So the NBA trade-deadline has come and gone. So what did my favorite teams do? They traded Von Wafer for Taurean Green. Who for who? Break it down: a $770K bench player that hasn't touched the court for a $375K bench player that won't touch the court.
Savings: $395 K & no real impactWay to go Denver!
Don't get me wrong, considering what they have on their team and the possible "rumored" trades, I'm glad they didn't do anything. I was kind of disappointed that we didn't get the trade of:
Delonte West & Damien Wilkins for Eduardo Najera (we could use people that can shoot), but oh well, they're the Nuggets. I'm just happy and surprised that Linus Kleiza was the sticking point in trading for malcontent Ron Artest. The Nuggs refused to give up Linus. Refused. For Linus. Refused. Way to go! Stand your ground! And I'm thrilled that we didn't land deals for: Zach Randolph, or for Jayson "White Chocolate" Williams/Ricky Davis.
The NBA trading deadline, just like any other trading deadline forces teams to make deals just for the sake of making deals. Honestly, the Nuggets aren't going to play or win the NBA championship with the team they have now. Unless they pull something out of their asses like the Rockies did. There wasn't any "one" player on the trading wind mill that was gonna make a
difference in the stretch run. The Nuggets are..."who we thought they were. And we let 'em off the hook! If you wanna crown them. Then crown them!"...sorry, somehow Denny Green popped in my head.
Anyways, they are a star powered talented team. Except for the parts don't fit. Coaching doesn't fit. Chemistry doesn't fit. They are no different from the New York Knicks with the exception of we don't completely suck, we actually win games. We both have high priced stars and salaries that populate our roster. Not to mention we lead the league in tattoos. That doesn't necessarily translate into dominance on the court. Let's look at our starting 5:
Allen Iverson - SG ($19 million)We have a Hall of Fame shooting guard in Iverson that has always been the focal point of his team. All of his career he has poured his heart and soul playing on the court...during a real game...not practice. I've always applauded him for his dedication and hustle during the game. He has always been the go to guy over his career, and has never really been surrounded with talent. So it became "my way or no way" and has carried his teams on his back.
When he got traded to Denver, he didn't need to be that player (except for a 15 game stretch). He actually landed on a team that had talent. Instead of changing, AI does what he always has done...the Iverson way. He continues to run things his way, take ill advised shots and has not developed any chemistry with other players in the offense. We traded our "quarterback" of the offense in point guard Andre Miller and asked AI to be a shooting guard and point guard in one. Andre had great chemistry in feeding Melo and Camby for dunks down low. When we traded him, we lost that chemistry that AI has never developed. Oh yeah, he's old and making $19 plus million this year and another $21 plus million next.
Anthony "Willie" Carter - PG ($770 K)A poor man's point guard. Because the Nuggs salary cap fucked, they need to find the cheapest piece of crap to run the offense. I'm sorry Willie, but you wouldn't be on any other NBA roster in the league. I can't even call you by your real name. I've resorted to "Willie" for some reason. Don't know why or how...but "Willie" it is.
Willie's like the guy trying to make the squad, but the coaches already know they're gonna cut him, but keep him on the roster to get through training camp so the "real" guy won't get hurt. They keep him around because he passes "nice" or hustles. So they cut everyone else who has a chance to play in the league...and then poof! The starter gets injured. The coaches call the cuts back, but then find out that they've moved on elsewhere, and then they see Willie on the bench. "I'll play coach!" Fuck. That's what Willie is. Fuck.
I know Willie's played way above and beyond that he's capable of...but come 'on! Any one who is the only point guard on the team can do that. No pressure. I'm gonna get my playing time no matter what. No looking over the shoulder. No promising rookie pressing you for playing time. All they ask for you to do is not get hurt and soak up minutes. And that's what Willie does best. Plus...he's older than Iverson!
Kenyon Martin - PF ($13.25 million)
On July 15, 2004, the worst thing in Nuggets history happened. They traded for K-Mart. From day one, I have been against the trade. K-Mart used to be an All-Star who average 16-17 points per game and grabbed down 8-9 rebounds. New Jersey pulled the covers over our eyes and duped us into this. Asking price: 3 1st round picks and a contract extension for him. The first round picks don't really bug me. They mean nothing in the NBA (at least from a Nuggets drafting stand point). The part that hurt the most was the contract extension. In order for the deal to go down, NJ was going to do a sign & trade, which means Jersey signs him and dumps him on us. It's like a teenage girl given her daddy's credit card to go shopping for a day, without any credit limit. I could see the Jersey exec.'s chuckling as they were signing the contract. Better them than us. I couldn't find the exact terms of the contract, but it's something like this: 7 yrs...$98-104 million.
