Denver Nuggets 2009-2010: Dripping with Offensive Talent and You Would Assume Good on Defense Again, but They Still Have Zero Chance of Winning a Ring

Until now I have rarely written anything just after watching a game about a team based on that game without making sure I’m not exaggerating something or missing something important by checking the game performance stats (the box scores and usually an advanced breakdown or two) but since I’m now more than qualified to do that I thought I would this time and from time to time in the future.

Last night I caught most of the rough looking Cavaliers home opener loss to the on point looking Celtics. Watch for future Reports on what the Cavaliers, who I am now specializing in, have to do to avoid having the whole season end in a dead end like that Celtics game did, with LeBron James no more than roughly what you get if you combine the 2000-01 Allen Iverson and the 2006-07 Dirk Nowitzki: obvious MVP but with just a trivial outside chance of winning a ring.

Tonight I watched the Denver Nuggets, the team that I started out with and am now officially not specializing in, but also the team that I will probably never be able to avoid giving some attention to. You see, I'm kind of attatched to them, not in the least because the Nuggets did teach me some things. Not all of those things were what NOT to do if you actually want to win the Ring, strange as that might sound, laugh out loud.

One thing the Nuggets have shown you and I in detail is how maintaining a high intensity, high energy, highly aggressive defense can not only produce a halfway decent defense, but also can reduce the work load on the offense quite a bit. Getting all those turnovers is an easy way to get a ticket to Fast Break City, which in turn means you can get away with some things, including inadequate 3-point shooting, for longer than most Championship coaches would suspect. Why damn, if you get lucky you can even win some playoff games like that. You definitely can not win a Championship like that, but you can do more than I thought you can.

And gee, who would have known, the zebras really do take a liking to that kind of defensive strategy, and show they like it by conveniently forgetting to blow the whistle on a regular basis on some of the extra fouling involved with that kind of defense.

In their 2009-10 home opener, the Nuggets finally hauled up and fired off a massive upper cut against the Jazz on the road with Boozer hopelessly out of whack. This put a quick end to Deron Williams' hopeless effort to pull off the upset. Beating the Jazz when they are on the road recently has been almost meaningless but, whatever, a win is a win, and the Nuggets finally smothered the Jazz, whose offense and eventually whose defense were greatly burdened by Boozer. The Nugs pulled away late in the third and early in the fourth for a 114-105 W.

Although before we dared to tune in we obviously knew the Jazz were on the road, we had no idea that Boozer would be out of whack, or that Jerry Sloan appears to be wrong about starting Boozer over Milsap. Boozer is so far from back that it isn’t even serious, it’s funny, assuming you are not a Jazz fan.

And is it me, or is Jerry Sloan apparently too old for his job at this point?

As for the 2010 Nuggets, the first thing you should keep in mind is that the Nuggets in the last several years have been often loaded with offensive talent, and I mean chock loaded. Over the top loaded. Spilling out of the Pepsi Center loaded. The Fire Marshall has been notified that the Pepsi Center might burst at the seems and collapse loaded. Certain high level basketball folks are trying to figure out how they keep being that loaded loaded. And…, well, you get the point.

Yes, they have the fatal flaw of not enough three point shooters, and excuse me if I got carried away about the Fire Marshall.

The Nuggets were most loaded of all in 2007-08 but, on the other hand, it looks like at the moment that the Nuggets might be just about as loaded this year as they were that year, and so they are substantially more loaded this year than they were last year, in 2008-09.

As a result, these recent Nuggets teams have been able to substantially mask their very unfortunate and inexcusable total lack of anything remotely like a well run, slightly organized, playoff caliber, pro basketball offense. It’s sooo easy to hide that from the fans. With some things, you can fool most of the people most of the time.

It is a damn, crying shame that the Nuggets have gone for as many years as they have with a massive amount of offensive potential but with zero chance of winning a Championship due to total inability to organize and/or due to total disdain for organizing offensive potential in any way, shape, or form that qualifies a team for a possible Championship. No, the Nuggets stubbornly persist on unqualified ways of running the offense. It's something you might even cry about if your not careful.

But for the less demanding fans out there, just watching extremely high offensive level players like Carmelo Anthony glide up and slam dunk the hell out of the ball is what is good for the kick back time. And even a thuggish player like Kenyon Martin does the same thing sometimes. The 2010 Nuggets will deliver this. For the fans that just want to see a truly outstanding slashing guard like Ty Lawson and a truly outstanding and always mysteriously inconsistent multi-tasking 2-guard like J.R. “Suspended Again but Coming Back Soon” Smith, the 2010 Nuggets will deliver.

