Allen Iverson's 2006 Interview on the ESPN show "Quite Frankly" with Stephen A. Smith

The Massive Rout, Nuggets 138 Supersonics 96, and the Massive Point Guard Blunder

The Nuggets, having dropped back into a course toward the 9th seed in the West following 3 straight losses, took out their frustrations on the tired, kind of banged up, and definitely rebuilding Seattle Supersonics. The final score of this laugher was the Nuggets 138 and the Sonics 96. But the fans, who are generous and intelligent Great Northwest types, never booed their rebuilding Sonics, and you can bet if there is any way to stop the Oklahoma guy from moving their team, the Great Northwest folks will find it and keep their Sonics where they are.

The historic blowout gave the Nuggets the highest point total of any team in any game so far this year. Also, the Nuggets set a new franchise shooting accuracy record. The Nuggets made 59/88 shots, or 67.0%, eclipsing the previous franchise record of 66.7% against New Jersey early in the 1978 season. Denver also bettered the 66.2 percent shooting of the Lakers earlier this season, the previous best in the league. The highest scoring game before Wednesday night came when the Suns scored 137. Guess which team had the 137 points scored against it? It was the Nuggets, of course. Being a fan of the Nuggets means you are going to take a ride on the biggest roller coaster in the NBA.

Anthony did not get the ball anywhere near as much as he usually does, but Anthony’s number one skill, scoring, was not needed very much in a game against a tired and banged up rebuilding team with a very poor defense. And Anthony has an informal tradition of taking it easy in obvious routs, and also of encouraging his teammates to have the kind of big offensive games that they seldom have. This is what he used to do at Syracuse University. Anthony has always been misunderstood by those who did not see him play in Syracuse as having a tendency to be selfish, or being too obsessed about scoring.

Seattle Coach P.J. Carlissimo summed up the game this way: “We didn’t defend at all.” The Nuggets know a team that is not defending when they see one. They can immediately spot one since they themselves occasionally decide to play a game where “they don’t defend at all.”

The Sonics were missing two fairly important players, PG Earl Watson and PG Luke Ridnour, who did nothing in the 1st half due to a hamstring strain and did not return for the 2nd half. The Sonics have only 2 point guards on their team right now, and since 2-2=0, the Sonics didn’t have any point guards with which to play this game.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets are overloaded with point guards, even though many fans are convinced the PG position is going to be the death of the Nuggets in the playoffs, assuming they beat out either the Warriors or the no-Yao Rockets for the 8th and final playoff slot in the West. The reason for the confusion is that, while many fans are locked into the traditional, establishment view that Allen Iverson has never been so he can never be the designated starting point guard, the truth is that Iverson is playing both of the guard positions this season, and the designated point guard, Anthony Carter, simply fades into the background and becomes almost useless whenever Iverson takes charge of much or most of the ball distribution duties.

Despite the fact that there are a large number of Nuggets fans who would rather face the headless horseman than A.I. officially at the point, Iverson has actually been the effective point guard in numerous games already this year. Even George Karl, who of course as usual is on the side opposing my view, has in fact started A.I. at the point several times this season, especially back in November after Atkins was injured and before Carter started playing for the Nuggets. Karl is not opposed to Iverson playing PG; he’s just opposed to admitting that Iverson plays a lot of PG, because then he would have to explain why the heck the Nuggets often have two point guards on the court at the same time. Karl is good at getting into technical team management mistakes as he runs the Nuggets, and he is also good at keeping them hidden and escaping having to explain them. In other words, he is good at living in falsehoods.

In games in which Iverson has made 10 or more assists, the Nuggets are 11-1. The only loss was to the Jazz in overtime on Feb. 6, despite 10 assists by Iverson. In games in which Anthony Carter has made 10 or more assists, the Nuggets are 6-1. Iverson is ahead of Carter in the number of double digit dimes games 12-7.

In games in which Iverson had made 8 or more assists, the Nuggets are 19-7. In games in which Carter had made 8 or more assists, the Nuggets are 12-3. Iverson is ahead of Carter in games of 8 or more assists, 26-15. But the Nuggets have won 80% of games in which Carter has made 8 or more assists, and only 73% of games in which Iverson has made 8 or more assists, which is the reverse of what I expected to find. But Iverson’s winning percentage with 8 or more assists is certainly not grossly lower than Carter’s.

But here is where it gets really interesting, fasten your seatbelts, please. There have been 14 games in which Carter has made more assists than Iverson, and there have been 41 games in which Iverson has made more assists than Carter. 12 of those 41 games were before Carter was brought on to the Nuggets. So while both Carter and Iverson have been on the team, Iverson has made more assists than Carter 29 times and Carter has made more assists than Iverson 14 times.

Overall so far this season, Iverson is averaging 7.3 assists per game and Carter is averaging 6.1 assists per game. With February drawing to a close, there have now been 3 full months in which both Carter and Iverson have been on the team. Of those months, there has only been one month when Carter averaged more assists per game than Iverson, which was January. In December, it was 7.1 assists per game for Iverson and 5.1 assists per game for Carter. In January, it was 7.6 assists per game for Carter and 6.5 assists per game for Iverson. And now in February, it has been 8.8 assists per game for Iverson to 5.6 assists per game for Carter.

During February, a wide gap has opened up between Iverson and Carter, and this is why I was forced to go the extent I have to explain the situation and the big mistake I have discovered that has been made by Karl and by a substantial number of fans. I used to think that the whether Iverson should start at the point debate was just one of those typical sports arguments, but then I realized I had stumbled on to a big blunder that has emerged from this situation.

Now let’s take a look at the winning and losing:

14 Games in which Carter made more assists than Iverson: Nuggets are 8-6 or 57%;
29 Games in which Iverson has made more assists than Carter: 16-13 or 55%.

Once again, I have been prevented from making a really slam dunk argument, which I would have been able to do had the Iverson winning percentage been greater than the Carter percentage. However, I have at least shown once again that it is irrational to think that Iverson can not win as many games for the Nuggets when he is the main point guard as Carter can. And just as importantly, I have exposed for the entire world to see that the Nuggets are living the George Karl lie regarding their point guard situation, because Iverson has been more of a point guard than Carter has been for two of the three months when both were starting, with the gap in February opening up wide in favor of Iverson.

When you live a lie, you usually suffer damages. For the Nuggets, during February, the damage has been that Carter has become dangerously useless on the court, at least while playing alongside Iverson, as Iverson has wisely decided to concentrate on distributing more than at almost any time in his career. Carter’s recent slump is no accident; it was a direct result of his point guard duties being partly taken over by Iverson.

So a wide gap has opened up in February, where Iverson has averaged 8.8 assists per game and Carter has averaged 5.6 assists per game. The bad news, as I already mentioned, is that Carter has become of little value out there when Iverson is also out there. The good news is only a potential, but it could be huge if the potential became reality. We can only hope that the reason Iverson is looking for more assists than ever is that he remembers the number one reason why the Nuggets lost 4 straight games to the Spurs in the playoffs last year, which was that Iverson was dribbling and shooting too much and distributing too little. In fairness to both Iverson and Karl regarding the Spurs disaster, it should be noted that the Carter role last year was being played by Steve Blake, who was a much more experienced NBA point guard than Carter is this year, so the chance that Iverson would take over actual point guard duties from Blake was never as likely as the chance that Iverson would take over actual point guard duties from Carter this year. If Iverson does continue to take over a large part of the passing for scores, the Nuggets could theoretically be setting themselves up for a first round shocker, where they would take the series to 7 games.

Before we leave this extremely important subject, let’s take a close look at last year:

2007-08 Nuggets: Iverson 7.3 assists per game; Carter 6.1 assists per game.
2006-07 Nuggets: Iverson 7.2 assists per game; Blake 6.6 assists per game.

