Site News: Features Moving off the Home Page due to Trimming

FEATURES MOVING OFF THE HOME PAGE
The Quest Webmaster is starting to monitor the total bytes of the home page and, in order to put a cap on how long it takes for the home page to load, we will be limiting the grand total of bytes.

Don't worry, we will still have the most feature loaded basketball home page on the Net, but even we are going to have a home page limit now, so that anyone with a high speed connection will be able to load the page in full in no more than about 20 or 25 seconds (instead of 30 to 35 seconds). Yes, believe it or not, 10 seconds matters on the Internet.

Just as you might go to some kind of lounge to rest after a game, the Quest for the Ring Lounge is where front page items go after awhile, to make way for new stuff.

The Lounge itself is going to fill up eventually. When it does, we will have to make a Lounge #2.

Features retired from the home page can also be moved to the first of several Quest archive pages, which is Quest for the Ring 2.

So we are moving the following items to the Lounge or to Quest for the Ring 2 or perhaps to both.

SAY GOODBYE TO THIS CLASSIC JR SMITH PHOTO (BUT WE MIGHT GET SOFT AND BRING IT BACK)
























SAY GOODBYE TO THIS ONE, LAUGH OUT LOUD GEORGE KARL!
























AND SAY GOODBYE TO THIS GEM


















SORRY FITZ, THERE'S NO ROOM ON THE HOME PAGE FOR THIS PIC OF WHEN YOU (SORT OF) WON SUPER BOWL 43




















THE CELTICS' RING MOVES OUT TOO























TWO IMPORTANT VISITOR FORMS CAN'T FIT ANYMORE
Two forms visitors can use to communicate with Quest without doing an email were moved off the home page to a new Contact Page.

REMOVED FROM THE SIDEBAR
Several items, most notably all the Pandora custom radio stations, were moved out a few weeks ago. Those Pandora stations were moved to the Music Page.

Today we eliminated the links to the live and archived radio broadcasts for most of the NBA teams, due to the fact that these were no longer leading to anything. One of the scourges of the Internet folks, is that links become worthless if the site the link goes to changes things or discontinues features.

Numerous Nuggets oriented sidebar features were moved to the Nuggets News Site, which was upgraded substantially recently, and is more than ever one of the best places on the Internet to go to see what's up with those wayward Nuggets. Specifically, the following features were moved there:

--Main Nuggets Menu, with links to transactions, injuries, depth charts, and so forth
--Nuggets Real Player Ratings (2008-09)
--Latest Nuggets Top Stories
--Nuggets player statistics and advanced player statistics
--Nuggets Big Media Links
--Latest News for Colorado and for numerous Colorado towns
--Useful Links for Colorado Nuggets Fans, including weather, traffic, airport, Pepsi Center, etc.
--Links to Colorado pro teams other than the Nuggets
--Links to Colorado college sports teams and to Colorado minor league teams
--Denver area weather
--Nuggets franchise information, for example, identification of top officials
--A few historical Nuggets pics were moved there also.

All of these features joined the already there up to the minute Nuggets news to form a powerful and popular resource for Nuggets fans.

There are plans for producing a Lakers news site with similar specs.

======= PLEASE CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS =======
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

Although there is a guaranteed minimum rate of Report production regardless of traffic, IT IS IN YOUR POWER to help double or triple the number of and frequency of Reports. Simply take a minute or two as often as you can to recommend Quest and post links to Quest on your favorite sports and other sites. The resulting automatic increase of traffic will in turn increase the resources that go in to producing Quest, which in turn speeds up reporting. If you want, e-mail how you helped and we will throw some love back to you. Thank you.








Unedited, Raw Game Notes are Here
DIRECT CONTACT ADDRESS
thequestforthering1 @ gmail dot com [Remove spaces and replace "dot" with an actual (.)
Use this address for anything, including:
Private responses to Quest content../..Requests for free advertising (Advertising on Quest is free until at least the end of 2010)../..Link exchange../..Requests for Use of Quest Reports on other site(s)../..Questions about anything, including "My Quest for the Ring"
Or Contact Quest with an Easy to Use Form
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

NBA Player Salaries, Team Payroll Totals, and Team Cap Space Available now and in Future Years

SALARIES AND CAP SPACE MONITOR USER GUIDE
--Parenthesis indicate a player associated with the team but who is NOT going to be playing in 2009-10. Such players' pay (if any) is NOT counted in the "Real-Actual Players Only 2009-10" column (the first numerical column)

--The "TOTALS" line is obviously very important for each team. The total of "Real-Actual Players Only 2009-10" is the actual pay that is going to be paid to the actual players. So this tells you how much money is actually going to be applied to the actual players.

