Return of Nuggets 1: Forum Comments From Middle of May 2008, Part 2

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have enough time for the detailed and extensive reports I like to do, is being posted in early October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. 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 primary reports I release.
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MIDDLE MAY 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES
Reasons to Take Melo Trade Rumors More Seriously Than You Usually Would


* 1. C Anthony may have finally figured out how screwed up the Nuggets are and how it isn't going to change until there are changes in team management. But the Nuggets are too dumb or cowardly right now to make the needed changes. Remember that he called the Nuggets a quitting team during and after game 3 of the playoffs blowout by the Lakers.

So Anthony may have more or less demanded a trade, but decided to do it out of the public eye.
* 2. The Nuggets were dumb enough to trade for Allen Iverson but not make any changes at all in his Philadelphia role, producing the same futile result. So they are dumb enough to make a dumb Anthony trade.
* 3. The Nuggets need salary relief.
* 4. The Nuggets need a scapegoat if they are too dumb and/or too cowardly to get rid of some coaches.
* 5. George Karl may have demanded that the Nuggets get better defenders on the team, so that he can rely less on his no structure, fast pace offense for easy wins against poor teams next year. Karl/The FO may be trying for the overly simplistic fix of getting better defenders in their quest to win playoff games. I'm not against better defenders but in and of itself it's not going to solve the Nuggets problems, especially if a dumb Melo trade is involved in bringing it about.

In other words, Karl and/or other team managers may have decided that the team needs to move heavily in the direction of more defending and less offense, which would make Melo expendable to some extent.
* 6. Any team dumb enough to even discuss a Melo trade that does not involve either of the two Nuggets 2-guards, both of whom are among the best 2-guards in the League, Iverson and Smith, in exchange for an outstanding point guard, is dumb enough to make a dumb Melo trade.
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I forgot an important one.


* 7. Karl has named AI as captain and Carmelo Anthony is not even co-captain. Also, Melo's game has been micromanaged by Karl/other coaches to some extent while Iverson has been given total free reign to play any way he wants. Both of these indicate that if the Nuggets make a major trade, it is more likely that Melo goes rather than AI.
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Well if there has been discussion, and every major media is reporting that there has been, then even if the NJ potential deal falls through, Melo may be moved to some other team after the draft picks become known.

The fact that JR is a NJ native and the fact that Karl doesn't like him makes the NJ discussions all the more interesting and worth taking seriously.

I rarely think about potential trades but this has to be an exception because I know too much not to know that it is in fact possible that the Nuggets would trade C Anthony during this off-season. I'm still not saying it's likely, but it's more likely than some would like to believe. If you had to put odds on it, the odds would be somewhere in the 25-45% range, with the 45% being correct if Melo has demanded to be traded.
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Yeah, and if that's really what the proposal is, instead of Williams/Jefferson/pick, and Melo wants out, then it is a real possibility, regardless of exactly what pick NJ gets, unless perhaps it's a really low one.
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A really smart basketball guy (other than me!) commented:

Again, I hate to be redundant, but this is the same front office that was seriously suggesting Zach Randolph at the deadline (All things considered, probably the worst potential fit for our situation). You are going to tell me that something like this is out of the question (Williams as the second piece)?

Melo has been made the scapegoat and unfortunately we have already run him out of town, it's only a matter of when

My response was:

Damn, you are saying what I am afraid to say but I think is true in the back of my head.
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The franchise seems to be content with having one or two historic stars on the roster, with filling seats, with selling merchandise, with preventing falling into the cellar as in years past, and in just barely making the playoffs if possible. Winning in the playoffs is too difficult in the current Western Conference, exactly as Mr. Karl explained recently.

For a relatively small market, you could actually make a case that this is not such a bad set of objectives. If you go for the gold, there is always a chance you will fall completely on your ass and end up in the cellar. But if you don't try for the gold, and just try for the bronze or for the honorable mention, you can most likely avoid the extreme roller coaster type of pattern. Remember how bad the Lakers were a few years ago, and how bad the Mavericks used to be a few years before that, and so on? Maybe the Nuggets are only trying to avoid the cellar, and they know that if you go for it all and fail, you sometimes get rewarded for that with a first class ticket to the cellar.
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And Karl is your man if you are thinking in that stupidly cautious way, because one thing Karl is good at is avoiding putting a really bad product on the court.