SEVEN YEARS! Yep. If you buy another shirt, you get a pink case for your cell phone. Here's the deal so far:
Current Investment:(1st year) 2004-2005: $9.45 million - played 70 games, 15.5 ppg ave., 7.3 rpg ave.
(2nd year) 2005-2006: $10.64 million - 56 games, 12.9 ppg ave., 6.3 rpg ave.
(3rd year) 2006-2007: $12.07 million - 2 games 19 points, 20 rebounds
Remaining years on contract:(4th year) 2007-2008: $13.25 million
- current - 11.5 ppg, 6.4 rpg
(5th year) 2008-2009: $14.41 million
(6th year) 2009-2010: $15.78 million
(7th year) 2010-2011: $17.15 million
So just like wine, gets better with age...may be not. Production goes down as salary and age goes up. Thanks K-Mart! Not even gonna mention all the injuries, fights, suspensions and discontent he's brought.
Marcus Camby - C ($11.25 million)Can I say anything negative about Marcus? He's been the heart and soul of the team for the past few years. Marcus was once a highly touted, number 1 pick prospect in the league. He battled numerous injuries and bounced team to team for the first six years of his career. Let's just say he never "panned out", and was a packaged as a "throw-in" salary match in a draft day trade. In his first year with the Nuggs, he spent all except the last 29 games of the season doing what he did best...being injured. Since then he has become a staple to this team. Marcus is a defensive presence who has lead the league in blocks for three years in a row and has been a top 2 or 3 rebounder and won Defensive Player of the Year last year, and should of the year before.
But Marcus isn't a young pup, and has battled through injuries over the past four seasons. He plays hard and falls hard. His body has gone down the "gravel road" of the roads of travel and I'm afraid one more serious injury will be the end of Marcus. As a center, he's never been a freak of nature like Yao, Shaq, or Dwight, but he's been serviceable over the course of his career. Marcus never was at the level where the offense "ran" through him, but has developed a nice shot over the years. But ever since Andre left, his offensive production has gone down. Marcus has settled down into a defensive player that has little to none offensive output.
Carmelo Anthony - SF ($13.04 million)
Carmelo, the man we were never supposed to get. If Detroit didn't drink the "European Player Kool-Aid" on that draft night, we might have been the home of Darko. But luckily for us, it didn't work out that way and Melo fell into our lap. LeBron and Melo were to be the next Johnson/Bird or Jordan/Bird or Jordan/Johnson or whatever the scenario. Those two were to be the poster children of the NBA for years to come. And one of them fell into our lap. What did we do right? Out of how many years we had a top ten pick (all did nothing) we finally found the "Golden Ticket". Melo was to Denver on the NBA map. Denver was a hot spot in the NBA. So what happened?
Well Melo has had his ups and downs in his short career. He's fallen from the ranks of his draft class as D-Wade has stolen the spotlight from him. Dwyane's gone on to win the title and LeBron has played for the title, while Melo...can't make it out of the first round. Did we get the one that "could have been"? Please don't say that. Sure Melo has not sparkled in the spotlight of the playoffs, but he necessarily hasn't "bombed" yet. How ironic is it that Kevin Garnett, notorious for not getting his team out of the first round of the playoffs, played the Nuggs in the playoffs during Melo's rookie year and Garnett moved on. Did Melo somehow inherit a curse from Garnett? I know it was his rookie year, and we don't expect rookies to lead their team to the big show, but is there a curse? It was Garnett's eighth year in the league to break the first round curse. This is Melo's fifth year. Will Eric Gordon stay a few more years at Indiana so he can enter the league and inherit this curse? That way, Melo and Nuggs can move on.
Sure the NBA's turned their heads away from Melo and Denver and found other young players on the rise, and he's not even the "man" on his own team now, but it doesn't mean that Melo is "done". He just might not be the next thing. Melo is a great player at times, but his maturity level has dug his own grave at other times. Frequent temper tantrums, whacky weed at the airport, and that thing in New York hasn't propelled Melo into the elite player category yet. Every summer going into the new year we get the annual "I've grown up" article in the local paper. Every year something happens which we ready ourselves for the next summer article.
That cold December night in New York...(December 16, 2006)The NY brawl killed Melo's growth as a superstar. Melo has never been the same since. Before the brawl, as he was on pace to win a scoring title, and the Nuggets (roster-wise) were probably at their best in years. After the brawl, Melo's confidence and marketability went down and the Nuggets...well have taken a bad turn also. The 15 game suspension was pretty harsh. I've always thought that the NBA has disliked the Nuggets. The penalties handed out in the wake of that night proved it.