--Players who are injured and may not play some or all of the season are included in the real actual pay column if and only if they have not been waived or put on the inactive reserve status. It is not possible to accurately predict how much a player currently injured will play, so their pay is included in full. If you know that a certain player is not playing due to injury, you can subtract that player's pay to determine the actual, effective real team payroll.

--Another important Total is the second numerical column: Official Salary Cap Accounting. Compare a team's total in this column to 57.7 million dollars and to 69.8 million dollars, which are the NBA salary cap and the NBA luxury tax threshold, respectively. If a team's accounting total is over the 69.8 million dollars luxury tax threshold, it owes the League a tax equal to the amount of the overage.

--A third very important total is the fourth column, called Contracted 2010-11. This indirectly tells you how much financial freedom each team is currently scheduled to have next off season, in 2010.

The 2010 "free agent market" is scheduled to have a bunch of the best players in the NBA in it. So any team that has a lot of "cap space" for the 2010-11 season will be in a strong position to go after these top players. The lower the total you see in the 2010-11 column, the more salary cap space a team will have in 2010. The 2010-11 salary cap will most likely be between 55 and 60 million dollars, so knowing that you can make an estimate of the actual amount of cap space each team will have in 2010. The current Quest for the Ring projection of what the 2010-11 salary cap will be is $56 million dollars, substantially less than other predictions.

--In order to view everything on the worksheet, you must use BOTH the vertical scroll and the horizontal scroll.

--The source of this information, which is current as of August 9, is an Internet site which is strongly believed to be reliable.



======= PLEASE CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS =======
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

Although there is a guaranteed minimum rate of Report production regardless of traffic, IT IS IN YOUR POWER to help double or triple the number of and frequency of Reports. Simply take a minute or two as often as you can to recommend Quest and post links to Quest on your favorite sports and other sites. The resulting automatic increase of traffic will in turn increase the resources that go in to producing Quest, which in turn speeds up reporting. If you want, e-mail how you helped and we will throw some love back to you. Thank you.

Unedited, Raw Game Notes are Here
DIRECT CONTACT ADDRESS
thequestforthering1 @ gmail dot com [Remove spaces and replace "dot" with an actual (.)
Use this address for anything, including:
Private responses to Quest content../..Requests for free advertising (Advertising on Quest is free until at least the end of 2010)../..Link exchange../..Requests for Use of Quest Reports on other site(s)../..Questions about anything, including "My Quest for the Ring"
Or Contact Quest with an Easy to Use Form
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Thirteen

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
And don't ever make a prediction of whether the Hornets will win a playoff series in January, when you don't know who the opponent will be and you don't know what the injury situation will be.

Most writers and most fans do predict during the regular season what their teams will do when the playoffs come, but its really silly to predict this when you don't know the opponent and when you don't know the injury situation. Only if you are lucky will both teams be at full strength.

I'll sign off by hoping that the Hornets get the Center position squared away so that they then have the two most important positions taken care of. Then they can go for a ring sometime in the next few years.

Why do I care? Because this year, CP3 was, according to my calculations, the 2nd best player in the NBA, behind only LeBron James. The Nuggets have no one in the top 15 or so. For this and other reasons, I came here thinking the Hornets could beat the Nuggets.

But I didn't know Tyson Chandler was not really up to speed and, apparently, neither did the Hornets' trainers or Tyson Chandler himself know either. Had Tyson Chandler been 100%, it would have been a very different series. At a minimum, I would think the Hornets would have won three games had they not been banged up.

I'll go to the Mavericks board now to point out all the Nuggets' problems, laugh out loud.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
As for using the Phil Jackson/Kobe analogy, Phil wrote a book about Kobe's selfishness.