In the final analysis, if this is the overly cautious thinking that is really behind the Nuggets right now, the most important first step in changing that and becoming an ordinary sports franchise that goes for it all and isn't worried about falling into the cellar if it fails is to show most or all of the Nuggets coaches the door, including of course Mr. Karl. Whether or not anyone from the front office also needs to be shown the door will depend largely on how they treat Carmelo Anthony in the coming days and months, and what they get for him if they do pull the trigger on a trade.
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They got Iverson and everyone and his uncle was fooled into thinking that the Nuggets really, really wanted to win it all. But then they didn't make the slightest change in Iverson's role compared to his role in Philadelphia, so now it was sort of the Denver 76'ers. The Nuggets have now reached almost the exact same dead end that the 76'ers reached.

Mr. Kroenke and company went all out to bring the Nuggets up from the cellar and they succeeded big time and everyone needs to be eternally grateful for that. They made absolutely sure that the Nuggets were going to be safe from the cellar for years to come (unless Karl somehow causes a doomsday scenario by for example sponsoring a dumb Melo trade) and that the Nuggets were going to meet all major franchise objectives other than being competitive in the playoffs.

But since we fans are now obsessed about the Nuggets not being able to win in the playoffs, naturally we are focused on that one thing they have not been able to do. They have done a reasonably good job overall, but they have been blind with respect to the coaching aspect, and I for one want them to do an outstanding job. I want to grade them A or A- instead of B- or C+.
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About the only time teams like the Spurs run iso plays is on fast breaks.

And because of the tougher inside defending, you can't win in the playoffs without good 3-point shooting. This made it mandatory that JR Smith's minutes NOT be strictly limited as they were. It was also mandatory for Carmelo Anthony to ramp up his 3-point shooting. While Anthony's accuracy was way up from beyond the arc, his attempts actually fell slightly short of his career average, which constitutes another major coaching error. It was much more important for Anthony to get open and attempt and make more threes than it was for him to make more rebounds, but only the latter was accomplished.
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Speaking broadly, the Nuggets have three ongoing nightmares.

1. The coaching staff does not know how pro teams win playoff games. Karl actually virtually admitted this in public!
2. The front court is essentially never healthy and in sync.
3. The back court is totally hosed up because there is no established, playoff calibur PG nor, shockingly, even an understanding among the coaches of the importance of the position.

The fact that the team won 50 games despite those crippling problems proves that this team mostly played their best under the circumstances this past season. But losing in the playoffs was obviously inevitable, and will continue to be so unless the above is solved.

As a rough estimate, solving any one of the above would get the Nuggets' current roster in line to win a playoff series. Solving two of the three could get the Nuggets to the Western finals. If all three were solved, the Nuggets would then and only then be candidates to possibly reach the NBA finals.

But these nightmares are ongoing. Currently there is no end in sight to these bad dreams. Well, it could be the curse that won't let the team wake up.

Return of Nuggets 1: Forum Comments From Early May 2008, Part 2

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have enough time for the detailed and extensive reports I like to do, is being posted in early October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. 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 primary reports I release.
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EARLY MAY 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES

As time goes by, if he's like me, he'll realize that there's bad coaching and then there is Nuggets coaching. With Nuggets coaching, the team result is less than the sum of the players' results, so it is dangerous to cast blame all around the roster. Other than Nene who couldn't play and then wasn't worked in and Atkins who couldn't play and then wasn't worked in and, arguably, Camby (mostly due to his kind of crazy offense)there really wasn't any major Nugget who had a disappointing season this year, yet the team as a whole sucked in the playoffs, and wasn't as good in the regular season as it appears, because they were at least +3 games in lucky wins over unlucky losses.
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Don't know much about him, but I know he's right on the money here. A broken clock is right twice a day.
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The really interesting question is: who would gain the most by escaping the Nuggets disfunctional organization this off season? I used to think the answer was obvious: J.R. Smith. But now I am seriously thinking that C. Anthony might have more to gain by escaping the Nuggets island than would Smith.