Here we see that Iverson had almost the exact same number of assists last year as this year, while last year’s designated starting point guard made half an assist more per game than this year’s designated point guard. Now let’s take a look at the Spurs series:

IVERSON AND BLAKE ASSISTS IN THE NUGGETS/SPURS PLAYOFF SERIES
Game 1 Iverson 5 Blake 3; Nuggets 95 Spurs 89
Game 2 Iverson 5 Blake 7; Spurs 97 Nuggets 88
Game 3 Iverson 4 Blake 7; Spurs 96 Nuggets 91
Game 4 Iverson 7 Blake 4; Spurs 96 Nuggets 89
Game 5 Iverson 8 Blake 2; Spurs 93 Nuggets 78

Here we see that Iverson made more assists than did Blake in the one and only game that the Nuggets won. Overall, the Nuggets were 1-2 in games in which Iverson made more assists than Blake, and they were 0-2 in games in which Blake made more assists than Iverson. But game 5 was a rout in San Antonio after the Nuggets’ spirit was broken, and after a key player, J.R. Smith, was benched. Quite frankly, the Nuggets most likely knew in advance that they were almost certainly going to lose that game. And there was no way that the Spurs were going to lose that game at home and have to return to Denver for a game 6. So if you don’t count that hopeless game, in games in which Iverson made more assists than Blake, the Nuggets were 1-1, and they were 0-2 in games in which Blake made more assists than Iverson. Therefore, there is some evidence from the Nuggets-Spurs series in support of my theory that Iverson playing point guard and being responsible for getting the most assists of all Nuggets is better for the Nuggets then if Iverson is not playing point guard and is not responsible in that way.

I wish there had also been regular season evidence to go with this limited evidence. You can bet that I will be continuing to watch this closely in the final weeks of this season, looking for more evidence.

I am sure the truth is that the Nuggets are better off to the extent that Iverson does take over the actual point guard duties from Carter, unless Karl stubbornly continues to refuse to reduce Carter’s playing time, in which case it is probably a wash. I have proved that Iverson is at least as good as Carter with respect to basic point guard duties. Since Iverson scores at practically double the rate that Carter scores, and since he would still score a lot more than Carter does if he were the designated point guard, and since Iverson’s turnovers would be only very slightly more than now if he was the designated point guard, because he would be handling the ball hardly any more than he already does, to me it is a now a no-brainer that Iverson should be the starting point guard.

Iverson, I am starting to hope based on the February games, is smart enough to know that (1) He can’t do what he did last year in the Spurs series and expect to win and that (2) No matter what Karl and a substantial number of fans think, he can and should take over many of the point guard duties from Carter who ironically, almost everyone, including those afraid of Iverson at the point, believes will be close to a disaster in the playoffs.

In a word, it seems to me that Iverson has started to coach himself.

PROJECTIONS

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 65%. The Nuggets are projected to be the 8th seed in the Western Conference. The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that, most likely, neither Nene nor Atkins are going to be available to and in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run, so the real odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs are probably around 50-55% now.

The Lakers, the Hornets, the Spurs, the Mavericks, the Jazz, the Suns, and the Rockets are currently considered virtual locks to make the playoffs.

The Warriors are projected to have a good winning record, but miss the postseason. The odds that the Warriors will make the playoffs are currently 51%, substantially less than the Nuggets’ 65%.

Meanwhile, the Rockets have just lost their best player, and one of the best players in the NBA, Yao Ming, for the rest of the season. Therefore, they may drop far below their current projection, since the projections do not take injuries into account. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Rockets will finish with the 9th seed, in which case both the Nuggets and the Warriors will make the playoffs.

For the Nuggets, winning the Northwest Division is very unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 17%, The Nuggets would most likely have to beat the Jazz in both of their remaining games against them, both of which are in Salt Lake City, in order to have a shot at winning the Northwest.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (sports hernia) on Jan. 9 and underwent successful surgery on Jan. 11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least March 10. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by late March.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first week of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Eduardo Najera: did not travel with the team to Seattle on 2/27 (personal reasons)

SUPERSONICS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Earl Watson: Sat out this game due to an unknown illness. He may miss the Sonics game vs. Miami on February 29. He is considered day to day.
Robert Swift: An MRI on the injured right knee revealed a torn meniscus. He is out for the season.
Luke Ridnour: Did not play in the second half of this game after he experienced some tightness in his right hamstring. He is considered day to day.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 28, 2008

The Nuggets are under a YELLOW ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND LEAVES
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Eduardo Najera 12 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 0 points.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 2 points.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The choice varies during each game, and usually depends on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader, as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. More important than whether a zone or man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 7 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 53, which constitutes YELLOW ALERT.

YELLOW ALERT (40-54): Minor damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under medium threat. Beating quality teams is much more difficult and will be pretty rare. About 1/2 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is a little more difficult. About 1/4 of games that would be wins against mid-level teams will now be losses. Beating low level teams is still relatively easy, but no longer almost a sure bet. A good team has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
A rough estimate of the Sonics’ alert status is that they were in high GREY or low YELLOW alert status while, as you can see, the NUGGETS were in high YELLOW alert. So the Sonics had approximately a one level advantage as far as the alert status is concerned. Obviously, that advantage was not all that much help.

In a game against a tired team with little defense available, the Nuggets’ offensive deficiencies were meaningless. J.R. Smith got to play as many minutes as he should be playing in ordinary games, thanks to garbage time, where he was sort of the leader of the pack of rarely seen Nuggets players.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more days and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for most or all of the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 10 Supersonics 12
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 7 Supersonics 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 44
Supersonics Non-Starters Points: 39

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 13
Supersonics Non-Starters Rebounds: 22

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 8
Supersonics Non-Starters Assists: 8

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
Coach P.J. Carlissimo played all but one player he had available between the regular game and the garbage time. Coach George Karl of the Nuggets played every single Nugget who was available; there are only 10 Nuggets available these days.

Amazingly, the Supersonics non-starters were very close to the Nuggets in points, 39-44, and they were much better in rebounding, 22-13. Each group of non-starters made 8 assists.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. While some are biased in favor of offensive players, such as the efficiency measure at the NBA site, many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player, which I think is a very good balance between offense and defense:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS-SUPERSONICS PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 51.4 Season 41.1
Marcus Camby: Game 43.5 Season 33.2
Kenyon Martin: Game 41.2 Season 22.8
Anthony Carter: Game 40.6 Season 20.9
Carmelo Anthony: Game 28.8 Season 39.0
Linas Kleiza: Game 25.2 Season 19.1
J.R. Smith: Game 23.1 Season 15.7
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 14.4 Season 5.3
Taurean Green: Game 9.1 Season 3.8
Steven Hunter: Game 8.8 Season 4.7

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Eduardo Najera: Did Not Play-Personal Leave

SUPERSONICS PLAYER RATINGS
Johan Petro: Game 28.9 Season 10.3
Mickael Gelabale: Game 26.4 Season 7.1
Kevin Durant: Game 20.5 Season 26.6
Jeff Green: Game 15.6 Season 15.3
Damien Wilkins: Game 14.4 Season 15.4
Chris Wilcox: Game 12.3 Season 22.4
Nick Collison: Game 11.9 Season 21.7
Donyell Marshall: Game 8.6 Season 6.8
Francisco Elson: Game 4.2 Season 7.2
Luke Ridnour: Game 3.6 Season 12.7
Adrian Griffin: Game 1.2 Season 4.7
Ira Newble: Game 0.6 Season 7.9

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Every single Nugget except one stepped up in this monumental rout. Ironically, only Anthony was below his seasonal average..

Martin was a monster on both offense and defense in this game. Neither Iverson nor Camby had any mercy for the Sonics either, as both of them were about 1/4 more productive than they usually are.

Anthony Carter took full advantage of the opportunity to come out of his slump and have a huge game. It was his 1st above normal game since the Celtics game. He was well below normal in the 3 games in between. Carter tends to do poorly when the Nuggets are going to lose, and he tends to do well when the Nuggets are going to win a game.

Kleiza and Smith were both well above normal, Smith more so than Kleiza.

Every one of the garbage time players, Diawara, Green, and Hunter, were playing as if their life depended on it. And their basketball life certainly depended on it, since they are playing for George Karl after all, who is one of the stingiest coaches in the NBA regarding playing time for reserves.

The startling thing about the Sonics is that the highest seasonal average player they had on the court in this game was G-F Kevin Durant, whose average is well under 30, at 26.6. AI and Melo are half again as much as that, and Camby is much higher as well. The Nuggets have paid a huge price to assemble this team with it’s 3 mega stars, and it is a shame that fans are sweating whether they will make the playoffs or not.

C Johan Petro and SF Mickael Gelabale came out of nowhere to lead the Sonics. Petro was almost 3 times and Gelabale was almost 4 times as productive as usual. Durant played relatively poorly, while SF Green and G-F Wilkins were dead center on their seasonal norms.