I checked this out. Phil Jackson has written several books, one of which, called "Last Season: a Team in Search of its Soul" was critical of Kobe Bryant.

I have not read the book, but have now read numerous summaries and reviews. Next time I go to the library I'll look for it; the reviews are indicating it's not worth buying. (But you can buy it for little more than shipping charges, apparently.)

Many reviewers report that the supposed criticism of Kobe Bryant is over-hyped. Moreover, this book is about the year Bryant went on trial for rape! Yes, I would hope there is at least a little criticism of Bryant in there.

So this book is about the 2003-04 season, which ended up with the Pistons beating the Lakers in the Championship. Phil Jackson in this book states that he much preferred to coach Shaquille O'Neal to Kobe Bryant. OK, we all have our preferences.

Does Phil Jackson use the word "selfish" to describe Bryant? No, never. He does more or less say that Bryant is a narcissistic type, that he is almost impossible to coach, and that he has a mind of his own when it comes to how the team should be run. But for the record he never uses that "selfish" word, which is a negative word associated with being narcissistic.

It is possible to be narcissistic without being selfish. And everyone is narcissistic to one extent or another. Don't you like yourself? So let's be careful with the word throwing.

I mean Lord Jehovah, Chris Andersen has an illegal drug taking personality and yet he's now one of the best defenders in the NBA. He probably would be in jail right now were it not for the fact that he can afford very powerful attorneys. So much for the idea that a bad personality means you can't be a great player. The Nuggets have become practically chock loaded with players who supposedly have bad personalities but are really good basketball players.

Boo hoo, Phil, poor you having to deal with Kobe Bryant! Hand me a kleenex! I'm not too sympathetic, given how much money you make and given how you went back on your pledge to quit the Lakers and came back to coach Bryant. Coaches need to quit wasting so much time criticising the personalities of their players.

Let Marc Cuban do it, laugh out loud.

But in fairness to NBA coaches, not counting George Karl, the problem of coaches criticising personalities is not a big one. Unlike Phil Jackson, Karl has a long track record of criticising player personalities, and for that matter benching players due to supposed shortcomings with their personalities.

For the record, although I wish Jackson was not so sensitive about Bryant, his faults are nothing compared to George Karl's. Jackson never demanded that Kobe Bryant reduce his scoring and shooting the way George Karl demanded that Carmelo Anthony do so.

Because Jackson is not a lame brain. You can ask a basketball player to do more of something without having to warn him to do less of (a good thing) that he is currently doing.

And these days, Phil Jackson is as happy as a cat curled up near the fireplace that power scorer Kobe Bryant, big ego and all, can make winning basketball games so easy.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
It had to happen after I joined most of the Nuggets bloggers in predicting during the season that the Nuggets would lose in round 1 again.

No seriously, we have all been wasting our (and CP3's) time by thinking the Hornets had a chance to win this series.

Quest for the Ring now quotes verbatim an article which in no uncertain terms reports to you that the Hornets were the walking wounded during the series. The Hornets were banged up at the start of the series, and they only got more banged up as the series went along.

The New Orleans Hornets didn't have their big man for their big game.

Tyson Chandler was sidelined for Game 5 against Denver on Wednesday night with a swollen left ankle.

The center has been hampered by the injury all series, averaging just 3.8 points and 5.3 rebounds.

Hornets coach Byron Scott said the ankle wasn't 100 percent heading into the playoffs and that with each game it's only gotten worse.

Chandler missed 15 straight games in the regular season because of the ankle and returned for the season finale.

After discussing the situation with Chandler on Wednesday morning at the team's shootaround, Scott decided to hold him out.

"Just for his health," Scott said.

New Orleans started Hilton Armstrong in his place as the Hornets, down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, tried to stave off elimination.

Scott didn't rule out Chandler's return should the series be extended.

"If we can get back to New Orleans and get back here, if there is a Game 7, it would probably be a different story," Scott said. "He would actually have some time to rest and heal it a little bit more."

Scott also said All-Star Chris Paul wasn't playing at full strength, either. The dynamic point guard has been bumped around all series, absorbing one collision after another.

Still, Paul is averaging 17.8 points and 10.5 assists in the series.

