Return of Nuggets 1: Forum #2 Comments From Late April and Early May, 2008,

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, is being posted in early October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

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 APRIL AND EARLY MAY 2008 FORUM COMMENTARY ON THE NUGGETS, ESPECIALLY ABOUT THEIR MISTAKES

The following comments were being made while the Nuggets were being blown out by the Lakers 4 games to zero in the 2008 playoffs.
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Lakers 14 Nuggets 5 in first 4 1/2 minutes of the third. Lakers are overloading the interior and shutting down the Nuggets because the Nuggets are hardly trying to do anything from outside.
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A frustrated Kenyon Martin, who lost the ball to Derek Fisher in the paint, gets his 4th foul half way through the third when he elbows Fisher to the floor. He was lucky not to get a flagrant.
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8-0 run for the Nuggets as they go to the zone and the Lakers are not able to immediately adjust. Jackson lumbers off his perch and calls the t/o. 69-59 Lakers 4:39 left in the 3rd.
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End of the 3rd: Lakers 83 Nuggets 64 = ROUT

The Nuggets offense is too flimsy to be able to overcome the Lakers defense.

Which team blundered there way out of contention worse: the Suns or the Nuggets? If the Suns and Nuggets had maximized instead of minimizing their chances, they could have met in the Western Conference Final this year.
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Announcers are claiming the Nuggets did not have enough intensity. How intense can you be if you suspect you have not been given the correct instructions on how to beat the Lakers? The Nuggets look like a bunch of frightened animals out there in all honesty. To say they are lacking in confidence and real belief that they could beat the Lakers would be an understatement.
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The Lakers were only the 7th best defense this year adjusted for pace and the complete collapse of the Nuggets offense in this game was not due entirely or even mostly to the Lakers defense. The Nuggets have enough weapons to do well against the 7th best defense, but to say they didn't use their weapons well would be an understatement.

The depths to which Carmelo Anthony has sunk in this game are truly amazing and disturbing to say the least. Anthony has clearly been negatively affected by the sum total of the management of the Nuggets this year. He followed instructions, and ended up with nothing to show for it.

AI gets benched, but was he benched mostly for not distributing the ball properly? Most likely not, because most likely he was not directed to get a minimum number of assists despite getting the start at PG.
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In a little glimpse of what could have made for a different series, Nene was 2/2 and played well defensively in 11 1/2 minutes.
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There have been three routs/near routs so far. If there is a fourth, then I believe I am correct in claiming that the average NBA owner/front office combination would relieve GK of his duties, allowing him to coach another team next year based on his marathon resume, or get him to retire, whichever he prefers.

If the Nuggets lose big again in game 4, and GK comes back for yet another year of miseries, it would prove that the Nuggets are not yet a full scale, totally serious NBA franchise.
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This is the ultimate take down of George Karl. You simply must check it out:

Ultimate Take Down of George Karl Part 1
Ultimate Take Down of George Karl Part 2
Ultimate Take Down of George Karl Part 3
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If anyone can, please explain why Karl should not be fired for even just the following single reason. In the regular season, he swore by Anthony Carter at point guard and refused to consider anyone else at the position. Then in the playoffs, all of a sudden Carter wasn't good enough, and in came Allen Iverson.

Since Karl apparently strenuously disagrees with the importance that most other coaches place in the role of the point guard, and since he never instructed Iverson to pass more and shoot less even after he was designated as PG for the playoffs, Iverson did not shoot less and pass more after being so designated. All Karl did was ask for ALL Nuggets to shoot less and pass more, which seems more and more asinine the more you think of it. In effect, Karl was asking for the rest of the team to make up for the fact that he does not believe in the importance of the PG role, and/or to make up for his inability to select the right player for the position.

In fact, adding injury to insult, but in an appropriate knock to the face of Karl, Iverson actually made substantially fewer assists per playoff game while designated the PG, 4.5, than he made per regular season game, 7.1, while supposedly playing shooting guard! That is beyond screwed up my friends.

