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

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 full reports.
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JULY 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES

BEST CAREER 3-PT ACCURACY % AMONG CURRENT NBA PLAYERS
1 Jason Kapono 0.4637
2 Steve Nash 0.4314
3 Anthony Parker 0.4250
4 Ben Gordon 0.4163
5 Matt Carroll 0.4109
6 Leandro Barbosa 0.4093
7 Raja Bell 0.4092
8 Brent Barry 0.4065
9 Kyle Korver 0.4064
10 Wally Szczerbiak 0.4054
11 Peja Stojakovic 0.4051
12 Mike Miller 0.4028
13 Eric Piatkowski 0.3990
14 James Jones 0.3987
15 Pat Garrity 0.3976
16 Ray Allen 0.3969
17 Luther Head 0.3930
18 Bruce Bowen 0.3911
19 Hedo Turkoglu 0.3906
20 Rashard Lewis 0.3903
21 Damon Jones 0.3898
22 Tyronn Lue 0.3890
23 Shane Battier 0.3888
24 Michael Redd 0.3877
25 Danny Granger 0.3868
26 Jason Terry 0.3860
27 Chauncey Billups 0.3854
28 Eddie House 0.3833
29 Vladimir Radmanovic 0.3818
30 Manu Ginobili 0.3816
31 Sasha Vujacic 0.3814
32 Steve Blake 0.3807
33 Kevin Martin 0.3798
34 Dirk Nowitzki 0.3794
35 Cuttino Mobley 0.3789
36 Mike James 0.3783
37 Joe Johnson 0.3770
38 Kurt Hinrich 0.3770
39 Vince Carter 0.3750
40 Bostjan Nachbar 0.3749
41 Deron Williams 0.3743
42 Morris Peterson 0.3738
43 Eddie Jones 0.3728
44 Derek Fisher 0.3727
45 Martell Webster 0.3725
46 Troy Murphy 0.3723
47 Michael Finley 0.3711
48 Mike Bibby 0.3710
49 Chucky Atkins 0.3684
50 J.R. Smith 0.3680
51 Gordan Giricek 0.3677
52 Tayshaun Prince 0.3655
53 Tim Thomas 0.3652
54 Rasual Butler 0.3650
55 Mehmet Okur 0.3643
56 Ricky Davis 0.3641
57 Andres Nocioni 0.3640
58 Raef LaFrentz 0.3635
59 Paul Pierce 0.3634
60 Jason Richardson 0.3628
61 Lindsey Hunter 0.3620
62 Mike Dunleavy 0.3619
63 Charlie Bell 0.3617
64 Kareem Rush 0.3602
65 Bobby Jackson 0.3594
66 Maurice Williams 0.3591
67 Gilbert Arenas 0.3583
68 DeShawn Stevenson 0.3571
69 Al Harrington 0.3571
70 Damon Stoudamire 0.3568
71 Rafer Alston 0.3566
72 Chris Duhon 0.3563
73 Mickael Pietrus 0.3530
74 Keith Bogans 0.3529
75 Quentin Richardson 0.3519
76 Fred Jones 0.3510
77 Anthony Johnson 0.3509
78 James Posey 0.3506
79 Earl Boykins 0.3485
80 Donyell Marshall 0.3476
81 Antawn Jamison 0.3469
82 Earl Watson 0.3456
83 Jamal Crawford 0.3451
84 Smush Parker 0.3449
85 Richard Hamilton 0.3448
86 Marko Jaric 0.3424
87 Steve Francis 0.3414
88 Robert Horry 0.3413
89 Stephen Jackson 0.3413
90 Juan Dixon 0.3411
91 Derek Anderson 0.3411
92 Devean George 0.3410
93 Shawn Marion 0.3409
94 Rasheed Wallace 0.3408
95 Kobe Bryant 0.3402
96 Austin Croshere 0.3400
97 Darrick Martin 0.3398
98 Troy Hudson 0.3391
99 Richard Jefferson 0.3377
100 Tracy McGrady 0.3370
101 Jason Kidd 0.3366
102 DerMarr Johnson 0.3362
103 Darrell Armstrong 0.3341
104 Sam Cassell 0.3312
105 Andre Iguodala 0.3307
106 Corey Maggette 0.3292
107 Ron Artest 0.3292
108 Jeff McInnis 0.3283
109 Raymond Felton 0.3269
110 Stephon Marbury 0.3258
111 Baron Davis 0.3251
112 Antoine Walker 0.3250
113 Jason Williams 0.3245
114 LeBron James 0.3242
115 Anfernee Hardaway 0.3162
116 Lamar Odom 0.3140
117 Tony Parker 0.3139
118 Allen Iverson 0.3136

George, say hello to the 50th best 3-point shooter in the NBA. You know him, it's that guy whose style you think is a black mark on basketball, and whose hometown is in Fantasy Land. You know, that guy you will never start unless hell freezes over, and who has to be benched from time to time because of the principle of the thing.

