Fast Break: Part 2 of Iverson Out of Shooting Guard Prison

Editorial Note: A Fast Break is a short and quick preview of upcoming topics that will be explored and proved in full in regular reports. Fast Breaks are especially useful when major news breaks.

Plus Karl has been forced by management to start J.R. Smith, something he fiercely hoped he would never have to do. He may have thought that Smith would eventually start, but he sure as hell wanted to prevent that from happening until after he retires, which could easily be next Spring.

Karl's two favorite players, Iverson and Camby, are gone, which obviously strongly suggests that management has realized that Karl apparently doesn't know what he is doing.

Plus we get to see if the classic Carmelo Anthony comes back to some extent, the one we had before Karl and the Iverson botch up had any influence.

All of this is almost too much good news to take at one time.

This Iverson thing was a classic logical trap that the Nuggets fell into and hurt themselves with. If you have a player who clearly plays both guard positions at once at all times, due to starting out for years as a 1 and then having the PG designation taken away, where do you place such a person in your lineup?

If and only if you have a playoff caliber PG on your team is it safe to keep him at 2-guard. Otherwise, it's far more logical to put him back at 1-guard because (and these are just the main reasons; there are other, smaller reasons):

1. You absolutely must have the best guard on your team who can make plays be the point guard; and do not get hung up on style or personality or things like that. Don't even get hung up on turnovers. Get hung up on assists and passing, but don't worry much about a 18-20 ppg combo guard. More than 18-20 ppg? Start to worry and get him to change.
2. You must avoid having two guards being point guards out there at the same time. You want 4 players who are not the point guard out there most or all of the time.
3. You absolutely must avoid having a stupidly short back court, which will hose up your defense.

The Nuggets did all three of the "absolutely must avoids".

And now we await the verdict on their franchise: how far are they going to drop and how fast?

They are continuing to refuse to start J.R. Smith even now! And who knows, you get what you are worrying about in life sometimes. J.R. Smith may be doubting himself just enough now that he no longer would be such a great starter.

Honestly, I am starting to seriously think that the Nuggets might only win 30-35 games this year.

The first step in getting Iverson to pass more and dominate the ball less is for him to say he will do so if asked. Step one is accomplished:

Quote:
"I have done so many things in this league, as far a being an All-Star, a scoring champion, All-NBA first team, but I haven't accomplished my number one goal, and that's to win a championship."

"Like I was telling Joe (Dumars) earlier today, I'm willing to sacrifice whatever I have to sacrifice to get it done. I've tried it my way plenty of my times. I've tried it different ways and it hasn't been done. Once again, I have to look at myself, I have to look in the mirror at myself and think of things I can do to help us to win a championship. Maybe there are some things I have to change.

One thing is for sure, two things for certain, I'm going to do whatever the coach wants me to do on the basketball court. If he gives me an assignment, I'll just try to carry it out to the fullest."
Source

Does the "Iverson can't do this" and "Iverson can't do that" and "Iverson hurts the team either way, but especially at PG" crowd (which is really big on this website) think that Iverson can actually really make changes? Of course not, that is really their point when all is said is done.

Whether Karl / Nuggets management were in the Iverson will not change crowd is unclear, since it is plausible that they thought that although Iverson would change if asked, Karl insisted that it would not help the Nuggets if he did go for the open man more often. What we do know is that Karl directly ordered Iverson to shoot about as much as he wanted from the day Iverson arrived, which must rank as one of the most boneheaded instructions a coach has made to a star player in the NBA in years.

Step two is for the Pistons to NOT to be in the "Iverson can't play PG crowd" so that they have Stuckey and Iverson out there a lot. That is all but accomplished already as well.

We will be watching for steps 3, 4 and so forth.