Secrets of the '07 - '08 Denver Nuggets
The only team I watched substantially during the NBA’s regular season was the hometown Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets spent the season battling for a playoff spot in the Wild West, and eventually emerged with the 8th and final seed. The general opinion is that the Nuggets are an overpriced, underachieving pack of hooligans who don’t play hard, d
on’t play defense, and don’t care about anything other than throwing down stylish dunks and swishing long range jumpers. Most general opinions on the Nuggets are in fact myths. I’m here to set the record straight, debunk the myths, and reveal nine critical secrets enveloping the team.Secret #1: The Nuggets are a likable team.
The Nuggets are actually a lot of fun to watch. Allen Iverson’s game is one of the most exciting and appreciable in the league. The Nuggets play a fast-paced, entertaining, flowing game. None of their players are selfish. Two of their players are overpaid while the rest are reasonably priced. They have several players – Iverson, Marcus Camby, Eduardo Najera, and Linas Kleiza, to name a few – with unique skill sets that make them a pleasure to watch. They play well together, they score a lot of points, and…
Secret #2: The Nuggets don’t play that bad of defense.
The Nuggets gave up 107 points per game during the regular season, second most in the league. But this is almost entirely due to their style of play. They generally shoot the ball very early in the shot clock and run up and down the court, creating more possessions per game for both teams. According to the Hollinger Defensive Efficiency ratings, the Nuggets actually have the 9th best defense in the league – and merely the 11th best offense. This is a simple formula based on how many points a team scores or gives up per possession – the Nuggets give up the 9th fewest points per possession in the NBA. They also have the reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year, Marcus Camby, who led the league in blocks (by a wide margin) for the third consecutive year. Camby also finished second in the NBA in rebounds.
Secret #3: The Nuggets are well-coached.
The Nuggets are often viewed as underachieving because of the big-name players – Allen Iverson (the NBA's third-leading scorer), Carmelo Anthony (the NBA's fourth-leading scorer), Marcus Camby, Kenyon Martin – on their roster. The truth is none of these guys are top-tier players. Anthony and Iverson are both fairly one-dimensional scorers who don’t do that much else (Carmelo can rebound if he wants, AI can pass if he wants). Camby rebounds, blocks shots, and bricks jumpers. K-Mart we will deal with later (he stinks). The Nuggets do not have a top-15 player on their roster. It’s hard to be one of the best teams in the NBA without one. Simply put, the Nugget sta
rters are not as talented as most people believe.
George Karl receives the brunt of the blame for this perceived underachieving. The truth is, Karl implements a dynamic strategy that maximizes the performance of his team. He could slow things down and bring down that 107 points per game his team gives up, but he understands that the high-octane run and gun approach is the strategy that gives his team the best chance to win over the course of the season. He also does a nice job coming up with single-use plays at key points during the game, uses timeouts effectively, and has developed an excellent substitution pattern. Which brings us to…
Secret #4: The Nuggets have one of the top three benches in the NBA.
Only the Houston Rockets and Boston Celtics can compete with the firepower the Nuggets bring off the bench. Linas Kleiza is the prototypical “offensive spark” bench guy. He can score from anywhere on the court, he runs the floor, he can post up or shoot the three, he plays a bit recklessly, he never wants to come out, etc. Eduardo Najera is a renowned “hustle board” kind of guy. He does the Little Things. He dives after loose balls. He takes charges. He fouls big guys. He elbows and pokes. He can be The Enforcer if needed. And this year, he learned to shoot the corner three. And
Secret #5: J.R. Smith is the X-factor of the 2008 NBA Playoffs.
J.R. Smith, a mercurial 22 year-old straight-from-high-school shooting guard, is one of the few bench players in the league explosive enough to take over a game. When he’s on, his game resembles Kobe Bryant’s. He’s a leaper, a dunker (placed sec
ond in the NBA dunk contest a couple years back), a slasher, and a shooter. This season he stepped his point production up to 12.3 a game (in just 19 minutes per) and three-point shooting up to 40%, despite many of them being fallaways, desperation heaves with the shot clock winding down, or four feet plus behind the arc. When he gets hot, he’s unstoppable.