In my opinion, Isiah Thomas started the whole thing. With the Nuggets up big late, Isiah put out the "order" to take out a Nugget. The cameras caught the order. You could read his lips as he told one of his players what to do. So what happens next? JR Smith gets taken out by Mardy Collins. Collins tackles JR around the neck on a lay up attempt and shit hits the fan. The league hands out suspensions, and...the Nuggets gets the worst of them. Melo - 15 games, JR - 10 games (and he's the one that got taken out! The video shows him doing nothing afterwards), Nene - 1 game. Knicks suspensions: Nate Robinson - 10 games, Collins - 6 games, Jared Jeffries - 4 games, Jerome James - 1 game and Isiah...nothing. Yes, nothing for the catalyst.
Shortly afterwards, the Nuggets were forced to stir the pot. Three days later, the Nuggs trade for Iverson. They ship Andre, Joe Smith and 2 1st rounders for AI and Ivan McFarlin (who we cut 3 days later). We take on AI's huge salary ($19 million a year) and were forced to make more moves, trading Earl Boykins for Steve Blake (salary dump: $5 million for $2.75 million). Now salary cap wise, the Nuggs are screwed, and Melo has taken steps backwards in his development. Before the brawl, Melo lead the league in scoring and was starting to shine. Since then, he's taken a back seat to AI and just doesn't look right. Before Melo would drive and create foul shots on his quick moves, while now...he settles more and more for a long jump shot and doesn't get to the foul line. Melo has started to round out his game with his recent dedication in grabbing rebounds, but we're still searching for that "Golden Ticket" man.
Bench:
Nene - F/C ($8.8 million - injured)I love Nene. He's the future. When he's not on the Krispy-Creme diet or injured. And when he comes back he's a good 20-30 pounds overweight. Even in the offseason. This is professional sports. There's like two months off between seasons any more with all the other activity and drawn out playoffs. How can you be out of shape in that time. You even played in the Olympic qualifying tournament in Vegas for Brazil this past season! I won't go low and poke into the whole one nut thing either.
But when Nene is motivated and plays hard, he's a beast. He's everything everybody sees in him. He can go blow to blow, body to body on all of the other league's big guys down low. (That's sounds a little perverted) He's the younger, more athletic K-Mart. At five million less a year. But still high priced for as many injuries he undergoes.
Chucky Atkins - PG ($3 million - injured)Thank you Chucky for getting hurt. You've forced the Nuggs to play Willie. A lot. What am I saying? Chucky sucks. He's old and hurt.
JR Smith - SG ($2.1 million)JR. Frustrating. If you never saw him play and showed up one night, you would think that this kid is Jesus. All the players love him. I mean LOVE HIM. He's out on the court pumpin' up the team and crowd givin' high-fives and cheering. Then when the game starts...he's nowhere to be found. I'll give you a hint...look for him on the bench. He's buried so far down in George Karl's doghouse you'd think he killed George's son. JR only plays if: the Nuggs need a "3" with less than 10 seconds, only six other guys are dressed for the game, or Karl is on suspension. When JR is on the court, you can count on him to:
1. Not play defense
2. Turn the ball over
3. Plant his ass behind the 3 point line and chuck up horrible 3-pt shots any time he gets the ball
4. Commit dumb fouls
Linus Kleiza - SF ($1.1 million)Linus, the only promising young player we have. So much, that we won't trade him. Linus is the typical "white player" but with a touch of European. So what does that mean. He hustles, and can hit a 3 point shot. The only problem, Karl seems to play him a lot or not at all.
Eduardo Najera - PF ($4.95 million)
Trade bait. A hustle player who can play a little "D", grab some boards, and hit an occasional 3 point shot when left open. Should we trade him. From a spectator's view who goes to games...No. Eddie is responsible for so many hot, Latino, underage women (or of-age women) wearing skimpy clothes at the stadium cheering for their Mexican hero. That's grounds for keeping him in my book. From a financial standpoint...probably. But who says guys think with their "better" head?
Steven Hunter - C ($3.6 million) & Yakhouba Diawara - G/F ($687 K)Don't know. They usually sit on the bench and only make an appearance when there's less than a minute left and someone's winning by 20-30 pts. Look at Hunter's salary...$3.6 million! Trade his ass. A perfect salary dump! Give you five bucks if you can tell me their jersey numbers with out looking at other sources.
George Karl - CoachI'll be kind for now. But, he must go. I'm sorry, he's lost control of his team. He's also taken this team to the highest level that he can take them. He calls out his players through the media. And then the next night he's paranoid of the media. He's got bench players he doesn't use, so trade them for usable ones or use them. I hate dead weight on the bench. Use them or lose them. I prefer use them. The starters are gonna die based on minutes alone. They're gonna get burned out.
