Return of Nuggets 1: Forum Comments From Early April 2008

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.
______________________________________
EARLY APRIL 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES

Soooh, did anything happen important while I had to take time out to work on a big project? Let me check ESPN.....

Even I would not have dared to predict that this team would crash and burn like this.
________________________________________________
How or why would he or should he have changed his game if he was told to do exactly what he did in Philly, playing exactly the same position?
________________________________________________
Hey, show some respect to Jefferson and McCants, the Wolves are going to be hard to beat for 4th. (A joke.)
________________________________________________
This game shows you why it is stupid to have J.R. Smith come off the bench and then be depending on him in the 4th quarter as if he is Manu Ginobili. Some nights, JR doesn't have it, and there isn't anything you can do about it, but take him out of the game. But it you didn't start him, you find out too late that he isn't going to hit his shots. You find out in the 4th quarter that he isn't going to hit his shots, and you are totally screwed at that point.

To me, the inconsistency and the huge upside potential of J.R. Smith make starting him the clearly correct strategy, and then you can take him out of the game at about halftime if he is missing everything. I guess that's too logical for Karl to consider.
________________________________________________
Yes, the close to zero defending potential of the midget backcourt has been exposed.
________________________________________________
Soooh, Nuggets coaches, in general, how is AI playing both guard positions at once, because he doesn't even begin to respect Carter's PG skills anymore, working out for ya? Are you getting the payoff you thought you would get by treating AI as if he can do almost everything needed from the backcourt all at once? Or, to put it another way, how is the Carter is a starting PG fantasy going?

I am afraid that this board of internet basketball fans/posters has proven to be smarter than the Nuggets coaches were on the subject of the backcourt. Here, eventually there was huge agreement that the best starting backcourt for the Nuggets was Iverson PG and Smith SG.

That was this year's biggest test, whether fans on here would get that or not. They did get it, so the test was passed. Karl failed, flunked, bombed out, however you want to put it.
______________________________________________
Too reliant on scoring is a very close cousin of too reliant on Iverson, and the Nuggets were both this year.

Laugh out loud at Iverson playing 56 out of 58 minutes in this game. I didn't see the game, but I just checked the play by play, and I see that in the second overtime and to some extent earlier, Iverson was out of gas and could not hit a shot, even a free throw.
______________________________________________
If this game is a loss, you can already see the likely root cause: only 8 Nuggets are going to play whereas 10 Jazz are playing. The Nuggets have two key defensive players sitting on the bench who they refuse to play: Nene and Yakhouba Diawara. Meanwhile, Sloan and company are playing an effective mixture of offensive and defensive players.

So at the same time you have bias for or against individual players, you also have an overestimation of the differences between starting and non-starting players in general, to the point where the Nuggets voluntarily play shorthanded in a game like this. Are Nene and Yak really that inferior to Camby and Martin to the point where they should not play at all? I highly doubt it.

I have hard proof by the way that Karl is just about the stingiest coach in the NBA toward non-starters that I will post in the near future.
______________________________________________
The only time Nuggets non-starters get real respect is when garbage time arrives. And there has been waaay too much garbage time with the Nuggets on the short end of the score this year.
______________________________________________
With the Nuggets no longer playing good defense, it is going to be very difficult for them to beat Houston, although it will be close since the game is in Denver.

The repeated Nene outs have been a killer, because having a defense anchored by Martin and Camby leaves too much undefended paint space too often. It was amazing how many times Jazz players raced through the paint for undefended layups.