F-C Wilcox and F-C Collison were major disappointments for Seattle, which left their front court devastated.
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REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Extremely Poor-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-SUPERSONICS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 1.600…Diawara played only 9 minutes.
2. Taurean Green, Den 1.517…Green played only 6 minutes.
3. Allen Iverson, Den 1.469
4. Steven Hunter, Den 1.467…Hunter played only 6 minutes.
5. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.329
6. Marcus Camby, Den 1.176
7. Anthony Carter, Den 1.068
8. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.050
9. J.R. Smith, Den 1.004
10. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.960
11. Donyell Marshall, Sea 0.956…Marshall played only 9 minutes.
12. Mickael Gelabale, Sea 0.943
13. Johan Petro, Sea 0.903
14. Nick Collison, Sea 0.700
15. Francisco Elson, Sea 0.700…Elson played only 6 minutes.
16. Damien Wilkins, Sea 0.686
17. Kevin Durant, Sea 0.603
18. Jeff Green, Sea 0.473
19. Chris Wilcox, Sea 0.373
20. Luke Ridnour, Sea 0.212
21. Adrian Griffin, Sea 0.200…Griffin played only 6 minutes
22. Ira Newble, Sea 0.100…Newble played only 6 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Can you be a star or a superstar in garbage time? Of course, I am always on the lookout for superstar performances, even in garbage time. All 3 of the Nuggets’ garbage time only players were huge, but their minutes were very limited. Diawara was a superstar plus, while Green and Hunter were superstars.

Iverson was a superstar in the regular part of the game. Martin was a star-plus, and Camby, Carter, and Kleiza were all stars. In a game so extremely lopsided that you might not see one like it anywhere in the NBA for years to come, all 8 of the stars and up players were Nuggets.

There were 5 outstanding players, C Petro, SF Gelabale, and SF Marshall in limited minutes for the Sonics, and Smith and Anthony for the Nuggets. So the Nuggets had 10 of the 13 players who were outstanding or better.

This was total, perfect domination for the Nuggets over the Sonics, because the best Sonics’ player, which was SF Marshall, or else SF Gelabale if you don’t count the small minute players, was not as good as the worst Nugget, which was Carmelo Anthony. In other words, every single Nugget was better than every single Sonic. This is something that you will very seldom, if ever, see again in your lifetime.

G-F Durant and G-F Wilkins were only mediocre. SF Green was very poor and F-C Wilcox was extremely poor. PG Ridnour was a total disaster because he had a major hamstring problem.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

J.R. Smith: +33
Anthony Carter: +32
Allen Iverson: +29
Marcus Camby: +27
Linas Kleiza: +26
Kenyon Martin: +25
Carmelo Anthony: +18

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
The Nuggets won by 42 points, so you are almost never going to see numbers this big on the plus-minus. Only Anthony had a little mercy on the Sonics.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Total 17, Team 0, Anthony 5, Camby 1, Carter 1, Diawara 0, Green 0, Hunter 0, Iverson 6, Kleiza 1, Martin 1, Smith 2

Personal Fouls: Total 16, Anthony 3, Camby 4, Carter 0, Diawara 1, Green 1, Hunter 0, Iverson 2, Kleiza 1, Martin 3, Smith 1

Carmelo Anthony played 30 minutes and was 7/13, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 16 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.

J.R. Smith played 23 minutes and was 6/9 and 3/5 on 3’s for 15 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 24 minutes and was 6/12, 2/4 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 15 points, and he made 3 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

Anthony Carter played 38 minutes and was 4/4, 1/1 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 12 points, and he made 12 assists, 4 steals, and 4 rebounds.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 6/9 for 12 points, and he made 14 rebounds, 5 blocks, 4 assists, and 2 steals.

Kenyon Martin played 31 minutes and was 11/14 and 1/2 from the line for 23 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Steven Hunter played 6 minutes and was 2/3 and 0/1 from the line for 4 points, and he made 3 rebounds and 1 block.

Allen Iverson played 35 minutes and was 13/18, 3/5 on 3’s, and 2/3 from the line for 31 points, and he made 6 assists, 5 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Taurean Green played 6 minutes and was 1/2 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 3 rebounds and 1 assist.

Yakhouba Diawara played 9 minutes and was 3/4 and 0/1 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 3 assists and 2 rebounds.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Friday, February 29 in Denver to play the Clippers at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Clippers will be playing on back to back nights.

The Nuggets' Two Point Guards Offense Fails Against the Pistons, 98-93

The Detroit Pistons’ starters played smart and tight basketball, and used lock down the paint defending and a well practiced and very well executed offense to defeat the Denver Nuggets in Denver 98-93. The Nuggets have now lost 3 in a row, and they are just 5-5 in their last 10 games, which is worse than every other contending team in the West except for the Hornets, who are also 5-5. The odds that they will make the playoffs are half and half at best, although the injury to Yao Ming might severely hurt Houston in the stretch run, to the point where they end up being the 9th seed in the West instead of the Nuggets.

Although the Nuggets executed without turning it over much, and they passed the ball around much more than during the road trip to Chicago and Milwaukee, the Pistons’ defense was enough to prevent them from shooting well enough to win. The Nuggets’ shooting was sharply limited to 36/89 or 36.0%. Why make it more complicated than it is? The Nuggets lost this game mostly because they couldn’t get the ball to go in the basket enough times.

The Nuggets at this point are in a rut where they try to correct mistakes from the previous game in the next one, which is both good and bad at the same time. It’s good, obviously, because it’s always good to correct your mistakes. But it’s bad in the sense that the capabilities and style of opponents can and did in this case radically change from one game to the next. The Pistons were the type of team that you get a lower payoff from by passing it around more, because almost every one of them is a good make you miss type of defender, and they rotate extremely well. To try to defeat a team like the Pistons, the Nuggets should have gone to the hoop more, especially Camby, Martin, and Kleiza. The Nuggets, who depend on in the paint scoring more than most teams, largely because they have poor 3-point shooting, scored just 34 of their 93 points in the paint.

The referees were not calling some of the Pistons’ fouls, and this deterred the Nuggets from driving to the hoop enough times for them to be able to win this game. However, the Nuggets overreacted to the relative lack of calls. Just because fouls are not being called as often as usual does not mean that they are not being called at all. The Pistons were called for 25 fouls, the Nuggets for only 14, and the Pistons would have been called for more fouls had the Nuggets been persistent at taking it to the rim. The additional free throws they would have gotten could have easily been enough for the Nuggets to win.

With more and more observers and fans joining Nuggets 1 and concluding that the Nuggets’ offense is not thought out well in advance, the Nuggets played their second straight game without clear direction from it’s point guards, and this was true even if you include Iverson as the effective point guard, though he was mostly playing the 2-spot. Of the Nuggets’ 25 assists, Iverson and Carter made 11, less than half.

The Nuggets get a lot of assists, because they score a lot of points, but they frequently don’t get a lot of assists when they most need them, when they are playing teams with tough defenses. Although the Nuggets passed the ball a lot and made a fairly impressive 25 assists in this game, the problem was that they were all over the map as to who was making those assists, indicating they were in effect playing more of a pick-up style and less of a professional style of basketball. At least 2 out of 3 between Martin, Camby, and Anthony should have been doing more scoring and less assisting in this game.

Think of this mess for a moment. If Iverson is really acting as the point guard out there, even when Carter and he are on the floor at the same time, the Nuggets in effect are running 2 players at the point and no one at the 2-spot. I doubt anyone in the history of basketball has ever contended that this could be good for an offense. Not only do you obviously not need two point guards, but it indicates a team that is disorganized offensively in general. Although most point guards are much better scorers than Anthony Carter is, they are rarely the best scorers on a team, so having two point guards, aside from not making any sense and from creating confusion on the offense, would also be shooting yourself in the foot on scoring.

And the Nuggets are actually practically shooting themselves in the head, because Carter is a poor scoring PG. In other words, to have Iverson and Carter on the court at the same time, while Iverson is in his point guard mode, makes Carter almost worthless out there. Yet another way to look at the mess is to point out that Iverson is, in effect, being called on to play two positions at once, PG and SG, something that even Michael Jordan was rarely if ever asked to do, simply because it doesn’t make any sense.

After the game, Iverson summed up the Nuggets’ offensive problems this way: “You can’t win in this League without team priorities.” A crucial team priority is getting it straight as to who is the main playmaker or pair of playmakers. He also said that in the last 3 games, “they wanted it more than we did.” The Nuggets will have to look themselves in the mirror to determine whether they are going to do anything about motivation. Could it be true that the Nuggets are not as motivated as they need to be, and as you would think they would be, in the quest for the ring?