Whether or not a better PG is brought on to the team, Anthony has become and will remain the odd man out on a Nuggets team where Karl and Iverson have been and will continue to call most of the important shots. Karl worships those who have already made history, not those who might make it in the future. And Iverson has never been one to have any faith in a forward who tends to draw the double team, unless of course he thinks he might get the ball back again from the one doubled.

Anthony's rewards for getting more rebounds, more steals, more blocks, a higher field goal percentage, and fewer turnovers this year than last was to be part of one of the all-time greatest playoff dismantlings, and to be trashed by at least 7 out of 10 basketball fans, and to be the subject of trade rumors. If that's what you get at the end of one of Karl's player maturity/reform projects, then who needs them, whatever their underlying theoretical merit might be?
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Yeah, I agree that Costa is a shock sportscaster here and does not include a whole lot of substance in his rants. By contrast, NT has substance and that's why NT is worth reading and writing. Nevertheless, I do not regret posting this because (a) Costa is more right than wrong here and (b) Denver needs in it's maninstream media, and in its organization, if not more like Costa at least more who agree with the small amount of substance that is here. You need to be intense enough to sound a little crazy about winning in the playoffs if you really, really want to win in the playoffs and not be content with just winninging in the regular season and selling tickets and merchandise. And (c) I needed a little stress relief from being destroyed in the playoffs.
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SOMEONE ELSE commented:

This is also a front office that could have traded Camby for Chandler and didn't, could have traded a bag of rocks for Artest and didn't and signed a chronically injured, underperforming, fat lazy sack of crap big man to a 60 million dollar contract when no one else in the league would have given him the MLE. Yea, I wouldn't put anything past this FO either.

My response was a little joke:

Is that big man contract you are referring to Nene's or Mr. Karl's?
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It was more like the Sonics took him to the finals; check out how loaded that team was with an incredibly deep bench to go along with quality starters. See this:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SEA/1996.html
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The Nuggets need to stop being content with simply not being a door mat team anymore and they also need to think outside the box just a little bit and give a deserving assistant an opportunity, such as Brian Shaw who everyone knows is going to be a head coach sooner or later.
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Karl will never back a player in the media nor demand that he be kept on his team unless that player is at least a 7 year veteran and has established himself as a notable player in the basketball history books.

Return of Nuggets 1: Forum Comments From Early May 2008, Part 1

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have enough time for the detailed and extensive reports I like to do, is being posted in early October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. 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 primary reports I release.
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EARLY MAY 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES

Maybe if he said "Play better you worthless scubs" they would listen.
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I don't know what's worse anymore, what GK coaches in the first place, or the fact that he doesn't consistently make sure that his coaching is implemented for the entire season.

The Nuggets must have just been one of the worst spread the court teams in the playoffs in history. That started I think with a lack of respect for how important the 3-point shot is in modern basketball. In the playoffs the paint becomes like Fort Knox; it is better defended than in the regular season. So between drives and perimeter shots you need both, not just one or the other.

I don't know whether Karl thinks the Nuggets are hopeless in 3-point shooting or whether he doesn't agree that 3-point shooting is important. About the only time he ever says anything about the 3-point shot is when he is discussing how a player or players beat the Nuggets with their 3-point shot.
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Outstanding lineup if and only if AI takes running the point seriously, if JR is given real minutes consistently, if Nene is available for the season for a change, and if GK understands what you are talking about.

These are too many ifs for me to be very hopeful.
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Well alright then, see, there is stuff we agree on.

And just so you know, I'm not saying that I know as a 100% certainty that the Nuggets would have won a playoff series if Iverson had been designated PG. We wouldn't know for sure unless it was done. I am confident that the odds were at least 65% that it would have worked, and probably around 75-80%.

I did know that if the Nuggets did not try it, they would be slammed in the playoffs if they made the playoffs. So they needed to try it if they didn't want to be chumps.