"He's going to play as hard as he can for as long as he can," Scott said. "We've got a team that out of the five starters now, one is not playing at all and we have one starter that's healthy and that's Rasual Butler. Everybody else is just banged up there."

It's been a tumultuous season for Chandler, who was dealt to Oklahoma City in February, only to have the trade rescinded when he failed a physical.

His production in the playoffs has steadily dwindled as his minutes decreased. He scored seven points in 36 minutes in Game 2, but was held scoreless in 13 minutes in Game 4.

That ultimately led to Scott's decision to rest Chandler.

"Obviously it hurts us, but I thought that each game he got a little worse," Scott said. "We knew that before the series started."

No team can win a playoff series with this quantity of injury problems. Once you get up to three, four, and more injuries, it's not the same team anymore. True, all of the Hornets' injuries were relatively minor. But it was the sheer number of them that did it: the Hornets were nickled and dimed to death.

Given the sheer quantity of minor injuries, it's kind of pointless to complain very much about Byron Scott not taking Chandler out much earlier in the series. This would have been nice, but would have earned the Hornets one more win at the most, and maybe not even that.

And the Nuggets, because they have been so wretched in the playoffs for years and years, were taking no chances, so they poured it on game after game.

Meanwhile, other than an insignificant Carmelo Anthony elbow problem, the Nuggets had no injury problems. This lopsided injury advantage, combined with the way the Nuggets chose to play the game this year, created this rare blowout.

I believe the Mavericks are healthy. And although their defense has been inferior to both the Hornets and the Nuggets, their offense is ahead of that of both the Hornets and Nuggets. So the Mavs will be a good and fair test for the Nuggets' continuing efforts to intimidate and disrupt.

But for the record, in theory the Nuggets should be playing the Rockets or Blazers in round two, rather than the Mavs. This would be the case were the playoffs done strictly based on seeding, instead of based on a combination of seeding and brackets. This is yet another in a long list of lucky breaks for the Nuggets this year. About the only lucky break they have not gotten yet is for Pau Gasol or Kobe Bryant to be injured.

I for one am still not very impressed with the Nuggets. OK, so you can disrupt and beat up on a banged up team. So what?

Yes, you do have some dead wood on your team, but don't be thinking that you have to get rid of every player on your team based on this fluke of a series.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

======= PLEASE CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS =======
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

Although there is a guaranteed minimum rate of Report production regardless of traffic, IT IS IN YOUR POWER to help double the number of and frequency of Reports. Simply take a minute or two as often as you can to recommend Quest and post links to Quest on your favorite sports and other sites. The resulting automatic increase of traffic will in turn increase the resources that go in to producing Quest, which in turn speeds up reporting. If you want, e-mail how you helped and we will throw some love back to you. Thank you.





Unedited, Raw Game Notes are Here
DIRECT CONTACT ADDRESS
thequestforthering1 @ gmail dot com [Remove spaces and replace "dot" with an actual (.)
Use this address for the following:
--Private responses to Quest content
--Requests for free advertising (Advertising on Quest is free until at least the end of 2010)
--Link exchange
--Requests for Use of Quest Reports on other site(s)
--Questions about anything, including "My Quest for the Ring"
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Twelve

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

Just before I left the Hornets forum, there was a seemingly unlikely development. A Quest for the Ring visitor realized that out of ten million basketball forum posters, it was Quest for the Ring that was posting on the Hornets forum. I say seemingly unlikely, because when you think about it, the only possible reason anyone could do that is because Quest writing is so distinctive that it stands out amongst a quarter of a million basketball site writers. (Estimates of numbers of basketball writers pulled out of thin air quite honestly).

So here was the response to the Quest visitor on the Hornets forum...

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE

looked at your site, because I came on to my hornets board and saw the unintentional comedy scale soar off the charts by some "expert" wanna-be blogger. Now claiming to be objective observer of the NBA because the Nuggets have ticked you off (maybe by not granting you access?).

Funny, very funny. Other wanna be bloggers have about 400 articles and almost 1,000,000 words on their web sites? Laugh out loud, I never knew!

Wait, on second thought, I'll add that you still have not explained how you know which site I help produce.

Denver has gotten better this year, so maybe it's the trading of AI that got you ticked off. Who knows, who cares. Next year you will be a Laker fan anyway.