Now if a pro football coach deserted his regular season quarterback and put in a new quarterback for the playoffs, and the playoff quarterback was a miserable failure in that role, and his team was routed 45-6, which is the equivalent of what happened to the Nuggets, would that coach not be fired immediately? Of course, he would be fired so quickly he wouldn't know what hit him.

The way the Nuggets offense was managed this season was nothing short of madness. It was worse than last year, and it made a mockery of the concept of the role of the point guard. If Karl doesn't think that positions in general and the point guard position in particular have significance, than why doesn't he lobby for the elimination of positions in official basketball records and statistics?

So all you closet Karl defenders, explain why he should not be fired for gross negligence.
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You have to learn to walk before you can run and the Nuggets didn't even know how to walk this year. In other words, you can't have an offense where numerous players are good at finding the open man when you haven't even established one PG who is reliably good at it. Karl had no "scheme" at all that made any sense, he failed to understand the importance of the PG position for a team that obviously does not have the passing skills of the Spurs, he failed to choose the best man to play the point in the regular season, and then he finally chose the best man available to run the point in the playoffs when it was way too late.

Karl made a mockery of the concept of offense management. Moreover, he is at this point mocking the Nuggets franchise and the city of Denver by avoiding being forced to retire despite these and many, many other errors and shortcomings.

Every year the Nuggets have one or more players who should be ready to play in the playoffs but are not. Last year it was Smith and Kleiza. This year it was Atkins and Nene. There was time for at least one of those two to be reworked into the rotation, but Karl kept swearing that Carter was good enough at PG and he kept overplaying Camby/Martin instead of bringing in Nene. At least partly and most likely largely as a result, the Nuggets were destroyed on both offense and defense in the series.

We now know that Karl can not possibly get himself fired, because if all he did and didn't do this year is not enough, nothing will ever be enough to get him retired or fired.
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You need A point guard on a team like the Nuggets. The Nuggets are loaded up with players who like to score in isolation. They don't have hardly any players who like to help teammates score more than they like to score themselves. It doesn't have to be a pure point guard. It doesn't have to be a point guard that everyone agrees has a good style. It doesn't have to be a high scoring point guard. It doesn't have to be a low scoring point guard. It doesn't have to be any point guard in particular except that it has to be someone who is responsible for keeping the passing game alive and someone who is responsible for preventing what the Nuggets became, which is a very easy to defend team of players who are usually in shoot first, shoot second and shoot third desperation mode.

Karl swore by Carter and then deserted him for the playoffs and in effect was left with no point guard. The Lakers made him pay through the teeth for that:

PLAYOFF SERIES ASSISTS
Game 1 Lakers 33 Nuggets 20
Game 2 Lakers 33 Nuggets 12
Game 3 Lakers 26 Nuggets 22
Game 4 Lakers 20 Nuggets 20

The Nuggets are supposed to average about 25 assists a game at their pace, or 100 assists in 4 games. They made 74 assists instead of 100 or 110 or 120. What would you expect when it ended up that no one had primary responsibility to keep the passing game going?

Is it too much to ask of Mr. Karl to provide a qualified point guard for his team? He could have had Atkins ready. He could have stuck with Carter. He could have designated AI on or before March 1. For god's sake, he could have put in Taurean Green. The point is, he didn't do a damn thing about the need for at least one player to be responsible for keeping the passing game going.
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As for the Lakers, if they lose a playoff series, it will probably be because Derek Fisher is not a championship team caliber PG, whereas Chris Paul, Tony Parker, and possibly Rajon Rondo are.

For that matter, the Jazz PG Williams is championship caliber, so the Lakers could possibly be upset by them.

On the surface, it might seem that the Lakers are trying to do what the Nuggets did in the regular season, which is rely on the 2-guard to get a lot of assists and keep the passing game going. But the first thing and the most obnoxious thing to realize is that the Nuggets abandoned their own strategy and substituted almost nothing for it. They took out Carter and put in a near 0-assist swingman at the 2-guard, Linas Kleiza. Now Iverson was the only guard who could be relied on to make plays in the game, but he still had no direct responsibility for it.