The problem for Smith has always been consistency. He continues to take wild shots when they’re not falling; this bad shot selection can quickly submarine a team and frustrate teammates. But after three feud-filled years with Smith, Karl has learned when to pull Smith out of the game and when to let him out of his cage. If Smith catches fire during these playoffs, he becomes an unsolvable puzzle for opposing defenses and can be the difference-maker. In a crucial late-season matchup that essentially determined the final seed in the Western Conference playoffs, Smith scored 24 points in 26 minutes against the Golden Warriors and effectively ended their season.
Secret #6: Kenyon Martin is one of the worst starting power forwards in the NBA.
I cannot properly express my distaste for this man. All he does is stand around waiting for someone to make a drive and then pass to him so he can throw down an athletic dunk. He seems to miss every shot but his dunks. He plays terrible stand-around-and-watch defense. He’s always injured, except for this season. He’s especially hated because of his massive contract - a contract ESPN’s Bill Simmons named the league's worst - which pays him $59 million over the course of this season and the next three. It’s not his fault the Nugs were stupid enough to pay him this much money, of course. It’s just a shame they made that desperation signing instead of exercising some fiscal responsibility. The possibilities for what the Nuggets could have done with the money are endless.
Secret #7: The point guard play for the Nuggets is possibly the weakest in the league.
This one isn’t really that much of a secret. The only point the Nuggets play is Anthony Carter, because supposed starter Chucky Atkins sustained a serious injury before the season and hasn’t been able to play much. Carter wasn’t even in the NBA for most of last season, and he doesn’t bring a whole lot to the table. However,
Secret #8:
The Nuggets start Carter and he plays about the first eight minutes. After that, Karl generally brings in J.R. Smith and has Iverson bring the ball up. It really doesn’t matter. Karl has completely deemphasized the significance of the point guard position for the Nuggets. It doesn’t matter who brings the ball up, or dribbles it at the top of the key. The Nugget bigs – Camby, K-Mart, Kleiza, and Najera – can decently handle the ball. Iverson and Smith are very comfortable bringing it up the floor. Denver's offense is just not predicated on point guard play. Again, Karl deserves credit for this savvy 
adaptation.
Secret #9: The Nuggets’ best big man is a non-factor.
In last year’s first round playoff series loss to the San Antonio Spurs, Brazilian power forward Nene was the best player on the Nuggets. Nene is an aggressive, powerful, fearless power forward. Unfortunately, he has been unavailable for most of this season. Nene missed 22 games early in the season with a thumb injury, then had a malignant testicular tumor removed in January. He returned to the lineup in late March with limited conditioning and immediately injured his groin. He hasn’t played since. His impact in the playoffs will be somewhere between nonexistent and minimal. This is very unfortunate, as a healthy Nene would vault the Nuggets into real contention for the NBA Championship. As is, I expect the Nuggets to win a couple games against their first round opponent (the #1 seeded LA Lakers) before falling in the first round for the fourth straight year.
posted by GnightMoon @ 2:10 AM
9 Comments:
Great post. Again, column worthy. A few thoughts:
K-mart is overrated but w/o him, the Nugs don't make the playoffs this year. He's had a good season.
Karl is not a good coach because he repeatedly has allowed the Nuggets to blow insanely huge leads. From a team that can score as easily as Denver can, the coach has to shoulder the blame. Also, he couldn't get Denver to win a number of "must-win games" down the stretch this year. Yeah they made the playoffs but they should have made it as a 7 seed. Karl also hasn't seemed able to motivate Melo to improve his mental game (when to do x, when to do y).
Kleiza isn't as good as you make out. He's just as streaky as J.R. but with half the ball handling skills.