Denver has not "gotten better" this year to speak of if you look at efficiency. And don't waste your time criticizing efficiency as the most important summary measure, because the great majority of Championship teams had the best combination of offensive and defensive efficiency in the NBA in the year they won everything.

George Karl and the Nuggets ticked me off many, many times, whereas by contrast, the Pistons didn't tick me off much at all, despite there having such a miserable season. So the problem is not me being too easily ticked off, I can assure you.

The Nuggets are not a full scale NBA franshise; they pretend they are that, but they themselves know they are not.

But I was very fair with them, and I explained their errors with such detail that I have the longest articles of any writer I have seen. Do you know how much traffic I lose, in theory anyways, because of how long some of my articles are?

-Writing the book on AI, no you didn't. Any fan of the NBA could figure that out after observing his career. AI only cheated himself by never becoming a team player. Watching him live several times, You grabbed a sense of how boring it was to watch him and no one liked to play with him.

Laugh out loud. Did you know that Allen Iverson haters is the only known constituency who thinks I am more wrong than right about basketball? Gee, what a coincidence.

And did you know that every argument I have ever had on the internet, regardless of the subject, has been with me on one side and an Iverson hater on the other side? The Iverson haters are upchucking their last meals at the thought that someone will explain what really happened with Iverson.

Unfortunately for me, those who hate Allen Iverson is a surprisingly large group of basketball fans. A much bigger group than the small number of smart people who would like the Iverson mystery explained.

Laugh out loud, now that I have revealed that, the next thing to happen will be that Iverson haters posing as Iverson fans will claim I am wrong about everything.

It is apparent that the Allen Iverson haters have to hate Iverson for the rest of his and their lives. It's like one of those bad original Star Trek episodes, where one alien population had to hate another one for all eternity. Once hatred goes on for years, it's generally a permanent thing. The hatred of Allen Iverson is so strong that it's about as strong as the hatred of the swine flu laugh out loud. The Iverson haters definitely do not want anyone to upset their obsession with hating Iverson by stating and proving controversial theories..

Well, I don't give a damn whether I upset the whole basketball world or not. I am going to explain what needs to be explained. I have been writing and I will continue to be writing the "Allen Iverson book" precisely because I am apparently the only one who has objectively and in great detail looked at this mystery, regarding how a Hall of Fame player can be hated so viciously, and how he can in fact not fit in well with his team's offenses.

Because I am the only one in existence who on the one hand does not hate Allen Iverson but on the other hand agrees he is not a good team player. So I do believe I end up being just about the only one who has the real truth about this subject. Not that I set out to accomplish this, it just fell into my lap because everyone else is either on the one hand hating Iverson or on the other hand not acknowledging there has been a fairly serious problem with the way he plays.

Sorry for anyone reading this and expecting a summary of my specific Iverson claims, of my specific explanations of this Iverson mystery/mess. I'm not putting that "high level content" here because as I just said it is quite "controversial," so a huge amount of proof is needed to go along with it, and I am not prepared to move my whole site here, laugh out loud.

I cover Iverson and everything else objectively with no hatred and with no hype, with no ax to grind, and with no big name heros to worship such as Larry Brown or George Karl. I always have a large amount of proof to back up all of my statements, whether they are controversial or boring as hell.

As a result of going wherever the evidence leads, I will never be sponsored by ESPN because for example I will trash someone like Larry Brown or even David Stern if and when he needs to be trashed, whereas the ESPN bloggers would never dare to do that. And if they did do that, they would not be ESPN bloggers for very long.

As for using the Phil Jackson/Kobe analogy, Phil wrote a book about Kobe's selfishness. Kobe has matured and actually gets his teammates involved like Melo is doing now.

Phil Jackson wrote a book about Kobe Bryant being selfish? Wow, and apparently hardly anyone knows about it! And you didn't provide a title or a link. So when late tonight or tomorrow I Google for it I'll definitely find it, right? I will find it, right? I'd better, laugh out loud.

Championship teams with out "superstar" scoring machines? 04 Pistons, 08 Celtics,when the Big Three realized sharing the ball prevented collapsing defenses.

