Return of Nuggets 1: Forum #2 Comments From Late March 2008, Part 1

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that 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 MARCH 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES

With the following commentary, you can see the early discoveries that gave birth to the Special Report: "Allen Iverson: What Could Have Been," a report which due to time constraints is still months away from completion. But three parts of the roughly eight-ten parts there will be have been published already.
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Tomorrow's game is huge, the Nuggets can win it and need to win it. Wednesday is a back to back road game in Philadelphia, one of the hottest teams in the League right now, so that will probably be a loss.

The two Warriors games are huge too, March 29 and April 10.

Every time I see CP3 win a game it reminds me that A.I. could be the CP3 for the Nuggets if the coaches would just stop playing stupid games with the lineup, and stop trying to make A.I. play both guard postions at once all the time. Just because he can play both guard positions at once doesn't mean that it is smart for the team that he does.
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It's most likely a loss unless Chucky Atkins and Allen Iverson get at least a dozen assists. You can't run a wide open pick-up game type of offense against the Pistons, this is a serious defensive team. You have to have playmakers who can break down the defense to some extent. I don't really care how many assists Carter gets, because he just can't compete with Atkins, Iverson, or J.R. Smith as a scorer. Carter belongs on a losing team, not on the Denver Nuggets who are on the verge of being America's chump team.
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Playing the way he has, Anthony Carter could get at least as many minutes on many other teams and hardly anyone would complain. For the Nuggets, you have to complain about it, because the position is too important and the Nuggets have too much offensive talent to settle for Carter as a PG starter and 20+mpg player.

The recent 3 straight routs by the Nuggets reminds us that the Nuggets can't be "settling" for things when there are better options available. They have no business being in 9th place, in great danger of missing the playoffs. So criticisms that might seem kind of tough have to be made, because I want this team to get where it is supposed to be.
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From Wikipedia:

"Despite these criticisms, Iverson is still generally regarded as one of the best guards to ever play the game, as evidenced by his being named the starting point guard for the Eastern Conference in the NBA All-Star Game for the past seven consecutive seasons. He was voted to seven All-NBA Teams. He also took the league and All-Star MVP and led the Sixers to the Finals in 2001."
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THANK YOU VERY MUCH. You have helped me with one of my biggest discoveries of the year, probably the biggest. This is huge, because this proves that AI at the 2-guard is a Larry Brown-George Karl thing and that's about it. George Karl refuses to do what the majority of other coaches have done, which is start AI at PG. Since it is well known that Brown and Karl are close friends and associates, it would be nearly impossible for Karl to play AI at PG, because this would go against one of his best friends and his mentor.

AI at the 2-guard, but playing PG to one extent or another at the same time, is a huge reason why the Nuggets' offense has been incomprehensible, probably the #1 reason. And this is why it is so easy for good defensive teams to partly or totally shut down the Nuggets' offense. And the offensive inconsistency is the number one reason why the Nuggets are in 9th in the West right now instead of in the top 4. So this will be the #1 reason why the Nuggets miss the playoffs if they do miss the playoffs, or the #1 reason why they lose in the playoffs quickly.

Thanks again.
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Allen Iverson played for two years in college, for the Georgetown University Hoyas, in 1994-95 and in 1995-96. According to CBS Sportsline, his assists per game were 4.5 and 4.7 per game for those two years.
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"You can't use a 15 year-old's logic and expect it to apply to real life" is an ad hominen attack. When you get one of those, you know you are on the right track.

1. Those who disagree with me are now in two contradictory camps. One camp says that AI can't play the PG positon well, that he is a SG in a PG's body, and so forth. The other camp, the one you described, says that AI can play both positons and what matters is who the SG would be if AI is at PG or who the PG would be if AI is at SG. Which is it? I recommend that the other side get organized, because your side looks kind of weak when you have contradictory reasons flying around.

2. The styles of Brown and Karl don't matter to this controversy. And I'm not "anyone." I probably spend more time determining why the Nuggets win and why they lose than anyone, and I have reached the point where I can easily explain every loss and every win. I'm obviously not saying that Karl has followed Brown's wrong choice for Iverson knowing in advance it will fail, because obviously no one can know for sure in advance whether a strategy will succeed or fail. I am saying that it is a known fact that Brown was a mentor to Karl, and that it is rare for anyone to go on a completely different track from their mentor, on one of the most important decisions that mentor ever made. I am also saying that it is a well known fact that Karl detests the personality and style of J.R. Smith, and that most of his decisions regarding the guards of the Denver Nuggets have the common denominator result of keeping Smith on the bench more rather than less.

The fact that their chosen strategy has failed means that the probability that I am right and that they are wrong has shot up to a very high percentage, which means, like it or not, I have to complete this investigation and report.