In this report we will start out by showing key Nuggets’ guards performance measures, but what we are really driving for is to take a close look at the starting point guards for the best teams in the NBA, and to see how Anthony Carter and Allen Iverson match up with them.

DENVER NUGGETS GUARDS PRODUCTION PER 36 MINUTES

POINT GUARDS POINTS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 14.6 Season 9.2
Anthony Carter: Career 9.0 Season 9.6
Taurean Green: Career 13.9 Season 13.9
SHOOTING GUARDS POINTS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 23.9 Season 22.5
J.R. Smith: Career 17.4 Season 20.3
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 8.9 Season 9.3

POINT GUARDS FIELD GOAL SHOOTING %
Chucky Atkins: Career .415 Season .228
Anthony Carter: Career .393 Season .449
Taurean Green: Career .250 Season .250
SHOOTING GUARDS FIELD GOAL SHOOTING %
Allen Iverson: Career .424 Season .442
J.R. Smith: Career .414 Season .427
Yakhouba Diawara: Career .361 Season .416

POINT GUARDS 3-POINT SHOOTING %
Chucky Atkins: Career .368 Season .244
Anthony Carter: Career .182 Season .292
Taurean Green: Career .125 Season .125
SHOOTING GUARDS 3-POINT SHOOTING %
Allen Iverson: Career .312 Season .335
J.R. Smith: Career .359 Season .389
Yakhouba Diawara: Career .302 Season .346

POINT GUARDS ASSISTS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 5.0 Season 3.9
Anthony Carter: Career 7.1 Season 7.3
Taurean Green: Career 6.5 Season 6.5
SHOOTING GUARDS ASSISTS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 5.4 Season 6.2
J.R. Smith: Career 2.5 Season 3.1
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 1.8 Season 2.1

Despite not being the official point guard, Allen Iverson gets only 1 fewer assist per 36 minutes than does Anthony Carter, the official point guard. Also, notice that Iverson is getting almost one more assist this year than his career average, another sign that Iverson has assumed point guard duties unofficially. By not simply admitting that Iverson is the point guard, the Nuggets suffer all of the following disadvantages:

1. The staff has less leverage on Iverson, if he is a shooting guard, to criticize him if he decides to hog the ball and shoot first and look for assists later if he feels like it. Of course, it appears that this Nuggets’ coaching staff doesn’t even agree in the first place that Iverson sometimes dribbles too much, and sometimes takes too many shots himself. They would have to agree with that before they could agree that they need some leverage over Iverson’s decisions. Under the current view of the Nuggets’ coaches, Iverson can hardly do any wrong no matter what he does, which is a dangerous view to hold toward any player.
2. Since Anthony Carter is 6’2” and since Iverson is barely 6’0”, when both of them are on the court, which is common under the “Iverson is not the point guard” assumption, the Nuggets are too small in the back court to avoid having the back court be a defensive liability.
3. In any given game, the rest of the team does not know whether it is going to be mostly Carter, mostly Iverson, or both of them roughly equally who will be distributing the ball. They most likely don’t know in advance whether Iverson is going to be mostly dribbling, driving, and shooting, or whether he is in a more generous mood and is going to be looking for assist opportunities It’s like the Nuggets play with a different point guard every game or, if you prefer, it’s like the Nuggets really don’t have a designated, starting point guard. Either way you look at it, this leads to a lot of inconsistency and the occasional total breakdown of the Nuggets’ offense.
4. Since Iverson is always the shooting guard when he is out there, but he is often also at least half the point guard out there at the same time, opposing teams can do a lot of damage to the Nuggets’ offense simply by double teaming Iverson. When Iverson has assumed the point guard role even when Carter is out there, Carter becomes so much dead wood out there, and every dead wood player reduces the effectiveness of the offense substantially, even just one.

POINT GUARDS TURNOVERS PER 36 MINUTES
Chucky Atkins: Career 2.1 Season 0.7
Anthony Carter: Career 2.9 Season 2.4
Taurean Green: Career 5.7 Season 5.7
SHOOTING GUARDS TURNOVERS PER 36 MINUTES
Allen Iverson: Career 3.2 Season 2.8
J.R. Smith: Career 2.2 Season 2.9
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 1.1 Season 1.1

POINT GUARDS ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO
Chucky Atkins: Career 2.38 Season 5.57
Anthony Carter: Career 2.45 Season 3.04
Taurean Green: Career 1.14 Season 1.14
SHOOTING GUARDS ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO
Allen Iverson: Career 1.69 Season 2.21
J.R. Smith: Career 1.14 Season 1.07
Yakhouba Diawara: Career 1.64 Season 1.91

In one of the next game reports, probably the next one, for the Sonics game, I will discuss the Nuggets’ guards. But in this report, we take a close look at the best point guards in the NBA.

COMPARISON OF STARTING POINT GUARDS OF THE 13 BEST TEAMS IN THE NBA

Let’s compare the starting point guards for the 9 top teams of the West and the 4 top teams of the East. And let’s include Allen Iverson for discussion purposes. For each point guard, the first number is the assist/turnover ratio which coaches, definitely including George Karl, are extremely concerned about. The second or middle number is the number of assists per 36 minutes. The last number is the number of turnovers per 36 minutes. The best point guards are the ones who have the highest numbers among the first two numbers; the number of turnovers by itself is not really that critical. The point guards are first ranked according to their assist/turnover ratios:

1 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 2.4
2 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 1.2
3 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 2.1
4 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 2.4
5 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 3.5
6 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 4.1
7 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 2.6
8 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 3.4
9 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 2.1
10 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 2.3
11 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 1.5
12 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 2.8
13 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 2.7
14 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 2.8

Here you can see that Chris Paul, Eric Snow, and Chauncey Billups are the three most effective point guards in terms of getting assists without turning it over much. Carter for the Nuggets, Kidd, and Nash are at the next level, and Davis, Williams, and Rondo are not far behind them. Iverson is last, and it is certainly true that Iverson does not play conservatively, but I would not overreact to his low ratio. Carter gets a lot of the easy, safe assists for the Nuggets, whereas Iverson’s assists are often in higher risk situations, where he has decided not to take the shot himself. In many of these situations, Iverson is trying to pass for an assist out of a double team.

Now let’s rank them according to the number of assists they get per 36 minutes:

1 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 4.1
2 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 2.4
3 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 3.5
4 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 3.4
5 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 2.1
6 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 2.6
7 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 2.4
8 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 2.8
9 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 2.7
10 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 2.8
11 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 2.3
12 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 2.1
13 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 1.2
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 1.5

Here you can see that Nash leads the NBA in actual assisting, while Paul, Kidd, and Williams are extremely good playmakers, but are substantially behind Nash. Then, Billups, Davis, Anthony Carter for the Nuggets, and Nelson are at the next level, The less productive point guards would be Parker, Alston, Rondo, and Snow. Despite the fact he is on the team most likely to win the NBA Championship this year, Derek Fisher-Lakers gets, by far, the fewest assists among all starting point guards of the top teams. Once again, Iverson’s number should be judged while you remember that he is not actually the designated point guard.

Now let’s combine the two most important measures, assist/turnover ratio and assist rate, and rank the point guards according to how they stack up when you consider both of those performance measures at once, equally:

1 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 2.4
2 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 4.1
3 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 2.1
4 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 3.5
5 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 2.4
6 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 3.4
7 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 2.6
8 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 1.2
9 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 2.8
10 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 2.1
11 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 2.3
12 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 2.7
13 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 2.8
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 1.5

Now you might look at this and say “Wow, the Nuggets have a really good point guard, about the 5th best among the top teams. And you would be technically correct if you are looking at just the distribution part of a point guard’s job. But you would be wrong overall, because Carter is the worst scoring threat among all of these except for Eric Snow. Here are the points per 36 minutes for these point guards:
:
1 Nuggets Allen Iverson 22.6
2 Warriors Baron Davis 20.1
3 Hornets Chris Paul 19.9
4 Spurs Tony Parker 19.7
5 Pistons Chauncey Billups 19.0
6 Jazz Deron Williams 18.7
7 Suns Steve Nash 18.2
8 Lakers Derek Fisher 16.4
9 Magic Jameer Nelson 13.8
10 Rockets Rafer Alston 12.8
11 Celtics Rajon Rondo 12.5
12 Mavericks Jason Kidd 10.8
13 Nuggets Anthony Carter 9.5
14 Cavaliers Eric Snow 2.6

Now finally, let’s combine the assist/turnover ratio, the assist rate, and the scoring rate together. This would be about as close as we can get to coming up with the real truth regarding who are the best point guards, because things we are ignoring, such as rebounding and personal fouls, are not going to be very important or change things much with respect to point guards.