Richard Hamilton of the 2004 Pistons was not a power scorer? He was hounded to rebound and assist more? Gee, I never knew if that's true. That is true, right? I'm starting to get nervous that it might not be true, laugh out loud.

The 2008 Celtics had two superstar scorers: Garnett and Allen. Arguably three, if you count Paul Pierce. Neither one of them were ever trashed by their coaches in the years before they came to the Celtics for not being well rounded players and neither one of them were told to stop shooting and scoring so much or else they would never win a Championship.

But at least you didn't need me to figure out that if you have two or three superstar scorers instead of just one, you want to make sure they work together; that there is balance and chemistry between them. Nice job on that anyway.

The Spurs have had scorers, but never above the team game.
The Lakers and Cavs have figured out spreading the ball out is the best way to go.

Laugh out loud at this gibberish. I already told you that most Championship teams have power scorers and offensive balance. It's not an either or thing. And when the Lakers-Cavaliers Championship is on ABC TV, the Kobe vs LeBron battle will take center stage, not which team is better at "spreading the ball out". I can already visualize how the screen will be plastered with comparisons of who is the better player, and especially the better scorer, Kobe or LeBron.

So I guess you won't be watching the Championship, since you disagree with the idea that a team should encourage it's best scorer to be a power scorer. Or at least if you do watch it, you will be ticked off, laugh out loud.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING GAME FIVE, WHICH THE NUGGETS WON 107-86 AND AFTER WHICH WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
Posted by ranmasama

This is my first year following the hornets and believe it or not I am proud of what the hornets have done. I think our expectations have been too high since last season. I really believe that the hornets went down gunning and most of what happened this series has been the nuggets getting all their shots too go and hornets being really battered even in game 1. I am proud of our guys no matter what happens in the fourth. I thank you for this forum

Yes, you are right. This series like many round one series was all about which team has injuries and which doesn't. The teams that have substantial injury problems get washed out in round 1. This year, you did and the Spurs did. You didn't really lose to the Nuggets, you got washed out due to being banged up while the Nuggets were not banged up in the least.

By not playing him in game five, the Hornets finally admitted (or signalled, anyway) that Tyson Chandler was not really able to play in this series.

You can not beat anyone without a starting center in an NBA playoff series, let alone beat a team that is obsessed with driving to the rim all the time. The Tyson Chandler injury situation was the worst thing you could have going against this year's Nuggets. Had he never played in the series at all, it would have been obvious to everyone from the start that the Hornets could not win this series.

This is a big problem with basketball. Individual players can be so important that if even one of them is injured it can ruin the chance to win a series. Whereas in football, there is less chance that a single injury can ruin a team's chances.

So I agree, the Hornets did the best they could given the Nuggets' unusual strategies and given the banged up situation of your team

Just keep making sure you don't waste Chris Paul's time and your team will go farther and farther.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

======= PLEASE CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS =======
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

The User Guide for Real Player Ratings, and for the Defensive Adjustments, is located here. You must consult the Guide in order to fully understand the ratings and the value of them, and to understand how to make the best use of them.

Although there is a guaranteed minimum rate of Report production regardless of traffic, IT IS IN YOUR POWER to help double the number of and frequency of Reports. Simply take a minute or two as often as you can to recommend Quest and post links to Quest on your favorite sports and other sites. The resulting automatic increase of traffic will in turn increase the resources that go in to producing Quest, which in turn speeds up reporting. If you want, e-mail how you helped and we will throw some love back to you. Thank you.





Unedited, Raw Game Notes are Here
DIRECT CONTACT ADDRESS
thequestforthering1 @ gmail dot com [Remove spaces and replace "dot" with an actual (.)
Use this address for the following:
--Private responses to Quest content
--Requests for free advertising (Advertising on Quest is free until at least the end of 2010)
--Link exchange
--Requests for Use of Quest Reports on other site(s)
--Questions about anything, including "My Quest for the Ring"
You Can Post Your Response to Anything on Quest Here

Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Eleven

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
The Hornets winning a game is already a lot better than getting swept.

Look at the Pistons after their stupid trade of Chauncey Billups for Iverson, they could not even come close to winning a game. Moral: try to avoid the temptation to start your rebuilding too soon!