Aside from this fiasco, even before the Nuggets self-destructed their lineup, Derek Fisher was somewhat more reliable than Anthony Carter as the designated but partial PG. Second, Kobe Bryant makes for at least a slightly more effective playmaking 2-guard than does Iverson, due to years of Iverson having almost no responsibility at all for passing. Finally, the Lakers have very few near 0-assists a game forwards and centers, with Turiaf and Bynum pretty much it, and Bynum was out of the picture. But the Nuggets had 4 active forwards and centers in the series who are poor at playmaking: Kleiza, Martin, Najera, and Nene (if he ever plays).

Under Karl's scheme and directions, the Nuggets had very little playmaking capability on the court at all. It is a tribute to the Nuggets who played that they made 74 assists in 4 games, because it could have been much worse; it could easily have been 60 assists or even fewer.
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At least one Denver newspaper sportswriter got it right:

Tell Iverson he is the Nuggets' full-time point guard, expected to average a dozen assists a game and a dozen fewer shots a game, and elevate J.R. Smith to starting shooting guard. Smith was the leading scorer in the last game. Camby, who will be 35 next season and is beginning to decline, will have to be jettisoned, and with the loss of free agent Najera, the Nuggets could add a big body.

I added this:

Wow, finally, 2 weeks after the Nuggets are exposed as an overrated, disfunctional winning is just a fantasy type of team, one lonely, solitary Denver sportswriter recommends this. I guess it's better than never, but not by a whole lot, really.

The 50 game win regular season was very deceptive because the Nuggets were at least +3 games in lucky wins over unclucky losses, meaining their true regular season after that adjustment was 47-35. Furthermore, they had a net of about +6 games where the opponent was back to back on the road in Denver over games where the Nuggets were back to back on the road. Those games are extremely difficult for the road team to win. Only roughly 1 in 8 of those games are won by the road team. If you take away, say, 3 of those, the Nuggets were actually 44-38 this season. Let's face it, that's what the average NBA fan really thinks that the Nuggets were this year, a 44-38 team. Denver fans and sportswriters are largely living in a dream world if they think that the Nuggets had a truly great regular season.

Denver needs real basketball fans who are not satisfied with mediocrity or failure dressed up as moderate success. If they ever got enough of them, then I assume some real basketball writers would eventually follow. Most importantly, sooner or later a real coaching staff would arrive as well.
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Regarding the Nuggets post playoff blowout exploration of the possibility of trading Carmelo Anthony:

Well they won't snap out of it unless they stop worshiping George Karl or unless C. Anthony says something, anything in public regarding changing the management of the Nuggets, even if it's not to the extent of demanding new coaches. Melo is too mellow about the situation, and, even worse, it appears that he doesn't understand that Karl heavily favors AI over himself, meaning that he is NOT officially even the co-captain of the Nuggets, let alone the captain.

When Anthony is silent, it creates the impression that he doesn't think anything is wrong with the management of the team or with Iverson being the sole captain. Then that raises a conspiracy theory that Anthony has asked to be traded or at least is secretly hoping to be traded, which in turn would explain his relatively poor Lakers playoff series.
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DENVER NUGGETS 2007-08 REGULAR SEASON REAL PLAYER RATINGS
(Raw ESPN player ratings / minutes)
1 Carmelo Anthony, Den SF 1.091
2 Allen Iverson, Den SG 0.978
3 J.R. Smith, Den SG 0.938
4 Marcus Camby, Den C 0.914
5 Kenyon Martin, Den PF 0.777
6 Linas Kleiza, Den SF 0.762
7 Nene Hilario, Den PF 0.723
8 Anthony Carter, Den PG 0.704
9 Eduardo Najera, Den PF 0.636
10 Taurean Green, Den PG 0.636
11 Bobby Jones, Den SG 0.607
12 Steven Hunter, Den C 0.587
13 Chucky Atkins, Den PG 0.575
14 Yakhouba Diawara, Den SG 0.495

