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.
______________________________________
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?"
____________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________
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.
_____________________________________________
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?)
___________________________________________
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.
___________________________________________
After yet another annoying and off point comment from that guy, I commented:
You are funny yet disturbing at the same time.
____________________________________________
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?
_____________________________________________
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.
____________________________________________
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.
___________________________________________
The Nuggets reached as high as 4th or 5th in pace adjusted defense about half way through the season and ended up 10th!