The biggest thing you didn't mention: The nuggets haven't figured out what it takes. They are boys among men. They lose focus often and give away games. They frequently combust on the floor. They often take plays off on defense.
Well I don't think you're a very good writer either. At least I get to watch AI and Melo play offense.
i would actually classify allen iverson as selfish.
Well written blog, you hit on many of the little things most people don't know about the Nuggets. However, I disagree with you on George Karl. True, he does make great adjustments. The Nuggets are great coming out of the half and it's almost always because of his adjustments. The decision to play Kmart on Kobe was genius. His substitutions are atrocious. It took Jeff Van Gundy all of about 24 minutes of basketball to realize that the Nugget's most efficient lineup doesn't include KMart or Anthony Carter (who is probably the worst starting point guard in the NBA). Check out 82games.com and you'll see that our starting lineup has played 9xx minutes together and only has a +- # of 37.
Why does George Karl never play our most effective lineups? Why does he continue to play AC even though he brings nothing to the table (even his defense is suspect, he single handedly created defensive matchup problems for us). We took an 8 point lead without him in the game, he goes back into the game and we go into halftime with a 2 point deficit, he starts th 2nd half and we go into a 13 point deficit. Fact is, bad point guard play does matter because the other team can disregard 1 player on offense and we constantly can't defend the pick and roll. A good point guard simply destroys us. In late game situations Carmelo always hits the big shot. Why doesn't every single possession go through Melo? You can see stretches where he's hot, doesn't get the ball, then forces a shot up out of frustration (it's like being card dead for awhile and playing garbage just to play).
If we're going anywhere in these playoffs JR Smith will be the catalyst. He caused so many problems for the Lakers that they switched Kobe on him. Don't we want them adjusting to us and not the other way around?
One point you missed is that the Nuggets generally rebound poorly. They do a good job of stopping their opponents on the first possession but constantly give up offensive rebounds which makes our defense seem worse, in addition to playing at a faster pace than other teams. Also, we're clearly lacking a "closer", someone who can come in and close out a game by hitting key free throws, which Simmons mentioned in one of his columns.
Anyways, good post, I enjoyed it.
Smith has only been Nuggets for two seasons. I guess it just feels like three. Hehe.
Truman - Nuggets blow big leads because of their style. High variance. They did blow a couple easy must-win games there at the end of the season that should never have been in doubt. Karl is a poor motivator. He is an Xs and Os type. I do agree on the "what it takes" motif. They're not there.
Anonymous - very good comments. There is no need to give Carmelo the ball every possession really. Most of his shots are tough shots, not dunks (Nugs led the NBA in dunks this season). I see Carmelo as the guy you give the ball later in a possession - he hits an incredible percentage of long jumpers.
Nuggets ended the season with a -1.3 rebound margin - obviously not good but not too bad considering their size and Nene's injuries.
Jeremy - you're right. Also, Bulls sure got the short end of that three-way stick.
Tom-
Karl is not a good coach. Period. He literally is unable to coach defense. You throw out the canard that the Nug's apparent defensive woes stem from the high number of possesions in their typical game. But they are only 14th in FG defensive percentage. At best, the Nugs are a middling defensive team. Camby is a good fantasy defender, but in real life he actually is only good coming from the weak side. He can't defend any of the elite big men one one one.
As for the Nugs bench, you have the mercurial JR Smith, who I actually like, but is maddenly inconsistent, along with Klieza and Najera. 8 deep isn't much to crow about. Also, Najera may be one of the least talented players in the league. Old white sportswriters overrate him because of his hustle, but that doesn't mean that he is good.
Why the Nugs don't sign a pure defender who can shut down the likes of Kobe is a complete mystery to me.
Also Melo is never going to be elite, and is unworthy of a max deal.
5th straight 1st round exit (not 4th)
Started in '04 vs. Minnesota.
as long as karl keeps iverson on the team,the supposed weakness of the point guard will go unnoticed,go iverson,gooooooooooooooo
Post a Comment
<< Home