If the Hornets can win tonight it is a whole new series. Then it's back to NOLA for the Hornets to tie the series up.

Yes, I know this is supposed to be impossible. But this is not impossible. The Hornets can win this game. When the Nuggets are unable to pour it on defensively they can be very, very bad. For example, the Nuggets lost to the New Jersey Nets by 30 points this season. This is not the Lakers or the Cavaliers we are talking about; this is a crude, one-dimensional defensive type of team.

The Nuggets have a sorry *** excuse for an offense and they can be held to about 90 points without much trouble, as the Hornets did in game 3 and as, if all else fails, the Lakers will be doing.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE

Posted by West Coast Hornet
It's impossible. Even if Hornets win, the series is over. The only exception I would consider making is that if the team shows nothing but fire from the 58 point blowout and goes on a massive tear.

What do you think the chances of that are? I'd give it 0.5%.

RALLYING THE HORNETS FANS FOR GAME 5, WITH THE NUGGETS LEADING THE SERIES 3-1...
It's possible if the Hornets are so sick of being disrupted and roughed up to some extent by the Nuggets that they are not going to allow many stupid turnovers and poor shot selections anymore. It's possible if the referees see the Nuggets as the Thuggets and decide to call a close game. It's possible if D West, Peja S, and Posey all have good games to go along with CP3. It's possible if Chauncey Billups is not the miracle man he was in games 1 and 2.

It is possible.

The Nuggets are too simple a team to say that the odds are such and such so the game is not worth watching. It could be anything from another blowout to a 10 point Hornets win.

Of course, if the Hornets would rather not win, I'm sure the Nuggets will be happy about that, but I highly doubt that will be the case.

Remember earlier this season the Hornets were looking toward playing the Lakers in the West finals. And until and unless the Nuggets win game 4 the Hornets can still have that as the goal.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
When almost everyone expects you to lose, but you win, that's the sweetest kind of win. And one that will be remembered for many, many years...

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE
I'd like to see CP3 and CB4 on the same team, there's the Championship nucleus you need.

Anyways, what I would like to know about the Hornets is, before T Chandler had his injury problems, how good of a man to man defender was he? Because every team needs at least one very good man to man defender big man, but also a very good big man scoring threat. Unfortunately, centers and PFs who are both are in very short supply, so most teams have to coordinate the 4-spot and the 5-spot and make sure they have at least one of each, with the scorer at least a decent defender and the defender at least a decent scorer.

I'm thinking the basketball reason why the Hornets wanted to trade away Chandler was that he was not regarded as a good enough man to man defender given the defending limitations of D West. Am I on the right track?

West qualifies as the scoring threat, though he has to have a more varied shot selection than was seen in this playoff series. And obviously he can not be afraid to bang the rim. I'm not qualified really to say much about West' defending.

I will caution everyone here to not make judgments on how good your players' defending is based on this playoff series, because the Nuggets offense, when it is working, with a lot of easy in transition scoring and a lot of drives to the rim for fouls or layups, is designed to avoid giving the opportunity for the other team to man to man defend.

But again, you need a new, younger big man to go with CP3; Chris Bosh will do nicely. Or Boozer would be nice for your team.

FROM APRIL 29 2009 DURING THE DAY, BEFORE THE NUGGETS WON GAME FIVE 107-86 AND WON THE SERIES FOUR GAMES TO ONE

Posted by redhornet
I guess this goes without saying, but you clearly have no clue what you're talking about. You're a Lakers fan in Nuggets clothing. You're blog has AI on it's front page and you think the only way for Carmelo Anthony team to win is for him to be more selfish. You should log onto eBay and buy yourself a clue.

The Nuggets offense has so many weapons it's sick and when they are on and playing together they can hang with anyone. The Hornets unfortunately are done.

Fascinating, how did you know about my site when I have not and will not post its address here? Almost shocking, actually, considering my site is still new really and has relatively light traffic.

I've never been a Lakers fan but guess what? The Nuggets have ticked me off for the last time. I will probably be in effect a Lakers fan next year.

I started out as a Nuggets site and expanded to two teams this season, but this year's approach ended up being editorially kind of goofy quite honestly. Especially when the Pistons and their stupid rookie coach imploded so badly.