Why, it's none other than JR Smith, sitting comfortably ahead of players such as Rasheed Wallace, Richard Hamilton, Tracy McGrady, LeBron James, and Kobe Bryant in accuracy from way out on the outer perimeter, where defense doesn't matter very much and it's mostly a question of who has real shooting skills and who doesn't. Fantasy doesn't come into play out there actually, George.

Notice that almost all of the 49 players ahead of Smith are much older and more experienced, meaning that Smith has achieved this very high ranking at an incredibly young age.

If he does come from Fantasy Land, I want to get some more players from out of there.
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Well Chucky Atkins was supposed to address the problem, but he turned out to have the mother of all hernias. I personally think he will never be a serious 3-point threat again, should he return to any degree at all.

Even if Atkins had worked out, the Nuggets still would have been extremely handicapped in 3-point shooting, not only because Smith plays only about 2/3 of the minutes he should play, but also because the Nuggets' best 3-point shooting forward/center is Najera, who doesn't start, is never in the heart of the offense, and often is timid to shoot when he does get the ball.

Kleiza is inconsistent but is great from long range sometimes.

If you have no existing forwards, other than Kleiza on occasion, who are spreading the floor and making some threes, then why would you not have C Anthony, who rains threes in international, spend 1/3 or more of his practice time learning how to make more threes in the NBA? Why would you be harping on him to make a few more rebounds and say nothing about the need for making lightly defended threes, as he does so easily in international?

You would not bother to get Anthony to make more threes only if you didn't know how to manage the team. Nuggets coaching is horrendous, pure and simple.
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Technically, Chucky Atkins would be the 3rd Nugget, but between his major hernia his coming up on 34 years old, and the fact that he hasn't earned the confidence of Karl, which if you don't do that quickly you may never succeed, he is going to be out of the picture in 2008-09 to one extent or another.

I'd say you could count Atkins as 1/2 at the most. Since there are just shy of 120 players, and there are 30 teams, the average team should have 4 players on the list. The Nuggets have only 2 or 2 1/2, with Iverson just barely qualifying. So the Nuggets are deep in the hole, even though they don't seem to realize it.

The Nuggets needed to do at least two of the following and they didn't do any one of them:

1. Get Carmelo Anthony to attempt and make more threes--get more diversity in his scoring.
2. Start J.R. Smith and play him at least 30 min. per game.
3. Start Linas Kleiza and play him at least 30 min. per game.
4. Stop looking at Najera as a defense only player, give him a few more minutes, and get him into the heart of the offense much more often.
5. Play Yakhouba Diawara for at least 20 min. per game and get him into the heart of the offense much more often.

#1 and #2 were the most likely and effective solutions to the problem. #3 worked by accident on a few occasions. #4 and #5 would give you both better defending and better 3-point shooting.
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It would be good if it were true that Anthony spent a lot of practice time making defended threes. And it may be true, as I will admit below.

On the other hand, it would be at least as bad from a management perspective if he did, because the Nuggets, due to being poor defensively, needed to be better than the middle of the pack in attempted threes per game, which is what they were adjusted for pace. In percentage of threes made, they were only #19.

Actually, the history of Anthony's 3-point shot in the NBA is mysterious. In his rookie year, 2003-04, Anthony made 69/214 threes or 32.2%, which would just qualify him to be in the top NBA group. So far so good. Then something really bad and unknown to me at this writing happened. (You can bet I will let everyone know if and when I discover what happened.) In the next three years, which were the years 2004-07, his three-point shooting was just an afterthought, and was uncompetitive. He made only 42, 37, and 40 threes in those years, and his accuracy was only slightly over 25%,

Then in 2007-08 all of a sudden, he made 58/164 threes, for a career high accuracy of 35.4%. He was a threat from long range again. It was an accuracy increase of almost 10% from the three prior years, which strongly suggests he did practice threes big time following the 2006-07 season. But if the practice coaches and/or his personal coach had him practice threes more, the game coaches did not make sure he sought out and took more threes, because the percentage of his shots that were threes in 2007-08 was not substantially higher than it was during the three years that Carmelo Anthony was failing at and largely ignoring the 3-point shot.

Nor were his 2007-08 threes any where near what they were in his rookie year. In his rookie year, 214 of his 1465 shots were threes and, as already mentioned, he made a solid 32.2% of them. In 2007-08, following the three bad years, 164 of his 1481 shots were threes. So the coaches clearly failed to reestablish his three point shot in actual games, whether or not they helped to reestablish the accuracy in practice.