Starters Salary: $57.3 million
Bench Salary: $24.2 million (we only use two or three of them)
Total Team Salary = $81.5 million (estimated)
So why can't we trade for a decent player for the stretch run? Because we are too salary cap stricken. We have a lot of high priced players and without moving some of them...we're kind of stuck. So Taurean Green it is.
Now let's go back in time to a day when our franchise had a clean slate (Summer 2002). We had two first round picks 5th & 7th overall. We had just spent the past couple of years dumping salary to get in a position to rebuild the franchise. Thanks Kiki!
Here's the top 10 picks of 2002:1. Yao Ming - Houston (we could have never traded for him)
2. Jay Williams - Chicago (I liked the kid, I thought we could have traded up for him...good thing we didn't...he likes his motorcycles)
3. Mike Dunleavy - Golden State (Never a fan)
4. Drew Gooden - Memphis (Never a fan...played for Kansas)
5. Nikoloz Tskitishvilli - Denver
6. Dajuan Wagner - Cleveland
7. Nene Hilario - NY (Traded along w/Marcus Camby, and Mark Jackson toDenver for McDyess, #25. Frank Williams)
8. Chris Wilcox - LA Clippers (worked out for...Seattle)
9. Amare Stoudemire - Phoenix
10. Caron Butler - Miami
Okay, the Dice trade...we fucked them. Plain and simple. New York got screwed. There were rumors of this leading up to the draft. I remember us being in that situation and virtually having the fifth and seventh pick. So what two players would I have picked? Caron Butler and Nene. Yes, I was a big Caron fan. I knew we needed a shooting guard. I also like a guy I call "Skelator" now, Tayshaun Prince. He fell to number 23, and at the time, I thought 5 or 7 was a little high. Amare at nine looks like a steal for Phoenix, they had some good scouting. I don't remember if I was that high on Amare at the time. But I do know I would have Nene and Caron. The 2002-2003 Nuggets were considered one of the worst teams of all time, but coach Buzz led them to a respectable record 17-65 (for their talent). There's no way that they should have won 8 games.
Tskitishvilli was obviously a bust. Over 3 years he played 143 games averaging...3.2 points per game and muscled down 1.9 rebounds per game.
Caron's rookie year: 78 games started, 15.4 points per game, 5.1 rebounds, and 2.7 assists
I was right.
So the Nuggs blow in 02-03' and move on into the off season. Melo lands in our lap and let the free agent signings begin! Top Free Agents looking at Denver:
Gilbert Arenas (GS) - wanting a 5 yr $50 million deal - Nope, didn't want to pay that much
Andre Miller (LAC) - Signed (front heavy contract)
Michael Olowokandi (LAC) - signed w/ T-wolves
Lamar Odom (LAC) - why are we pursuing so many Clippers?
Rafer Alston (Tor) - just signed Andre
Brad Miller (Indy) - we got screwed! Indy pulls sign and trade to Sacramento
Earl Boykins (GS) - signed
Jon Barry (Det) - signed
Voshon Leonard (Tor) - signed
I personally wanted Gilbert, Andre, and Brad Miller. Instead we got Andre and a few bench players. We wouldn't of had to sign Vo if we had drafted Caron. So the team could have consistent of:
PG: Andre Miller, Earl Boykins
SG: Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler, Jon Barry
SF: Carmelo Anthony / Ryan Bowen
PF: Nene / Francisco Elson
C: Brad Miller/Marcus Camby
Instead it didn't. We make the playoffs and get bounced by Minnesota. One of our flaws, we need a shooting guard. Vo proves to be old and slow, and Sam "Alien-head" Cassell and Latrell "I can't feed my kids" Sprewell tear us up with wide open 3 point shots. Enter NBA Draft, our first pick of the draft is Jameer Nelson. Collegian Player of the Year. I was excited to find out he slipped down to 20. So what do we do? Trade him to Orlando for another 1st round pick.
Twenty days later...We ship that #1 pick along with two other 1st rounders to New Jersey for K-Mart. The ship hits the ice berg, and water slowly leaks in...
Food. Human: it’s what’s for dinner. First question...do they want to eat you? Or better yet, are they eating some one else? If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, then the person is probably a zombie. The average citizen doesn’t crave your body flesh for their diet, unless that person is a cannibal. An average person loves muchin' down on a sweet juicy Wendy's Baconator. If you know someone who is a vegan or vegetarian, and they’re munching down on someone’s flesh, my betting instinct says that they are a zombie.
understanding the zombie. You also may not know the answer, but that’s all right. Was it because of a government spilled toxic waste substance, a virus, or did they just simply come out of the ground because hell had no more room to fit the dead? Could there be a cure to the infestation? It probably doesn’t matter, because you are just a low life, every day person with no real connections to solving the problem. So just deal with it and survive.