ADJUSTMENT FOR DEFENDING
Made them miss defending is specifically how many shots would have gone in the basket that do not go in due to a player's defending of shooters. While steals and blocks are included in the real player rating, made them miss man to man defending is not. So players who can read offensive attacks, anticipate, rotate, hustle, and get in the face of shooters to prevent scores are disadvantaged slightly in the regular real player rating performance measure. There is no precise measurement system for made them miss defending in existence, because it is impossible to know exactly how many shots a player such as Kenyon Martin stops from going in the basket. So I decided to create an overall scale whose range is my best estimate of how important the made them miss factor is, and then rate all the players in equal increments along that scale. If one or more players are considered about equal in made them miss defending, then their adjustment factor is the average of the sum of the adjustment factors assigned to their ranks. These are the adjustments I think are the most accurate:


RNK PLAYER, TEAM POS ADJUSTMENT
1 Carmelo Anthony, Den SF -0.08
2 Marcus Camby, Den C 0.09
3 Kenyon Martin, Den PF 0.13
4 Allen Iverson, Den SG -0.08
5 J.R. Smith, Den SG -0.05
6 Nene Hilario, Den PF 0.11
7 Linas Kleiza, Den SF -0.01
8 Eduardo Najera, Den PF 0.05
9 Anthony Carter, Den PG -0.03
10 Bobby Jones, Den SG 0.05
11 Steven Hunter, Den C 0.01
12 Yakhouba Diawara, Den SG 0.05
13 Taurean Green, Den PG -0.11
14 Chucky Atkins, Den PG -0.13

Now for the 2007-08 Real Player Ratings adjusted for made them miss defending:
DENVER NUGGETS 2007-08 REAL PLAYER RATINGS ADJUSTED FOR MADE THEM MISS DEFENDING
(Raw ESPN player ratings plus or minus made them miss defending adjustment / minutes)
1 Carmelo Anthony, Den SF 1.011
2 Marcus Camby, Den C 1.004
3 Kenyon Martin, Den PF 0.907
4 Allen Iverson, Den SG 0.898
5 J.R. Smith, Den SG 0.888
6 Nene Hilario, Den PF 0.833
7 Linas Kleiza, Den SF 0.752
8 Eduardo Najera, Den PF 0.686
9 Anthony Carter, Den PG 0.674
10 Bobby Jones, Den SG 0.657
11 Steven Hunter, Den C 0.597
12 Yakhouba Diawara, Den SG 0.545
13 Taurean Green, Den PG 0.526
14 Chucky Atkins, Den PG 0.445
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NUGGETS RANKED BY HOW MUCH THEY GOT BETTER OR WORSE IN 2007-08 (extracted from the above)
1 J.R. Smith, Den SG 0.147
2 Linas Kleiza, Den SF 0.118
3 Yakhouba Diawara, Den SG 0.115
4 Bobby Jones, Den SG 0.074
5 Allen Iverson, Den SG 0.049
6 Eduardo Najera, Den PF 0.007
7 Steven Hunter, Den C 0.006
8 Carmelo Anthony, Den SF 0.005
9 Marcus Camby, Den C -0.045
10 Nene Hilario, Den PF -0.146
11 Chucky Atkins, Den PG -0.218
12 Kenyon Martin, Den PF N/A
13 Anthony Carter, Den PG N/A
14 Taurean Green, Den PG N/A

Most improved Nugget: J.R. Smith
Other big improvements: Linas Kleiza and Yakhouba Diawara
Honorable mention: Bobby Jones
Substantially Better Despite High Base: Allen Iverson
Treaded Water: No Better, But No Worse Either: Carmelo Anthony, Eduardo Najera, Steven Hunter
Slightly Worse From a High Base: Marcus Camby
Biggest disappointment: Chucky Atkins
Other big disappointment: Nene

For reference, a reminder of the actual 2007-08 real player ratings of these players:

1 Carmelo Anthony, Den SF 1.091
2 Allen Iverson, Den SG 0.978
3 J.R. Smith, Den SG 0.938
4 Marcus Camby, Den C 0.914
5 Kenyon Martin, Den PF 0.777
6 Linas Kleiza, Den SF 0.762
7 Nene Hilario, Den PF 0.723
8 Anthony Carter, Den PG 0.704
9 Eduardo Najera, Den PF 0.636
10 Taurean Green, Den PG 0.636
11 Bobby Jones, Den SG 0.607
12 Steven Hunter, Den C 0.587
13 Chucky Atkins, Den PG 0.575
14 Yakhouba Diawara, Den SG 0.495
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The Coach's Demand for a Player (CDP) is minutes per game divided by real player rating. What follows is technically ACDP (Adjusted Coach's Demand for Players) because I am using the real player ratings adjusted for made them miss defending.