Hell, spokesmen for the 2010 Nuggets are saying they might even be able to finally deliver to this world a Carmelo Anthony as NBA Superstar, but I’ll begin to believe that if and only if I begin to see it over a substantial chunk of the season.

But what the Nuggets can deliver is just what you want to see sometimes, while kicking back after a 12-hour multitasking day of mostly drudge work. So when I’m in kick back mode, I’m just like those less demanding people. When I’m kicking back, I forget about which teams can not possibly win a Championship, and which possibly can.

An unknown but an apparently fairly large percentage of Nuggets fans, assuming they knew as a fact that the Nuggets can not possibly win a Championship regardless of talent, wouldn’t really give a damn, as long as they could see Carmelo Anthony finally become a superstar, as long as they could see Nene get through another year without a major injury and see the Brazilian very often be a seemingly unstoppable train coming down those imaginary tracks down the middle of the paint for the very easy score. (So what if those blind refs fouled Nene out of the game for the second straight Nuggets season opener?)

Those kick back time fans are also already starting to like Ty Lawson, who looked sort of like Allen Iverson in his prime while slashing, except that Lawson, at least in this game, looked like he might never need to get fouled to get a lot of scores.

By the way though, where was the Jazz’ usual No one Gets Past Here Without at Least Getting Fouled Crew, anyway? Jerry, I thought by now you would have gotten their Union Contract that says they won’t play on the road changed.

Back to the Nuggets fans: If, however, you are in it ONLY for what the Nuggets can deliver, and you don’t give a damn that the Nuggets can not possibly win a Championship, then you are not at all like me most of the time.

TY LAWSON
Although the supposedly in the know sports announcers on TV were saying during this Utah-Denver game that Ty Lawson does not have any perimeter game to speak of, it seems this 2009 Minnesota draftee made 81 of 191 threes in the two years 2007-2009 for University of North Carolina which, regardless of the slightly shorter distance needed for making threes in the NCAA, would prove that Lawson does indeed have some kind of a perimeter game to go along with his slashing through and burning of defenses at the hoop.

The NCAA adopted a 19-foot, 9-inch line for threes nationally in 1986. In 2007, the NCAA lengthened the men's three point distance to 20 feet 9 inches, with the rule coming into effect at the beginning of the 2008-09 season. Meanwhile, the NBA adopted the three in 1979-1980, with the distance of 23 feet, 9 inches a little beyond the top of the key, with the distance gradually and slightly coming down to 22 feet, 9 inches at the corners. For a brief 3 years 1994–97, the NBA attempted to address decreased scoring by shortening the distance of the line to a uniform 22 feet, From the 1997–98 season, the NBA reverted the line to its original distance of 23 feet, 9 inches (22 feet at the corners). Notice that the new NCAA distance from 2008-09 is still 3 feet closer than the NBA distance near the top of the key and 1 1/4 feet closer than the NBA distance in the corners.

Ty Lawson in the NCAA was .361 on threes from the 19 feet nine inch distance and then .472 from the 20 feet 9 inches distance. So Lawson was actually better from a little farther out, and he was .472 with a line just a yard in from the pro line. Regardless of the slightly shorter distances, Lawson’s three shooting in College proves he could develop a three point shot in the NBA. To be more precise, he could develop a pro three, or at least a solid mid-range, were he not playing for the Denver Nuggets, who do not believe in the three, or the mid range jumper for that matter, and who don’t allow any of their players (except possibly Carmelo Anthony on the mid-range) to think of those two types of shots as important weapons in the offensive arsenal.

Shame on you for defaming Ty Lawson, TNT, or whoever the hell you were.

THE WOLVES ARE LETTING THEM GET AWAY AGAIN
As for those Minnesota Wolves, having managed to lose Kevin Garnett a few years ago, having gone through mysterious coaching changes, and now this year having lost, at least in the short term, both Ty Lawson and Ricky Rubio, they seem to have become afflicted with the Wolf Pack Can’t Stay Together Disease. Wolves, you probably need to hire a good guard wolf to keep those really good wolves in the wolf den when they should be there. And you may need a good Wolf Pack Food and Drug Agency to tell the bad food from the good food better.

The last thing anyone wants to hear in the middle of the night is the howling of a bunch of wolves sick from bad food, so please do something, Minnesota.