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 JUNE 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES
In other words, the FO is trying to build the Denver Nuggets without using all the blocks that other teams use to build their teams. By overdosing on high cost veterans and medium cost mid-career players, they have, among other things:
1. Ratified GK's bias against younger players.
2. Ratified GK's over reliance on older veterans and his occasional lame excuse for a Nuggets loss, that the Nuggets ran out of gas in the 4th. Well duh, if you play Iverson for 45 and Camby for 36...
3. Bloated the payroll, costing the owner millions in tax.
4. Made real Nuggets fans furious.
5. In all probability made the team too old to compete for a Championship. (Yes, I know there are other reasons they probably can't.)
6. By loading up with too many high and medium dollar contracts that are hard to trade, the Nuggets are limiting their trade options and, worse, they are setting themselves up for a dramatic fall into the basement of the Northwestern Division.
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Here was a comment with an allusion to the smash hit TV series "LOST," regarding which I have repeatedly compared the Nuggets to the survivors:
This group has us going around in circles and trapped on this island. It's time to move the island.
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The distinctions between the FO and GK are becoming more and more blurry.
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And amazingly, AI should have been against the trade as well and, had he been, a whole lot of grief would have been saved all around.
It's as if the FO and GK, from the Miller/AI trade up to the present, have conspired to deprive the Nuggets of something even losing teams take for granted: a true, undisputed, dependable point guard. George doesn't really know what one is, but I hear that point guards are very important. For example, Phil Jackson just blamed the key play of Rajon Rondo as reason #1 for his Lakers being pounded in the finals.
Did I say "as if they conspired"? That's not quite right: they have definitely conspired to do that.
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Someone made a really astute post in late June that summed up things so well that I had little to add:
You are right Iam pist and rightfully so. I never said that Miller was a better player than AI I said we had a better team when miller was here. The Nene deal was all Bearup Kiki was on the way out by then. And Kiki sucked at the draft thank god for the pistons otherwise we would have darko and skita. I have said that the FO has done good things but the bad outweighs the good right now and IMHO a big part of the problem lies with George Karl he is the coach not a gm or vp of personel he is a coach but he is being allowed to make gm type of decisions which makes our FO a mess.
My response was:
Agreed. And since it's summer and time to take it easy, why figure stuff like this out yourself when there is frequently this good type of commenter around at the forum to explain things and save your lazy a#% from having to think? (Laugh out loud.)
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But our guns are loaded as we venture forth into tradeland.
[I posted one of those uncertain smilies.]
They are loaded aren't they?
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Well then its time to man up and understand and admit that if there was no plan to adjust AI's role from his futile role in Philly, than the trade never should have been made. Only a very small number of GM's were going for AI at the time. The vast majority saw the big downside of trying to work a 5' 11 1/2" SG, who was always used more as a franchise marketing fixture than a major tool in building a playoff-winning team, into their rosters.
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It was a trade too good to be passed up unless you have, as GK himself says, "kind of a wild team" where the players themselves, and the skills they bring onto the court, mostly determine how the offense and the defense will be managed. With that kind of team management, which never changed as you would have expected it to after the trade, you want Dre, not AI. Because AI benefits from being part of a system, a plan, a set of plays, something along those lines, much more than Dre, who can create his own system to a big extent.
What you have with the Nuggets is a player who is kind of wild, Iverson, playing in a system that is kind of wild. That is too much wild to produce playoff wins.
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Notice too that the 76'ers with Dre won two playoff games against the Detroit Pistons, a team about as good as the Lakers without Bynum. Meanwhile, the Iverson-led Nuggets could not win a single playoff game against those Lakers as they tried to win with a very loosely managed offense in general, and with no clear point guard in particular.
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I'm not saying that AI should not be kind of wild. All I'm saying is that it is not in his or anyone's interest for him to play on a team that has no set plays, few safety valve shooters out on the perimeter, and an obsession with speed over anything else.