OVERALL RANKING OF POINT GUARDS BASED ON ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIOS, ASSIST RATES, AND SCORING RATES:
Here the first number is the assist/turnover ratio, the second number is the assists per 36 minutes, and the third number is points per 36 minutes.

1 Hornets Chris Paul 4.33 10.4 19.9
2 Pistons Chauncey Billups 3.71 7.8 19.0
3 Suns Steve Nash 2.90 11.9 18.2
4 Warriors Baron Davis 2.81 7.3 20.1
5 Jazz Deron Williams 2.76 9.4 18.7
6 Mavericks Jason Kidd 2.91 10.2 10.8
7 Nuggets Anthony Carter 3.00 7.2 9.5
8 Nuggets Allen Iverson 2.21 6.2 22.6
9 Spurs Tony Parker 2.30 6.2 19.7
10 Magic Jameer Nelson 2.46 6.9 13.8
11 Cavaliers Eric Snow 4.17 5.0 2.6
12 Rockets Rafer Alston 2.57 5.9 12.8
13 Celtics Rajon Rondo 2.67 5.6 12.5
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 2.53 3.8 16.4

Now let’s simplify by doing the same listing, but showing the composite rank number only. The composite rank number is simply the sum of the 3 ranks for the 3 main performance measures. Obviously, the lower the number, the better the point guard.

1 Hornets Chris Paul 6
2 Pistons Chauncey Billups 13
3 Suns Steve Nash 14
4 Warriors Baron Davis 15
5 Jazz Deron Williams 18
6 Mavericks Jason Kidd 20
7 Nuggets Anthony Carter 24
8 Nuggets Allen Iverson 25
9 Spurs Tony Parker 26
10 Magic Jameer Nelson 29
11 Cavaliers Eric Snow 29
12 Rockets Rafer Alston 31
13 Celtics Rajon Rondo 32
14 Lakers Derek Fisher 33

Now you can clearly see that Chris Paul is by far the best point guard among the top teams this year. Billups, Nash, and Davis are all excellent point guards, but not even really that close to Paul this year. Then you have Williams for the Jazz and Kidd, who is now playing for the Mavericks.

Then you have both of the Nuggets, Carter and Iverson, in the middle of the pack among point guards and almost exactly equal. But wait a minute, Iverson is not the point guard, but was included anyway. Well, now you can see why I did it. The notion of Iverson playing point guard fills a lot of people with irrational fear and dread. They just assume that since Iverson is such an aggressive scorer, that he could not possibly be a good point guard at the same time. This has been shown to be false here.

Now imagine if Iverson was actually the point guard. He would be responsible for getting even more assists then he gets now, but his turnovers would not go up very much, because he wouldn’t be handling the ball all that much more than he already does now. What happens now much of the time, of course, is that Iverson gets the ball from Carter after Carter brings it up. Or Iverson brings it up even though Carter is out there. So if Iverson were the point guard, and him and Carter were seldom on the court at the same time, Iverson’s assists would go up, hopefully by a lot, and so would his assist/turnover ratio. His scoring would go down, but knowing Iverson, he would only allow it to go down so far and no farther. If you managed it right, you could probably achieve the best of all possible worlds, a point guard who can assist and score, while keeping turnovers to a level only slightly higher than the average among other point guards.

Fearing this or assuming it would not work is irrational; I don’t see how you could lose. The worst case scenario is that Iverson’s scoring would drop more than expected, but that might not be a problem if other players, especially Anthony, Kleiza, and Smith, were able to pick up their scoring with more attempts.

This fear of Iverson at point guard reminds me of the dread that some fans and coaches have regarding J.R. Smith, whose benefits frequently but not always outweigh his costs. Could it be that Denver Nuggets fans, and maybe the coaches as well, are too timid to be able to understand and accept what is best for their team?

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (sports hernia) on Jan. 9 and underwent successful surgery on Jan. 11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least March 10. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by late March.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first week of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: He missed the last several games because of soreness and inflammation in his right knee, his status is questionable for the next game.

PISTONS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
None, all Pistons on the roster were available.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 26, 2008

The Nuggets are under an ORANGE ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter injury 4 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 3 points. (He wasn’t partially benched.)

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 5 points. Najera and Kleiza should have played more than they did, and Camby and Iverson should have had more breathers than they did.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The choice varies during each game, and usually depends on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader, as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. More important than whether a zone or man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 14 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 1 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 59, which constitutes ORANGE ALERT.

ORANGE ALERT (55-74): Moderate damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under serious threat, and you can just about forget about beating quality teams. About 3/4 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is much more difficult ORANGE ALERT. About 1/2 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Even poor teams can often beat an otherwise good team that is under this alert. Close to 1/4 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. A good team has been reduced to being a mid-level team, at best, when it is under this alert.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
The Pistons are the opposite of the Nuggets, completely healthy. In total, there were 14 Pistons ready to play in this game, while there were only 10 Nuggets. The Pistons were in either GREEN or GREY alert, while the Nuggets were in ORANGE alert, so it was rather unlikely that the Nuggets were going to win this game unless they really stepped up.

The lack of offensive consistency and the on the fly offensive style was especially glaring in this game, especially when compared with other recent games, during some of which you forgot this can be a big problem. As explained in the last report, when the Nuggets get lucky, or more precisely when enough individual Nuggets get lucky, they can prosper on offense without planned and repeated plays. However, when they play a great defense, such as the defense of the Pistons, they pay a big price for not having very many tried and true plays.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more days and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for most or all of the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs.

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s team analysis system, is 52%, only slightly better now than the low point reached before the all-star break, which was almost exactly 50%. But the Warriors have the greater odds, 56%, for getting the 8th and final playoff slot. Winning the Northwest Division is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point; the odds on that have dropped to only 7%, The Nuggets would have to beat the Jazz in both of the remaining games against them, both of which are in Salt Lake City, in order to have a shot at winning the Northwest. The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that most likely neither Nene nor Atkins are going to be available to and in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run, so the real odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs are probably around 40-45% now.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Pistons 10
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Pistons 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 26
Pistons Non-Starters Points: 12

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 14
Pistons Non-Starters Rebounds: 10

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 2
Pistons Non-Starters Assists: 4

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
The Pistons played 10 players a half a quarter or more, while the Nuggets tried only 8 players. However, both teams played 8 tried and true players for 10 minutes or more.

Led by Eduardo Najera in rebounding and by J.R. Smith in scoring, the Nuggets’ non-starters defeated the Pistons’ non-starters in rebounding 14-10 and in scoring by the wide margin of 26-12. As usual though, the opposing team’s non-starters made more assists than did the Nuggets’ non-starters, 4-2 in this case.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS-PISTONS PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 44.0 Season 41.0
Carmelo Anthony: Game 43.7 Season 39.2
Kenyon Martin: Game 18.2 Season 22.3
Marcus Camby: Game 16.5 Season 33.0
J.R. Smith: Game 15.3 Season 15.6
Eduardo Najera: Game 14.5 Season 13.2
Anthony Carter: Game 11.8 Season 20.4
Linas Kleiza: Game 9.6 Season 19.0

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

Yakhouba Diawara: Game: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

PISTONS PLAYER RATINGS
Tayshaun Prince: Game 40.9 Season 22.8
Richard Hamilton: Game 36.9 Season 29.3
Antonio McDyess: Game 36.8 Season 22.0
Chauncey Billups: Game 35.5 Season 32.5
Rasheed Wallace: Game 19.3 Season 26.3
Rodney Stuckey: Game 10.1 Season 11.0
Jason Maxiell: Game 5.6 Season 15.2
Amir Johnson: Game 5.0 Season 9.7
Arron Afflalo: Game 1.2 Season 5.9
Jarvis Hayes: Game 1.0 Season 10.7

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Where Iverson and Anthony led, the other Nuggets, except for Najera to some extent, were not able to follow. Those three were the only Nuggets who stepped up against the tough Detroit defense. J.R. Smith was alright but not explosive as he can be. At least Smith did not have a massive drop-off to disaster level like he often has.