But the Nuggets obtained Iverson after many years of him straying from his historical root position, and to what extent he could return to his roots is of course a question. The Nuggets did NOT need him to play just like CP3. They just needed him to play more like CP3 and less like Iverson not fully dedicated to either backcourt position, and trying to play both positions at once in many games.

It was very, very interesting and important that Iverson himself in his news conference the other day invited the Nuggets to think about solving the Nuggets offensive inconsistency by having himself be less responsible for scoring and more responsible for keeping the ball moving. Anyone who implies Iverson is a maniac who cares only about his own shooting was proved wrong once again during that news conference.
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The poster says AI is not a PG and makes for a horrible PG yet points out numerous things that AI does or that AI is that good point guards do or are and/or that bad 2-guards do or are.

AI is a combo guard and always has been. To say he is a horrible PG is going way to far, unless you have proof that Larry Brown destroyed his ability to run the point effectively. No one has proof of that, because a player of AI's calibur can not have his abilities to play a position destroyed completely by coaching errors. Negatively affected? Maybe. Destroyed? No.

(Sorry for me being stuck on this subject, but this particular poster drives me up the wall.)
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He's been shifted back and forth between the two guard positions since he started playing basketball and there are at least 3 ways you could instruct him to play:

(A) Play 2-guard only; make only the obvious passes and get only the easiest assists; score at will.
(B) Play any way you want, or any way you think is most appropriate. In practice, AI has generally been designated at SG under this mode. In this situation, Iverson plays both positions during games, varying the breakdown between the two from game to game for reasons that are not definitely known. There are many problems with this, including the offense being inconsistent and easy to shut down by a good defense.
(C) Play 1-guard (PG) only; work to make sure the passing game stays alve and try to maximize assists; limit scoring attempts to mostly uncontested shots.

Larry Brown changed Iverson's career by choosing A. Iverson played as a combo guard assigned usually to PG in all high school years all college years, and in his rookie NBA year, and Brown's idea could not and did not ever fully come into reality. Iverson in effect played according to (B) in the Brown years. The 76'ers never truly succeeded with him playing in that mode, although they once got to the NBA finals in the year when AI was at his all-time peak and playing at an insane level.

George Karl chose (B) because he chose to not change anything whatsoever from how AI played in Philly to how he would play in Denver. The results have been, as you would expect, about the same as what transpired in Philly. The results have been dismal and disappointing to the biggest Nuggets fans.

A possible argument that can be made is that Iverson's career was in fact damaged by Brown to the point where it is too late to choose either (A) or (C). If this is correct, then the Iverson trade was at least as bad for the Nuggets as the Shaquille O'Neal trade was for the Suns.

The upshot is simple: if the Nuggets are dumb enough to continue with (B), then they will never succeed, and it would be better to trade AI. Even more to the point, they never should have traded for AI if their intention was to not change a single thing about his role.
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This article to me is weird and not very realistic.
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Here is a crucial comment made by ANOTHER forum participant:

Fact: Karl wanted AI to be a scorer and to be aggressive at it. He was, its not what we needed. Karl was wrong. He's also our primary ball handler with the totally ineffective AC out there and we have to be a one on one team with no system.

There's no evidence that Karl has wanted AI to look to set up people in our offense, and if he has he surely hasn't made it any easier for him. There's no CALLED movement in our "system", no screens,etc.

Im not gonna lie and say AI can become a jason Kidd type point guard, but he has shown at times through his career that he can play pg in a system when asked, and he certainly has the skills to be a good Chris Paul/Baron Davis styled pg where he's looking to run the offense much of the time and pick his spots, and asked to just take over when he's feeling it or its needed. Right about now he's score, score, score and pass when its obvious or to bail himself out

There's a lot of things about AIs game i don't like, but he's unbearable if he's in an unstructured system. And I think he absolutely has to be the pg on a team, as he creates all types of mismatches defensively if we stick another pg out there unless its a Kirk Hinrich type

I don't mind getting rid of AI, but i don't want to blame everything on him because he was used incorrectly by his coach.