3. I'm not through studying the Philly record, but that is a relatively minor issue, because my side and half of your side agrees that Iverson can play either position well. The reason this is important for the Nuggets is because the Nuggets would not be in the mess they are in if they had 5-6 more wins and, if I'm right, as seems increasinly obvious, the Nuggets would have those wins and maybe more.

4. Nene: any good coaching staff should be able to handle the loss of 1 player at Nene's level, so if you think I am going to say "Well, we would have made the playoffs if Nene played" and be done with it, sorry, I'm not going there. In point of fact, in any event, you don't see me saying the staff mishandled the loss of Nene. But they did screw up the loss of Atkins, and it looks like they are going to screw up the return of Atkins. Kenyon Martin was integrated easily and quickly thanks to sports medicine and thanks to Nene not being available. The Nuggets may have lost 1-2 games due to that. One of my jobs is to determine why the Nuggets are not fully competive with the "ultracompetitive West." If you want to say everything would be fine if Denver was in the East, fine, go ahead and say it. I won't be impressed with that. The Nuggets are one of the best 6 teams in the NBA; they should be between 3rd and 5th in the West at a minimum. Anything less than that and they have no chance in the playoffs, so what is the point?

The Nuggets do not have an underachieving bench, they have coaches who overestimate the differences between starters and non-starters, and who are among the stingiest in the NBA in the amount of playing time given to non-starters. Obviously, the bench is going to be underachieving to some extent if their playing times are less than the playing times of non-starters on other teams. That is precisely the point I have been making for many moons. Lack of significant roster improvements? Ha ha, they need to improve more than they already have, with no money left to do that? Try another reason. "Opponents adapting to the Iverson trade"? Careful, you are very close to making an argument in favor of AI at PG, because keying in on Iverson all the time won't work as well if Iverson is at least as responsible for passing and assists as he is for scoring.

I am afraid that I have stumbled on something that is bigger than I ever thought it would be. In every controversy like this, some people are going to get upset, because assumptions they have had for years and years are being questioned. Anyone who wants to stay believing that AI's career could not have worked out better had Larry Brown not removed him from the position that the majority of coaches thought he should play is welcome to do so.

Many on the Iverson can't play the PG side are going to be folks who don't really give a damn whether Iverson ever makes it to the NBA finals again or not. Anyone who does care would be more open to the possiblity that Brown and Karl have been wrong, because it never worked out their way except in that one wonder year when Iverson was by far the best guard on the planet. Do you continue on with the same strategy when it fails year after year after year? Well if you don't give a damn about Iverson, sure you do.

You don't have to explain the failure of the Nuggets, but I do, and I will.
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t should be in the College Basketball General Forum, because those who know the answer are not going to be limited to just those who are interested in the Big East.

But whatever, it doesn't matter, because I pretty much found what I was looking for. The answer is obvious from the Hoya stats I have just discovered. These stats are at the Georgetown Basketball History Project, and they show that Iverson was overwhelmingly dominant in assisting; details later.
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Oh great, now Iverson was a complete failure as a PG even though he was moved to a different position after just his rookie season. And even though there are only 7 players in the NBA who get more assists per game right now, I might add.
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No, Iverson was not remotely a failure as a PG either at Georgetown or in his rookie year for the 76'ers:

Iverson's Rookie Year NBA Leaders

STATISTICS FROM IVERSON'S ROOKIE YEAR, 1996-97, FOR THE 76'ERS UNDER COACH JOHNNY DAVIS
# of Field Goals: 14th best in the NBA
# of 3-Point Field Goals: 17th best in the NBA
# of Free Throws: 15th best in the NBA
# of Free Throw Attempts: 10th in the NBA
# of Assists: 11th best in the NBA
# of Steals: 10th best in the NBA
# of Points: 8th best in the NBA
Minutes per Game: 8th highest in the NBA
Points Per Game: 6th highest in the NBA
Assists Per Game: 11th highest in the NBA
Steals Per Game: 7th highest in the NBA
Assist %: 17th highest in the NBA
Usage %: 6th highest in the NBA

To say that Iverson was a failure at the PG position in his rookie year, when he was the designated PG, so that it was a smart thing to move him over to SG is nuts, pure and simple. I can now prove that both Larry Brown and George Karl were both total jerks with respect to handling Allen Iverson.

And all those whiney complaints about how Iverson doesn't pass enough because Iverson is selfish are garbage, because Brown and Karl have told him to pass less and score more.
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Commentary focused on Allen Iverson continues with the Posting titled "Return of Nuggets 1: Forum #2 Comments From Late March 2008, Part 2."