Kenyon Martin came up a little short, but made up for it with some good defending. Three Nuggets were completely throttled by the Pistons’ tough defense. Carter, Kleiza, and even Marcus Camby were all only about half as productive as they usually are. This was one of the worst games of the year for Camby, and both Carter and Kleiza are in slumps right now. Kleiza’s slump is largely caused by the ankle sprain he suffered against the Celtics on February 19, at least that is what we hope.

For the Pistons, Prince and McDyess were the big upside performers. Hamilton and Billups were as productive as they usually are, which is very productive. The Pistons had these 4 big time performers, all of whom are starters, while the Nuggets had just Melo and A.I. as power performers. Rasheed Wallace was the only Pistons starter who was off from his usual productivity, and he was not that far off. Four of five Pistons’ starters stepped up against the Nuggets, whereas only two of the Nuggets’ starters stepped up against the Pistons.

The Pistons’ non-starters didn’t do very much, but it was not a big deal for Detroit because of how well the starters played.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-PISTONS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Tayshaun Prince, Det 1.076
2. Chauncey Billups, Det 1.044
3. Antonio McDyess, Det 1.022
4. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.016
5. Allen Iverson, Den 0.978
6. Richard Hamilton, Det 0.900
7. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.806
8. J.R. Smith, Den 0.805
9. Rodney Stuckey, Det 0.721
10. Amir Johnson, Det 0.625…Johnson played only 8 minutes.
11. Anthony Carter, Den 0.621
12. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.565
13. Rasheed Wallace, Det 0.536
14. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.479
15. Marcus Camby, Den 0.413
16. Jason Maxiell, Det 0.350
17. Arron Afflalo, Det 0.171…Afflalo played only 7 minutes
18. Jarvis Hayes, Det 0.100

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
The only star in this game was Prince for Detroit. Outstanding games were played by Hamilton, McDyess, and Billups for the Pistons, and by Iverson and Anthony for the Nuggets. So among players who were outstanding or better, the Pistons had 4 and the Nuggets had 2. Smith and Najera were very good, and there were no Pistons in that category.

Maxiell, Afflalo, and Hayes were non-factors for the Pistons. Rasheed Wallace was poor, well below his usual.

For the Nuggets at the low end, it is rare for Camby to be in the poor range, let alone the very poor range where he was in this game. Compounding this was Kenyon Martin who was also very poor, and Kleiza who was poor. Anthony Carter was mediocre, which is actually better than he has been in many recent games.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Eduardo Najera: +5
Carmelo Anthony: +1
J.R. Smith: -3
Linas Kleiza: -4
Anthony Carter: -4
Allen Iverson: -5
Kenyon Martin: -7
Marcus Camby: -8

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Najera is frequently at or near the top in the plus-minus because of his good defending. Since this was a very defensive type of game, his skills were put to good use in it. Similarly, Carmelo Anthony made a lot of rebounds and assists in order to end up with a +1 in the loss. Martin and Camby were the two Nuggets who were most negatively affected by the tough defense and practiced offense of the Pistons.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Total 8, Team 0, Anthony 1, Camby 2, Carter 0, Iverson 2, Kleiza 2, Martin 0, Najera 0, Smith 1

Personal Fouls: Total 14, Anthony 2, Camby 1, Carter 1, Iverson 2, Kleiza 4, Martin 3, Najera 0, Smith 1

Marcus Camby played for most of the game, 40 minutes, and was 1/8 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks.

Kenyon Martin played 38 minutes and was 4/10 for 8 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 block.

Linas Kleiza played 17 minutes and was 4/7, 0/2 on 3’s, and 0/2 from the line for 8 points, and he made 3 rebounds.

Anthony Carter played 19 minutes and was 2/6 and 0/1 on 3’s for 4 points, and he made 4 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 block.

J.R. Smith played 19 minutes and was 4/14, 3/10 on 3’s, and 2/5 from the line for 13 points, and he made 3 steals, 3 rebounds, and 1 assist.

Eduardo Najera played 18 minutes and was 2/5 and 1/2 on 3’s for 5 points, and he made 8 rebounds and 1 assist.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 45 minutes, and was 7/19, 2/6 on 3’s, and 12/13 from the line for 28 points, and he made 7 assists, 4 rebounds, and 3 steals.

Carmelo Anthony played for most of the game, 43 minutes, and was 8/20, 1/3 on 3’s, and 6/7 from the line for 23 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Wednesday, February 27 in Seattle to play the Supersonics at 8 pm mountain time. The Sonics will be playing on back to back nights, while the Nuggets will not be. Therefore, the Sonics’ home court advantage will be largely or totally offset by the Nuggets’ extra rest advantage.

The Nuggets Collapse in Milwaukee and Face Missing the Playoffs: Bucks 115 Nuggets 109

The Nuggets collapsed in the 2nd half to a well-coached and determined Bucks team in Milwaukee, a team that had recently surprised the Pistons on their home court. The Bucks won the game 115-109. The Bucks have a talent shortage but certainly had no shortage of will to win at home. Their Coach, Larry Krystkowiak, was more and more engaged and intense as the game went along, whereas George Karl for the Nuggets was mostly more and more visibly distressed as the game went along. Both the Bucks and the Nuggets were playing on back to back nights, but in the 2nd half where any fatigue would show up, it was showing up mostly in the Nuggets, while the Bucks cleaned house on the court.

Specifically, the very high minutes per game given to Iverson and Camby clearly backfired in this game; Camby did seem more tired than usual, and he was committing way more fouls than usual and getting upset about it. Iverson was not turning it over much, but he missed both his threes and 12 of 20 shots overall. Camby’s Real Player Rating was only .666 and Iverson’s was only .789 compared with their averages of about .950 and 1.000 respectively. Not giving these two older superstars enough breathers during games finally bit the Nuggets in the rear end in this game.

The loss is the second straight and the third in the last 4 games, and makes the Nuggets the odd team out looking in on the playoffs right now. As of now, it seems that the Nuggets and the Warriors are going to battle it out for the 8th and final seed in the West. However, the Nuggets have a substantially more difficult schedule than do the Warriors the rest of the way, not to mention serious consistency and execution problems which the Warriors do not have, so the Warriors are clearly the favorite over the Nuggets to get the last playoff spot. The Nuggets will have to get back their will to win and desire to win the ring, or it will be one of the biggest boondoggles in the history of the NBA if the Nuggets, with 3 superstars (Iverson, Anthony, Camby) and a developing star (J.R. Smith) are unable to even get a playoff spot.

Despite leading by 11 at the end of the 1st, by 23 with 4 minutes left in the half, and by 14 at the half, the Nuggets were owned in the entire 2nd half by the rock solid Bucks and their rock solid coach, Larry Krystkowiak. While the great majority of the Bucks’ assists were made by Desmond Mason and Mo Williams, the Nuggets saw a total breakdown of their usual pattern of assists coming mostly from Anthony Carter and Allen Iverson. Of the 22 Nuggets assists, Carter made only 3 of them and Iverson made only 5 of them. J.R. Smith, who, keep in mind is a shooting guard, made 4 assists and Marcus Camby, who keep in mind is a center, made 3 assists.

Now you might be saying “You can’t please this guy, because he gripes when the offense is limited to certain players and now he is griping when the assists are spread out.” You are right in general, I do criticize a lot, I’m good at it, but I try to be good at coming up with improvements also. And I would agree that seeing the assists spread out is a sign that the Nuggets were trying to correct their ridiculous ultra-low passing and assisting offense in Chicago the night before.

But the problem here is that the Nuggets threw the baby out with the bathwater. They went from one extreme to the other extreme. In Chicago, Iverson dominated assisting, but to the point where other Nuggets, who totaled just 17 assists, were not making enough assists, while meanwhile the Bulls were running all over the Nuggets and making a very impressive 34 assists. Then in this Bucks game, the Nuggets improved to a reasonable 22 assists, but 7 different Nuggets made 2 or more assists while the main point guards, Iverson and Carter, made only 8 assists in total. Why is that bad? Because it means that the big flaw in the Nuggets’ offense has been proved to exist again, namely, that the Nuggets have a totally made up as they go offense from one game to the next, and they are starved for planned plays.

There are different players doing different things offensively each game, to the point where your head can spin. In every game and for every team, for an offense to be considered to be reasonably planned and benefiting from repetition, the top two distributors should account for, at the very least, 1/2 of all the assists. Iverson and Carter were 3 assists short which means, in effect, that Iverson and Carter were not in real control of the Nuggets’ offense. In fact, no one was in control of the Nuggets’ offense, and that is the point. The Nuggets in this game were going to rise or fall based on the randomness of a series of individual decisions and shots. That is not a very good way to run a basketball team.