So I am now refocusing my site again, hopefully this time for good. Overall, I'm going to spend most of my time covering the NBA playoffs, with little time spent on the regular season.

I'll be reviewing the Spring playoff games, series, teams, and players all the way from when the playoff games are played until about mid-December. With any luck I will be able to break down every single playoff game. Also, for the first time, I'll have playoff Real Player and Real Team Ratings.

Then from mid-December until mid-April, I'll be focused on two teams as described below, and also I'll be making generalized predictions about which teams and which players are most likely to win upcoming playoff games.

I will still have team specializations, most likely two of them still, but they will no longer be completely my free choice. Starting next year, I will be covering in the greatest detail the defending Champion and whoever is considered most likely to challenge them.

No more I'm absolutely sure of this in January and I don't care about injuries type predictions, laugh out loud.

Never again will I be caught predicting a playoff loss long before the season is over. But for the record, the "official ESPN Nuggets blogger," also predicted that the Nuggets would lose their playoff series at one point, as did probably most of the other Nuggets bloggers at one time or another during the season.

AI on the banner? Unfortunately it was just a dream that Allen Iverson would ever fit into a team. I thought he might even though I wrote the book on why he doesn't fit into teams. What can I say? If you never dream life and sports are boring.

AI will soon be replaced on the front page, but the ultimate article(s) on AI will be produced sometime before this year is out. To make a very long story short, he was cheated out of the best chance to win a Championship by various decisions, teams, and Coaches.

As you yourself can see with your own eyes, the Nuggets are in theory offensively loaded even without Iverson, so why did they only have about the 9th best offense in the NBA when Allen Iverson was on the team? And what's your theory of why the Nuggets had no offense to speak of in the Lakers series last year if you disagree with the explanations on my site?

As for Carmelo Anthony, you understand what I am saying but you sure are using a nasty way of saying it, laugh out loud.

No, seriously, all I have said, and backed up with facts, several times on my site, is that I don't understand why Carmelo Anthony should be treated by his coaches completely differently from the way other NBA scoring leaders have been treated over the years.

Where has anyone proved that you can win a hoops Championship fairly easily without a scoring superstar? I'm afraid it's much easier to win a Championship with a scoring superstar than without one. Nor can you say that if you have a scoring superstar you can not still have good offensive balance, good offensive chemistry, and great playmaking. You can have all of that, and most of the Championship teams did have all of that to one degree or another.

If you are right and I'm wrong, if in other words Carmelo Anthony had to reduce his shooting and scoring to be able to ever win a Championship, then why is it that Phil Jackson has not often complained, in public at least, and probably not in private either, about Kobe Bryant "not being a well rounded player" because he wants to shoot a lot and score a lot? Why hasn't Dwyane Wade's coach over and over complained about him not getting enough rebounds or defensive stops? Why hasn't LeBron James' coach often complained about him not making enough rebounds or blocks? Why hasn't Ray Allen's coach commonly complained about him not getting enough rebounds or assists?

Why does Carmelo Anthony have to be the only player I know of who ever led the NBA in scoring but has been repeatedly trashed in public as a player who is "not well rounded" and who will "never rise to the Championship level unless his game is changed." And then now he has changed his game, but now this year he was not a good jump shooter for the first time since his rookie year! What exactly is all this about, if not bad coaching, Einstein?

No one would argue with any Coach getting Melo to defend better, and I credit George Karl for accomplishing it. What is off the deep and is saying that Carmelo's offensive game had to be reworked. That was and is about as off the deep end as the Nuggets' 2009 offense in general, laugh out loud.

And before you answer, just so you know, were George Karl in charge of Nuggets' trades, Carmelo Anthony would not be playing for the Nuggets right now, because Karl wanted to trade Anthony to (I am reasonably sure the Nets) last summer, but that was vetoed by Nuggets management.

Further, Team USA was very glad that Carmelo Anthony likes to score the ball and that he is generally extremely good at it if you encourage him rather than discourage him. And so was Syracuse University and Olympics Coach Jim Boeheim, who has been publicly critical of how the Nuggets have managed themselves while Carmelo Anthony has been assigned to them.

Selfish my ass.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

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