It has been hard for me to think that the coaches made sure that Anthony got his accuracy back in practice but did not use it much in real games. I would rather think that Anthony got his long range shot back with no help from any coaches. But when you realize that we may be talking about totally different coaches when we are talking about who coaches Melo and about who coaches Nuggets games, then maybe I should start suspecting that the Nuggets did help get Melo's 3-point shot back, but then got almost no payoff from that. Or, the right hand didn't know or recognize what the left hand was doing.
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Your right about the roster Chutney. Every contender has to have at least one and usually two veteran G-Fs who are money from long range and decent defensively.

But the Nuggets, once they had Camby, Martin, and Nene on the same roster, none of whom has a prayer from 3-point range, were left with the short end of the stick with respect to the three. For this type of needed player, the Nuggets start with the young Linas Kleiza, who gets only 20 minutes a game and who is not such a great defender despite being qualified theoretically to play either forward position. Then they have Najera, who has been considered mostly defense only since the stone age. Yakhouba Diawara is mostly a guard and was mostly useless offensively despite being able to make threes, simply because the lack of any point guard system prevented him from getting the ball much. All of the other potential players of this type, such as DerMarr Johnson and Bobby Jones, have been fiercely resisted by and left untapped by Karl.

Given how he shows no sign that he thinks it is important, and given how badly he treats most of his better 3-point shooters, I strongly suspect that if it were up for a vote and Karl had a vote, he would vote to abolish the 3-point shot.
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Career 3-Pt. shooting Among Key Nuggets Forwards/Centers:

Nene 0/9
Camby 13/71
Martin 39/192

So none of the three defensively most important Nuggets front court players are any threat at all as far as scoring the ball from outside is concerned. And many fans bitterly complain that Camby is not that great of a threat from point blank range, either!

The moral, if you are a general manager, is that you should never have three key front court players who can not make threes on your roster at the same time, unless you have at least four or five quality veteran G-Fs and guards who can reliably make threes and who can play some defense, and unless you have a coaching staff that will recognize the problem and that can and will make full use of those G-Fs and guards.

Otherwise, teams will stack the paint against you and you can run, fast pace, drive right into a traffic jam, jab step, and alley-oop all you want, but you won't be a top offense in the NBA and you will be toast in the playoffs.
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A comment when there was talk of Anthony Johnson becoming the point guard of the Nuggets:

Oh great, now the Nuggets are going to get a point guard who is even less of a scoring threat than was Anthony Carter. That's a strategy I never heard of: to pick a point guard using defensive reasons only.

Oh well, I guess I am reduced to hoping that all the point guards bruise their little fingers so that Iverson can be PG and so that the Nuggets can make the best of a really rotten situation.

This is just one big shame: a team with a massive payroll, a huge talent bank, and a hefty luxury tax, and yet it can not come up with a point guard solution that makes any sense.

You see why I predicted that the Nuggets will not make the playoffs in 2008-09, a prediction I am standing by at the moment because although the Warriors may be out, the Clippers may be back in?
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Laugh out loud, I did the same thing you did this past season, I just as you did pointed out how each contending team had a greater number of dependable 3-point shooters than the Nuggets do, and I named them.

But see, if you and I can start to manage the Nuggets, than why is it the actual managers can't? Is it simply that they are chumps, or is there more than that to it? Aside from not knowing or at least not recognizing some basketball factors hurting the Nuggets, I think there may be a substantial number of false beliefs held by Nuggets coaches and managers that are facilitating their failure to manage the team in a good way. I know for a fact that many Colorado fans of the Nuggets do believe some or many of the following:

1. We were one of the worst teams in the League for many years before Melo came, and now we are very respectable, so we have done our jobs, and to try to go for more than one and done every year is risky.
2. Denver is not really a basketball town, so most fans are content with just being respectable; they don't think advancing far in the playoffs is all that important. One playoff series is enough for our fans, so it is enough for us.
3. The fast pace offense is very valuable, is sort of a tradition in high altitude Denver, and is a good substitute for a more planned, controlled offense.
4. The character and playing style of basketball players (and the playing style of a player reveals that player's character to some extent) is more important than either their actual production/performance or their actual net contributions (positives less minuses) to the team winning the game. In other words, characters, personalities, and "mental toughness" are at least a little more important than are skills, energy, and strategies, for winning games.
5. Allen Iverson can not play PG (Laugh out loud, I'm sorry, but this one always brings visions of mountain hicks into my head; but I don't think there is any such thing as mountain hicks anymore; they went the way of the dinosaur at least 25 years ago.)
6. Carmelo Anthony is a very good player, but it is impossible that he will ever become one of the best 10 players in the NBA, whether or not he gets markedly different coaching. (Laugh out loud at "impossible".)
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This comment was made just before Marcus Camby was given away for nothing to the Clippers:

Yes, they spent so much money that they have one of the highest payrolls and one of the highest luxury taxes in the League. If they were going to do that, they needed to be able to manage that investment properly. But they have a coaching staff that can not handle playoff basketball in particular and squeezing performance out of a roster in general, they have an owner for whom basketball is just a small part of his vast business empire, and they have a front office that seems to think that simply by building up the huge payroll with famous veterans, they ought to get some kind of a medal.