As you know from the result, the Nuggets did not have very much luck in this game. About 10 days ago, I reported that the Nuggets have won roughly half a dozen games largely by luck this year, and this game is a reminder of why I said that. When you have effectively a substantially different offense in every game, and you depend on a lot of isolation plays and on fast breaks, there is going to be a large random chance element involved as to whether you win or not, much more than usual for the NBA. Since a substantially different mix of shots are taken by a substantially different mix of players every game, there is a luck factor not only with respect to whether the shots go down, but also with respect to whether the shots attempted are good ones or low percentage bad ones.

Players do have their favorite shots, so there is a limit on offensive inconsistency, but it is much to inconsistent to be a good offense in the NBA. Whether the Nuggets choose good shots or bad shots, which is determined partly by luck, and whether the shots go in or not, which once again is determined partly by luck, are big factors in determining whether the Nuggets win. And you can certainly say that the Nuggets as a whole do not choose their shots wisely.

The Nuggets beat the Bucks in the skills of stealing the ball, 13-5, and in blocking the shot, 8-5. They even were a little ahead of the Bucks on assists, 22-20. But the Bucks clearly wanted to win the game much more than the Nuggets did, with evidence for that provided by a heavy Buck rebounding advantage, 65-51. The Nuggets, led by Kenyon Martin with 14 and Marcus Camby with 10, had only 4 players who made 4 or more rebounds. The Bucks had 6 players who were active rebounders with 4 or more. Andrew Bogut, the center, doubled Camby’s rebounds and led the Bucks with 20 rebounds. Defensive rebounding was about equal, but the Bucks made 11 more offensive rebounds than did the Nuggets and, by doing so, they earned 6 more shots on goal than did the Nuggets. Normally the Nuggets are a pretty good offensive rebounding team, averaging about 12 per game, but in this game, the Bucks made 20 offensive rebounds to just 9 for the Nuggets.

Shooting overall was 38/86 or 44.2% for the Nuggets and 40/92 or 43.5% for the Bucks. For 3-point shooting, which is the one skill that the Nuggets are short on, the Nuggets nevertheless did a little better than the Bucks did, 8/22 versus 6/18. As usual, J.R. Smith led the Nuggets in 3-point shooting; he was 4/9. Najera was 2/2. On the downside, Carter was 1/5 and Iverson was 0/2.

In the next game report, the one for the Pistons, I will take a look at the Nuggets’ point guard problem, and the controversy over whether Carter or Iverson should be the point guard. And either in that game report or the one after that (which would be the Sonics game) you will find out who are really the best point guards among the starting point guards of the best 13 teams in the NBA.

I now will give you some information about the Nuggets trade efforts as the February 20 NBA trade deadline approached. Some of this information is not really supposed to be reported to the public but, as the saying goes, inquiring minds want to know.

With regard to Nene, the 25-year-old forward had surgery last month to remove a malignant tumor. He took an indefinite medical leave of absence from the team Jan. 11. He has just had, or is about to have, one chemotherapy treatment, and he will be recovering from that during the last week of February. The Nuggets said in a news release Thursday February 21 that the treatment is preventative and that it "essentially eliminates the odds of a recurrence."

Following chemo, it is Nene’s intention to start working out, and then to be on the court in mid or late March. However, this timing totally uncertain, and the Nuggets have not told the public when to or if to expect the return of Nene to the court. Nene’s current weight is 248, and chemo will probably take another 5-7 pounds off of him. When Nene informed the Denver front office of these plans, the owner of the Nuggets, Stan Kroenke, put the kibosh on any more talks regarding moving Nene to another team for relatively small compensation. Kroenke is remaining behind the Brazilian in his current time of trouble,

With regard to the Nuggets’ pursuit Ron Artest of the Kings, with the objectives being to shore up the defense and to add toughness to the team, which in turn would theoretically increase the odds that the Nuggets could succeed in the playoffs, the Nuggets had a standing offer of Najera and a first-round draft pick for Artest on the table. The Kings wanted Denver to add third-year small forward Linas Kleiza to the package. Yet in the last two days of possible dealings, a source close to the Kings said the Nuggets never once called.

What happened? The General Manager of the Nuggets was strongly in favor of the deal but the Coach, George Karl, was strongly opposed to the deal. In a phone call with the owner, Karl explained in detail why he did not want the trade to be made, and he was able to persuade the owner and even the general manager that it should not be made. Neither the owner nor the General Manager wanted to bring Artest on to the team against the wishes of Karl. Karl was reportedly also able to persuade Iverson and Melo, who earlier were in favor of the Artest trade.

As you know if you read these reports, Karl puts a lot of weight on subjective and abstract factors with respect to both players and the team as a while. Predictably, Karl thought that introducing Artest, known for having a volatile personality, to a locker room already filled with strong personalities had a big chance of not working. Karl argued that he only had 10 real practices scheduled for the remainder of the season, and he had no idea where he would play Artest, or how Kenyon Martin or Artest might react to coming off the bench and playing limited minutes. He also said he had no idea how he could get Artest flowing in the offense.

More broadly, Karl argued that his team is ready to take the next step, that it is just now taking it, and he believes it will happen. Karl argued that taking his two most professional, most prepared players, Najera and Kleiza, off the team would really hurt the ongoing arrival of the Nuggets to the promised land. He said you really can't have a great team without leadership on the professionalism front. Karl argued that Najera and Kleiza were the leaders in professionalism for the Nuggets.

In a word, Karl feared that the volatile Artest could destroy the chemistry and professionalism on the Nuggets that has been under development for several years while Karl has been the coach. He said that the Nuggets were finally and truly starting to become a true "team."

Anyone who reads my reports would know that I am not the least bit surprised about any of this. I think I know the way Karl thinks like I know the back of my hand at this point.

But there you have it, folks. Karl is on record as saying that what are to him the precious subjective and abstract factors are finally reaching fruition for the Nuggets. So now there can not be any possible excuse, according to Karl himself, for the Nuggets not making the playoffs, or for not competing well enough to win at least a couple of games in the 1st round. In other words, Karl himself will be very surprised if the Nuggets do not make the playoffs.

Delonte West, the 5th-year Sonics shooting guard who was also mentioned as a Nuggets trade target, was never a realistic acquisition target, because he would have been a “rented player” who could opt out and go elsewhere at the end of this season. The odds were considered pretty high that that is what he would have done.

Guard-Forward Mike Miller of the Grizzlies was also pursued by the Nuggets, and the front office thought it was going to happen, but the Grizzlies backed out at the last minute, frustrating the front office to no end.

Several weeks ago, the Nuggets had a standing offer to the Grizzlies of Marcus Camby for Pau Gasol but, as we know, the Grizzlies made a trade with the Lakers which has been heavily criticized as being lopsided in favor of the Lakers. In other words, the Grizzlies could probably have made a better deal with the Nuggets.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (sports hernia) on Jan. 9 and underwent successful surgery on Jan. 11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least March 10. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by late March.
Linas Kleiza: did not suit up at Milwaukee on 2/23 as a result of a sprained left ankle that he suffered vs. Boston on 2/19. His status for the next game is questionable.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first week of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Steven Hunter: He missed the last several games because of soreness and inflammation in his right knee, his status is questionable for the next game.

BUCKS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Ramon Sessions: He fractured his left hand during a Feb. 8th practice and will miss six weeks.
Awvee Storey: remained sidelined because of the flu Saturday against the Nuggets. He has now missed nine games.
David Noel: Wrist injury and surgery, out until late February..

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 24, 2008

The Nuggets are under an ORANGE ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Linas Kleiza injury 17 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Steven Hunter injury 4 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 0 points. (He wasn’t partially benched.)

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 3 points. Since Denver had 4 players unavailable out of an already limited 13 players, Diawara should have played at least 6 minutes more than a trivial 5 minutes, so that at least the minimum of 8 players 10 minutes or more benchmark was achieved.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The choice varies during each game, and usually depends on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader, as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. More important than whether a zone or man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 9 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 2 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 67, which constitutes ORANGE ALERT.