ACDP is a measure of how much a coach plays a player relative to that player's real performance. In theory, on a perfectly coached team, the best 9 or even the best 10 players on a team should have approximately the same ACDP, at least within about 10% of each other anyway. Actual statistics suggest the following evaluation scale for this:

SCALE FOR THE 10 PLAYERS WITH THE MOST PLAYING TIME
51 > Player has been insanely overplayed
45-51 Player has been very or extremely overplayed
40-45 Player has been overplayed
36-40 Player has been slightly overplayed
30-36 Midrange--Theoretically Optimal
26-30 Player has been slightly underplayed
22-26 Player has been underplayed
18-22 Player has been very or extremely underplayed
< 18 Player has been insanely underplayed

NUGGETS 2007-08 COACH'S DEMAND FOR PLAYERS
PRIMARY PLAYERS USUALLY PART OF NORMAL ROTATION
1 Allen Iverson, Den SG 46.52 Very Overplayed
2 Anthony Carter, Den PG 41.57 Overplayed
3 Marcus Camby, Den C 34.76 Optimal
4 Kenyon Martin, Den PF 33.63 Optimal
5 Carmelo Anthony, Den SF 33.37 Optimal
6 Chucky Atkins, Den PG 32.78 Optimal
7 Linas Kleiza, Den SF 31.80 Optimal
8 Eduardo Najera, Den PF 31.22 Optimal
9 J.R. Smith, Den SG 21.63 Very underplayed
10 Nene Hilario, Den PF 19.93 Extremely underplayed

Ratio between #1 Iverson and #9 Smith: 2.15

SECONDARY PLAYERS NOT USUALLY PART OF NORMAL ROTATION
11 Yakhouba Diawara, Den SG 18.53
12 Bobby Jones, Den SG 13.55
13 Steven Hunter, Den C 10.55
14 Taurean Green, Den PG 6.27

The much lower numbers among the secondary players are normal and inevitable, because even coaches who make excellent use of their bench such as Greg Popovich and Phil Jackson do not try to put more than 10 or at the very most 11 players into the usual rotation.

George Karl and company had 6 players exactly correct in terms of playing time, but they badly missed the mark on the 4 others among the 10 Nuggets who were usually in the regular rotation. The only very overplayed Nugget was Allen Iverson, who was designated as team captain by Karl and was given free reign to divide his efforts between the two guard positions as he wished. PG Anthony Carter was overplayed, but it was not anywhere near as ridiculous as Karl's overplaying of PG Steve Blake in 2006-07, mostly because Carter was much better than expected and was actually better than Blake if the truth were told.

Two Nuggets in the primary rotation were heavily underplayed, or cheated of playing time if you prefer: J.R. Smith and Nene. Since Nene's season was filled with a major cancer scare and other injuries, I guess Mr. Karl and company get a pass on his seriously deficient minutes. But the Denver coaches do not get a waiver on their serious underplaying of J.R. Smith, a substantial chunk of whose minutes were taken by the less productive Anthony Carter and by the overworked Allen Iverson. Compared with Smith, Carter was given almost twice as much playing time per performance rating and Iverson was given more than twice as much.

As time permits, I will be doing these reviews for the teams who clearly have better coaches than the Nuggets and the results to prove it, such as the Lakers and the Pistons. We'll see whether coaches such as Popovich, Saunders, and Jackson have ratios between their most favored and their least favored players anywhere near as much as the more than 2.0 ratio put out by Karl.

I must say though, regardless of how Karl will compare to other coaches on this, he ended up doing somewhat better this year than last year on playing times, when he was even more wildly off the mark.