If you are going to spend big money, you need to know for sure how to manage your investment, but the Nuggets organization broke that rule of economics and finance. Can you succeed at anything that is complicated and large scale, simply by spending money, but not doing very much else than that? No, and even if you could, it would be a worthless exercise.

If you fail to manage a large investment correctly, you are subject to being penalized by losing some percentage of it. In basketball terms, the Nuggets are now subject to dropping back down close to or back into the basement of the NBA. You already see fans alluding to this in discussions about this team, although few if any are going to be as blunt about it as I am. Other fans like to use the term "blowing up" to describe the probable fate that awaits the Nuggets. Blowing up means that most or even all of the big names depart or retire. Financially it means that the team finally gets free of many, most, or possibly all of the huge contracts. In basketball performance terms, blowing up usually entails having to start from the basement, because the team didn't have the money to get the "next generation" of players in place before the blowing up.

Always remember that only badly managed franchises are subject to an actual "blowing up." Well managed franchises such as the Lakers and the Celtics may be in the cellar every once in a great while, even for a few years, but it will be in their cases due to the normal ebb and flow of a roster, and will in effect be an accident due to retirements, draft picks not working out, injuries, and other things that are bad luck more than anything else.

Getting back to the Nuggets, when money is invested and then the investment is not managed well, the investment turns into an expense. Now all of a sudden, you have spent too much money, not invested a lot of money, and the implications are totally different. As everyone knows, when you spend too much money, you are going to have to pay some kind of a penalty for that, which in the case of the Nuggets, may be a return to the basement.

They have spent the big bucks and have demonstrated that they do not know how to put the expensive pieces together to make their team work. And by work, I don't mean simply winning a few playoff games. I mean that the Nuggets are still not on the map as a desirable place to play among good free agents and players around the League who want to be traded. Normally, a team that spends big bucks becomes attractive to those good free agents and tradable assets, but the Nuggets failed to become very enticing.

And how can the Nuggets build a good franchise long term if few good players want to play in Denver? They can't. Between that and the lack of money, the Nuggets may find themselves in the basement in a few short years.

Aside from having needed to be able to manage their huge investment well, the Nuggets needed someone in the front office who understands the laws of economics and the laws of finance as they work out in pro basketball. I mean that literally; if you ever spend a huge amount of money and you do not understand the economics and finance that are involved, you are cruising for a bruising.
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The NBA is not a free market business; it is a monopolistic gang of suits who basically cater to a few billionaire and near billionaire owners. When Carmelo Anthony is given a 15 game suspension for a little punch that some swore was more like a slap, why would anyone think that the NBA cares about fans, who are the next level down from players?

And who is competing with the NBA? No one, really, unless you want to get interested in European basketball. For example, does anyone to speak of care about what is happening with the Montana Golden Nuggets? But as someone in this topic alluded to, this kind of heavy handed business monopoly is normal in America, and governments are supposed to bow down to it or be robbed blind. (He certainly didn't put it that way, lol.)

But Seattle metro has over 3.3 million people and Oklahoma metro has about 1.2 million people. And the central area of Seattle metro is much more densely packed with people than is the central area of Oklahoma metro. Also, Seattle has far better public transit, which will be critical now that gas is going to be about $5 a gallon or, gulp, even more. So factoring in total population, central area density and the gas situation, the potential long term basketball market in Seattle must be somewhere between 4 and 6 times the potential long term basketball market in Oklahoma.

So for how many years do you think there will be bigger potential crowds and merchandise sales in Oklahoma instead of in Seattle? Would you think it would be one, two, or three years before the law of numbers asserts itself and bigger crowds and merchandise sales are available in Seattle? But monopolistic gangs of suits catering to a few billionaires and near billionaires don't look at obvious free enterprise business factors like that.

You or I would make more money in Seattle than Oklahoma, but Bennett is so rich that he doesn't care if he makes a few million less long term in Oklahoma than in Seattle. He's just a "Look maw, I dun bought me a basketball team and dragged it back here to the farm" type of billionaire.
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One way to stop franchise stealing, sponsored by the elitist, monopolistic gang that Stern and company are, is to have another League to compete with the NBA, which would force the NBA to give up its life of crime. Were there an ABA type League, Stern would change his tune and not allow franchise stealing, in order to avoid abandoned markets such as Seattle being taken over by a rival League.

The ABA years were the best basketball ever saw.

However, due to the much wider wealth and income disparities of today, most economists will tell you that there could not be a new ABA today, because the sports money needed to make a League work and prosper is already pretty much tied up in the NBA. There are only so many billionaires who want a basketball team to go around.