My response to this extremely valuable commentary was:
Absolutely 100% correct, on point, and imo a key part of reason #1 why the Nuggets underachieved this year.
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And another all time memorable and totally accurate commentary made by that same guy from the one just previous:

Its not so much as defending him as I am saying he's never gotten a fair shot at it. His team had to have his offense in Philly and he couldn't play a deferring pg. Here Karl automatically wanted the offensive AI. He has the skills to be a pg, but he's not smart enough or unselfish enough to do it without a system and we don't have one and he's the 2 guard here anyhow.

And he does do a pretty decent job of getting the ball to our shooters when they're wide open for 3s. I don't think that's some huge compliment or anything, thats as easy a pass as you can make and he still doesn't make it everytime its available, but he makes it a decent enough clip.

My response to thes outstanding commentary was:

At least 100% correct, maybe more.
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Lol at this hoopsworld writer who is about the last basketball fan/writer left who hasn't criticized GK and who fails to understand that GK and AI run the team now and Melo gets whatever they and Anthony Carter decide he will get in terms of offensive opportunities, which is not a whole lot compared to what he used to get and is less than what he should get.

Since point guards bring the ball up the court and since coaches get to tell their point guards what if any plays they want run, forwards are going to be subject to and limited by what the point guards and what the coaches decide.

The stats clearly show that this was C Anthony's best year ever, but he was limited to some extent by the decisions of Iverson, Carter, and Karl.

Return of Nuggets 1: Forum Comments From Late April 2008, Part 5

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have enough time for the detailed and extensive reports I like to do, is being posted in early October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. 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 primary reports I release.
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LATE APRIL 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES

Just watched the post-game news conferences. Melo either doesn't have a post-game news conference any more, or at the least it is not posted at nba.com. This is because GK, who worships history and tradition, annointed AI as the most important player on the Nuggets as soon as he arrived on the team. How would it look in the history of basketball if AI was not the most important player on his team after he left Philadelphia? It would look funny to guys like Karl. When anyone tells you that Anthony and Iverson are co-captains, they don't know what they are talking about, because Iverson outranks Carmelo Anthony, pure and simple. Carmelo Anthony used to have a post-game press conference on nba.com and now he doesn't.

I'm not saying that is bad or good in and of itself, but just wanted to make that clear.

Anyway, if you watch a press conference like that, you know in advance that 98-99% of it is going to be stuff you expected to hear and have heard many times before. You look for that 1 or 2% that might be important. I found something; at one point, Iverson says that "him scoring less" is an adjustment to consider for next year to make the Nuggets better.

So, if anyone thinks that Iverson is unwilling to pass more and to score less, or that he is too dumb to be aware of the problem, there is more proof that you are wrong. Just as importantly, this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that GK certainly did not ever ask him to pass more and to score less this year.

There was nothing in the Karl news conference of any importance, just a guy shrugging his shoulders and saying, if effect, "What did you expect from us?"
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You think you are arguing with me but you are arguing with an imaginary opponent. I never said AI is equivalent or even very similar to CP3. For me to be correct, all that has to be true is that AI be roughly similar to CP3. A Hyundai can get you where you want to go just like a Benz can. Even though they are completely different styles of vehicles, they are both vehicles and can both achieve a crucial and fundamental objective: to move you from point A to point B. Similarly, there are many different types of PGs who can achieve the crucial and fundamental objective of having a fluid offense that is not easy to shut down by a good defense. But just as you need a car that is not going to break down along the way, you need to have a PG who is not going to break down like Carter would and did against the best teams.

I don't know whether you really wanted to do this, but you just about agreed that the Nuggets in effect forfeited the season by saying that the Nuggets only chance was to get a different PG other than Atkins in the off season last year. That you would not take a chance with what you had is way, way too fatalistic and pessimistic for my tastes. What was the point of the 2007-08 season if it was known in advance that the Nuggets would be destroyed in the playoffs all along? Was it just to make Carmelo Anthony look bad in public relations at the end of the season or some other silly ass thing? Carmelo Anthony is going to once again be one of the best basketball players in the world in his off-season games, once he gets away from the Denver Forfeits.
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If he says score less, the shoot less and pass more is automatically attached to that.

