop paying the luxury tax, but everyone is eligible, to say the least, to criticize dumping a player of Marcus Camby's caliber.
It is ridiculous to say that the Nuggets could not have gotten more for Camby. They could have traded their 2008 pick (#20 in the draft I think) and Camby for a higher draft pick center, as any one of several dozen possible better scenarios. That way, you get a decent center prospect and substantial cap relief at the same time, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater as the Nuggets are actually doing.
Although Nene is 6-11, he is rated a PF; he doesn't have the hands and polished finishing skills to be a true center and may never have them. But nor does he have any kind of outside shot that a good PF is supposed to have.
The Nuggets never really "experimented" with AI, not only because they had one of the least organized offenses in the League, but also because they didn't deviate in the slightest from the way the 76'ers deployed Allen Iverson. In other words, the 76'ers already ran the experiment, and it failed. If you run the same experiment again, it will fail again.
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Well very simply, if you are all of a sudden running away from the luxury tax like a scared rabbit, you had no business piling up a fat luxury tax in the first place. If you are afraid of fire, stay out of the kitchen.
Is one of the main secrets behind which franchises are run well and which are not in the NBA whether there is consistency over many years relative to how much luxury tax, if any, an owner is comfortable with? Apparently so.
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There was this guy who was supporting the Nuggets view of the World and I could not resist going all out to point out why he was wrong. He said:
I don't think the Nuggets are running away from the luxury tax like a scared rabbit. I see their moves as rational given the situation. They seemed willing to pay the LT if they could be a real contender, if not champion. Given they paid the LT, acquired AI, paid big bucks to Nene to keep him, paid Camby, paid Melo, etc., they reached a logical end. I don't know that adding any player, except for a small handful, was somehow going to push them over the top.
The point being, why pay the LT and lose when you can not pay the LT and lose? (or should I say, win about the same # of games)
I responded:
The Nuggets are not allowed to conclude that they reached a logical end, for the following reasons:
1. From a what we officially know perspective, there hasn't been one word, nor one hint of a word, in public, about the Nuggets reaching an end to their big payroll roster adventure. Quite to the contrary, Nuggets management has been consistent in saying that they are still on course to being a contender. Is this a stealth rebuilding or something?
2. From a basketball strategy perspective, the Nuggets could not possibly be at a logical end unless they actually, really, fully deployed Allen Iverson at the PG position, instead of just inserting him in that slot for the playoffs, for grins only.
3. From a performance measure perspective, you can't possibly say that one of the very most talented teams in the NBA has reached a logical end and has to begin rebuilding. Would Boston, Los Angeles, or at least a dozen top NBA franchises be caught dead doing such a thing?
4. From the actual basketball results strategy, the Nuggets won 50 out of 82 games in 2007-08, one of their highest total number of wins ever. Moreover, the gap betwen their offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency in 2007-08 was substantially up from the year prior, and was one of their most positive gaps ever. You are not at the logical dead end when you have just completed your best season in many, many years.
In short, you have to wait until you are actually at the logical dead end until you take drastic action as a result of being at the logical dead end. The Nuggets are acting as if they are paranoid about finding out whether they were about to reach the logical dead end, which is ridiculous.
This is about like a man, suspecting that he is going to die soon, going to the funeral home, jumping in a casket, and telling the funeral director to bury him now! Laugh out loud!
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There will be more Nuggets post Camby comments in the in "Forum Comments From July 2008, Part 7"
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EDITORIAL INFORMATION
This is more forum commentary I did during July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, All commentary until just before the Camby giveaway in July 2008 was already posted in October. The remaining forum commentary not yet here is being posted now.
The posting of my original content on a forum before it is posted on this site will never happen again. Even if my time temporarily becomes limited so that I can't do full reports for a few weeks, I now do Fast Break postings on this site, and these are going to be the same thing as any forum postings I do. I will combine extremely short forum comments into a single Fast Break, which will be from now on immediately be posted here.
In turn, Full Reports will include all fast breaks, which will be reedited and substantially added to.
In these comments, and in future Fast Break writings, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in a full report here at The Quest for the Ring. Some of this is more like everyday conversation than like top quality sports writing. On the other hand, some of the comments do include some detailed reasoning and proof that I pride myself on in the regular reports.
Editorial Note: Please be aware that a "Fast Break" is a short and quick preview of some of the topics that will be explored and proved in more detail in upcoming regular reports. Fast Breaks will often reappear in full reports with only minor reediting, but there will be more important details, more evidence, and more implications and explanations in the full reports. Moreover, there will be topics that never appear in any Fast Break in a full Report.
Fast Breaks are especially useful for the first few days after major news breaks. They are also very useful for people who will seldom or never have enough time to read a full Game/Team/League Report. Fast Breaks are the type of article that more typical web logs feature almost all or all of the time.