ORANGE ALERT (55-74): Moderate damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under serious threat, and you can just about forget about beating quality teams. About 3/4 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is much more difficult ORANGE ALERT. About 1/2 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Even poor teams can often beat an otherwise good team that is under this alert. Close to 1/4 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. A good team has been reduced to being a mid-level team, at best, when it is under this alert.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
Two of the three Bucks not available were the third option at their positions, while the third was the second option at his position. For the Nuggets, at least 3 of the 4 players not available are supposed to be the second options at their positions. Technically, Chucky Atkins is supposed to be the first string PG, but that seems to be ancient history now, due to his terrible start and marathon injury out.

Without being an expert on the Bucks, I would estimate that they were probably in GREY alert, or YELLOW alert at the very most. So aside from the home court advantage, the Bucks also had a lesser alert level, by at least one and probably two levels. So the warning above, “Close to 1/4 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert” was most likely in effect for this game. So the result was really not all that shocking from an objective standpoint, you can only have so many walking wounded before you start to pay a price in terms of wins and losses. Does that mean the Nuggets should not or could not have won? Of course not, as explained in other sections of this report. And even in the alert description, the Nuggets still had roughly a 3/4 chance of beating the Bucks, and still roughly a 1/2 chance after the Bucks’ home court advantage is factored in.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more weeks and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for most or all of the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs.

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s team analysis system, is 56%, only slightly better now than the low point reached before the all-star break, which was almost exactly 50%. Winning the Northwest Division is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point; the odds on that have dropped to only 7%, But these odds don’t take into account that most likely neither Nene nor Atkins are going to be available to the Nuggets for the stretch run, so the real odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs are probably slightly less than 50% now.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 7 Bucks 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 7 Bucks 7

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 28
Bucks Non-Starters Points: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 3
Bucks Non-Starters Rebounds: 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 7
Bucks Non-Starters Assists: 3

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
The Nuggets were down to 7 players playing 10 minutes or more, and the same 7 players for just 6 minutes or more, a dangerous gamble even against a poor team. But the Bucks had only 7 players at 10 minutes or more themselves, although Yi Jianlian was very close with 9 minutes. Since Jianlian is averaging almost 27 minutes a game, I would think he had a transient injury of some kind during this game.

Led by J.R. Smith’s 20 points, the Nuggets’ non-starters handily defeated the Bucks’ non-starters in points scored 28-15. Rebounding went decisively in favor the Bucks’ non-starters, 9-3. Led by J.R. Smith’s 4 assists, the Nuggets’ non-starters achieved a rare victory in assists over the Bucks’ non-starters, 7-3.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS-BUCKS PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Kenyon Martin: Game 37.5 Season 22.5
Carmelo Anthony: Game 36.8 Season 39.1
Allen Iverson: Game 34.7 Season 40.9
J.R. Smith: Game 26.4 Season 15.6
Marcus Camby: Game 25.3 Season 33.3
Eduardo Najera: Game 19.5 Season 13.1
Anthony Carter: Game 17.7 Season 20.6
Yakhouba Diawara: Game -1.0 Season 5/1

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Linas Kleiza: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

Taurean Green: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

BUCKS PLAYER RATINGS
Michael Redd: Game 55.1 Season 34.4
Mo Williams: Game 43.9 Season 31.3
Andrew Bogut: Game 35.1 Season 28.0
Charlie Villanueva: Game 19.8 Season 16.5
Desmond Mason: Game 19.3 Season 16.7
Charlie Bell: Game 11.8 Season 13.1
Dan Gadzuric: Game 8.1 Season 6.8
Yi Jianlian: Game 4.4 Season 17.3
Bobby Simmons: Game 2.4 Season 12.4

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Kenyon Martin went from biggest disappointment to top performer overnight. But none of the Nuggets’ big 3, Iverson, Anthony, or Camby, could rise above their normal production in this game. However, at least Iverson and Anthony were very close to their usual high level. J.R. Smith went from essentially off the charts the night before to playing just a plain old really good game in this one. Carter was in the same “couldn’t quite get over the hump” group as were the big 3. Diawara’s number is almost meaningless because he only played 5 minutes.

As you can see, the Nuggets were beaten mostly by 3 players: Redd, Williams, and Bogut, while Villanueva and Mason were very important contributors as well. It is believed that Yi Jianlian must have had some kind of temporary injury during this game, because he only played 9 minutes. Simmons played only 7 minutes, so his number is largely meaningless. The fact is, the Bucks put out the kind of solid, almost perfect team effort that the Nuggets did 4 nights earlier in their upset win over the Celtics. 6 of the 7 Bucks who played 10 minutes or more were above their seasonal averages and the 7th, Charlie Bell, was only an insignificant amount less than his.

You see why basketball is called a team sport? When a team plays in such a way that it is possible for everyone to contribute, and they all do in fact contribute at impressive rates, it is very difficult for that team to lose the game, even when it is not a very talented team. That’s why it is critical that you have a coach that realizes the importance of keeping everyone in the flow, and one that knows how to make sure most or all of his players are involved in the offense in one way or another on most plays other than fast breaks.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-BUCKS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Michael Redd, Mil 1.198
2. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.042
3. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.022
4. J.R. Smith, Den 1.015
5. Mo Williams, Mil 0.998
6. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.886
7. Andrew Bogut, Mil 0.798
8. Allen Iverson, Den 0.789
9. Charlie Villanueva, Mil 0.762
10. Dan Gadzuric, Mil 0.675
11. Marcus Camby, Den 0.666
12. Desmond Mason, Mil 0.666
13. Charlie Bell, Mil 0.590
14. Anthony Carter, Den 0.536
15. Yi Jianlian, Mil 0.489…Jianlian played only 9 minutes.
16. Bobby Simmons, Mil 0.343…Simmons played only 7 minutes.
17. Yakhouba Diawara, Den -0.200…Diawara played only 5 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Redd of the Bucks was the only star in this game. He was by a good margin the best player on the floor. 3 Nuggets were outstanding: Martin, Anthony, and Smith, while Williams was outstanding for the Bucks. So the Nuggets had 3 of the 5 players who were outstanding or better. They still lost, because of how good Redd was, and because the Bucks were able to draw on an overall number of players advantage of 9-8, with 9-7 1/2 being more accurate since Diawara played only 5 minutes. Among the 12 players who were mediocre or better, each team had 6.

The only player on either squad who played substantial minutes, but was clearly in the poor zone, was Anthony Carter.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Eduardo Najera: +8
J.R. Smith: +3
Kenyon Martin: -8
Allen Iverson: -9
Anthony Carter: -9
Carmelo Anthony: -10
Marcus Camby: -13

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Along with Smith, Najera frequently plays better on the road. Although Smith was no where near as explosive as he was the night before, he nonetheless was one of only two Nuggets who ended up with a plus on the plus-minus. Camby had a very unusual number of fouls, and he was not happy about it, let me tell you. Also unusual was the relative amount of difficulty Camby, who is one of the best centers in the NBA, had in defending the opposing team’s relatively average center, Andrew Bogut in this case.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Total 14, Team 0, Anthony 6, Camby 1, Carter 2, Diawara 0, Iverson 2, Martin 0, Najera 1, Smith 2

Personal Fouls: Total 26, Anthony 4, Camby 5, Carter 2, Diawara 2, Iverson 1, Martin 3, Najera 4, Smith 5

Yakhouba Diawara played 5 minutes and was 0/1, 0/1 on 3’s, and 0/2 from the line for 0 points, and he made 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 33 minutes and was 4/11 and 1/5 on 3’s for 9 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals.

Marcus Camby played 38 minutes and was 3/9 and 0/1 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 10 rebounds, 4 blocks, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 44 minutes, and was 8/20, 0/2 on 3’s, and 10/11 from the line for 26 points, and he made 5 assists, 2 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Eduardo Najera played 22 minutes and was 3/3 and 2/2 on 3’s for 8 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.

J.R. Smith played 26 minutes and was 6/15, 4/9 on 3’s, and 4/6 from the line for 20 points, and he made 4 assists, 1 steal, and 1 rebound.

Carmelo Anthony played 36 minutes and was 9/17, 1/2 on 3’s, and 6/7 from the line for 25 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block.

Kenyon Martin played 36 minutes and was 5/10 and 5/8 from the line for 15 points, and he made 14 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, and 2 assists.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Monday, February 25 in Denver to play the Pistons at 7 pm mountain time. The Pistons will be playing on back to back days, while the Nuggets will not be. Therefore, the Nuggets will enjoy both the home court and the extra rest advantages.