In any event, Iverson isn't going to change a damn thing until and unless someone tells him to do so.

What we can agree on (until you twist things anyway) is that the Nuggets must get a serious new PG, or they have to get very lucky with Atkins coming back at absolute full speed, because GK is never going to play Taurean Green, and so if he continues to refuse to play AI at PG, and none of those other good things happen, they are completely and obviously doomed, just like they were this year, as you just agreed from your perspective.

But since AI just started at PG in this series, it is not a 100% certainty that GK will not shock the world and implement my approach. You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run, and at least GK took his first few steps by admitting that AC is not the solution.
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Someone who is, let's just say, very annoying, and seemingly almost always wrong, posted this gem of a comment:

Apparently you missed the lesson of what sports is about. Yes, on paper the Nuggets weren't NBA title contenders at the start of the season. They were still going to play all 82 games and there was always hope of a mid-season trade to improve the team

So my response was as follows:

Wow, sports is about futility and knowing in advance you have no chance? I never thought of it that way before, but it's something to chew on.

The Nuggets WERE NBA title contenders on paper, that's the starting point that you missed. Roughly 15% or almost 1 in 6 basketball experts thought the Nuggets were good enough to compete in the Western Conference final series this year. Close to 50% of basketball experts thought the Nuggets were good enough to compete in the Western Conference semifinals this year after finally winning a series. The consensus opinion was that the Nuggets would win in the first round and would lose in the semifinal round, but there was a substantial minority view that they would go to the Western finals series. All of these percentages were very depressed by the total lack of a track record and by varying levels of awareness of Karl's limitations.

Less than 10% of basketball experts thought that the Nuggets would fail to make the playoffs or would lose 4 straight in the playoffs. It seems that you have now identified yourself as being in that group. Very ironically, since you like to disagree with me on every little thing, I was practically in that group as well, but for reasons that could not be more different.
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As part of my explanation of how the Nuggets blew it with Allen Iverson, I had contended that although the styles are different, there is at least a rough similarity between CP3 and Allen Iverson. They both handle the ball a lot and they both score a lot for god's sakes, so they are at least roughly similar.

The annoying, obfuscating person refused to agree that CP3 and Allen Iverson are rougly similar basketball players!:

The only rough similarities between AI and CP3 are that they were Western Conference All Stars and that they are short by NBA standards. There is no rough similarity in how they play the game.

To which my put down was:

(Don't know how to react, are they from different planets or something?)
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Just so no one is confused by the attempt here to obfuscate the issue, Iverson in his news conference agreed, by suggesting it himself out of the blue, that a possible way to improve the Nuggets would be to have him pass more, make fewer shot attempts, and therefore score fewer points. And that was about the ONLY suggestion Iverson came up with for the management of the Nuggets to consider, so it is clear that it is a relatively important and obvious possibility to him.
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After yet another annoying and off point comment from that guy, I commented:

You are funny yet disturbing at the same time.
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And another comment I made addressed to the annoying and off base guy:

Now that you have lately been saying that the Nuggets "are a poorly coached team," you still have yet to give any reasons from your world why that is so. To the contrary, you disagree with the reasons put forth for that by others every chance you get. So as of now, you still appear to be someone who actually does not believe that the Nuggets are poorly coached.

So if you truly believe that the Nuggets are poorly coached, what are your reasons for that?
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It has to be more than NT writers who want GK to be gone, or to at least be forced to deploy basic strategies. The average Joe must demand it. But we now know for sure what we suspected, that Denver is not a "basketball town," a town with fans for whom just having a team with star power is not enough, but where getting your due in the win column in the playoffs is critical.

A big reason why GK was not coaching and thus was available to the Nuggets at the start of 2005 was that the basketball towns did not have any use for him.

It's a catch-22; the history of basketball is more shallow in Denver than in the basketball towns, so fans are not as demanding. But without more demanding fans, the history will remain shallow. We need something or someone huge to break out of the trap.
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One possible ugliness is for C Anthony to go back to shooting more and rebounding and assisting less, thus setting up a confrontation with the Karl-Iverson control of the Nuggets.

At the very least, we know that Melo is done with Karl and realizes that changes in his game have not in and of themselves moved the Nuggets any closer to being a real contender. Whether Anthony is done with Iverson being able to do anything he wants while he himself is managed in public remains to be seen. If he is done with that, there will be even less hope and much more disfunction next year than there was this year. The media would have a field day making fun at the plight of the Nuggets. Differences in ages and how much glory is in the histories notwithstanding, Karl's favoritism toward Iverson over Melo is an error where some of the potential damage is still waiting to happen.
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The Nuggets reached as high as 4th or 5th in pace adjusted defense about half way through the season and ended up 10th!

Return of Nuggets 1: Forum Comments From Late April 2008, Part 4

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have enough time for the detailed and extensive reports I like to do, is being posted in early October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. 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 primary reports I release.
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LATE APRIL 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES
Since I couldn't sell you on AI at PG, could I interest you in JR at PG? Just kidding.
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Nene.....DNP.....AIB

If you see this in a box score, it means simply that Nene did not play because he is an always injured bastard.
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Good observation for trying to determine why Melo does what he does and why he says what he says. With Anthony it's all for one and one for all. This year's Olympics coach, Jim Boeheim, who was his Coach at Syracuse, thought that this was one of his most outstanding traits.

But there are those who think that this trait will end up costing him a great career yet in the ruthless NBA, as he gets outmaneuvered by more ruthless and less competent characters. Certainly he is at a big public relations disadvantage at the very least being that way, versus those such as GK and AI who by nature automatically look out for #1 (themselves) before anything else.

Melo inevitably lost the official public relations battle in the media to GK/AI as this season came to a grinding end. But who was really most correct about things, and who was really the best team player among those three?
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True, some players need to be steered in the direction best for the team more than others do. Bryant is one of those who can frequently steer himself in the right direction with little advice needed. His mix between scoring and distributing frequently seems to be just about perfect. At least it seems that way, though who knows what is said behind closed doors at Lakers headquarters.
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Finally, the cows came home.

(But AI used to be and could most likely be again a passer and a scorer at the same time.)
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The real question at this time, when all is said and done, is do the Nuggets work for Karl and the "great traditions" of basketball, or does Karl work for the Nuggets? To full time Nuggets watchers, it is mostly the latter, but to way too many others, it is the former.
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GK could have found out whether you are right or wrong about AI-2008 version had he simply not pretended for most of the season that AC was adequate for the Nuggets at PG, designated AI as the PG, and told him to get as close to 10 assists per game as he could, and maybe even more. But GK was too timid, too uncreative, and too devoted to the great traditions of basketball, one of which was started by Karl's friend Larry Brown when he changed Iverson's position from PG to SG in 1997.

The fact is we don't know whether you are right or wrong about Iverson as of 2008, so the fans and players of the Nuggets were cheated badly this year. Also cheated was Iverson himself, who obviously will never win a Championship here or anywhere else playing his roughly 60/40 blend of SG/PG.
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I wish you were completely right, because if you were, he would not have listened to Larry Brown when Brown told him to dribble and score more and to pass less. And either by default, or literally, Karl told him the same thing.

There is no law against having a PG who likes to score a lot, but who also takes his passing responsibilities seriously. Just ask Coach of the Year Byron Scott and the Hornets if you doubt that.
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Even now, after many years of playing the wrong positon, AI is alot more like CP3 than Marcus Camby is like Dwight Howard, so don't twist things. Start by looking at the heights and weights and proceed to check the present playing patterns and the histories of the root playing styles to see that.

The Nuggets only real chance this year was to try to get AI to be more like CP3 and less like a circus act. They didn't take that chance and lost out as a result.

Why don't you argue that bad basketball habits acquired over many years are almost impossible to break, so the Nuggets were correct in forfeiting the season? I don't agree, but at least that argument would be logically constructed.
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And if you argue that, you had damn well better argue that the trade of Dre for AI was asinine.