The Power of the Jinx: Ricky Rubio, Kevin Love, and the Minnesota Timberwolves Fail to get Credit for a Win for the Second Time in Three Games

Why is it that I, your Quest for the Ring (QFTR) producer, don’t watch a lot of regular season games? It’s mainly because I have many better ways to spend the production time available for QFTR. Although when I watch a game only one third of the time is counted against production time, even so, I can’t be watching a lot of regular season games because if I do that then I will be even more short of time than I already am for producing what I want and need to produce.

If I watched two games every single night it would virtually cripple production of QFTR Reports.

QFTR operates at a high level which enables us to explain how basketball playoff games and Championships are won and lost whether or not we ever watch games. More specifically, we mostly use many dozens of Internet Sites (using the most important and valuable things on those Sites), dozens of computer programs, dozens of books, thousands of articles, and a few other odd ball things to produce Reports. We make use of records that are on the Internet of thousands and thousands of teams and games to produce Reports. And of course we make use of a high level of accumulated knowledge and intelligence about the game. In order to qualify to write reports about basketball, you do need to watch a few games, but if you want to know the truth, watching games is actually a relatively unproductive way to spend production time.

To the extent I do watch games I watch mainly playoff games. Those “high level” games are the ones QFTR is most concerned with.

But sometimes I get quirky or whatever and can not resist watching some regular season games. Traditionally when I do watch a regular season game it will be a Denver Nuggets game. But now that George Karl has pretty much decimated the Nuggets, times are finally changing, and recently I have been watching Minnesota Timberwolves games than Nuggets games. Already, I’ve now watched two Minnesota Timberwolves regular season games (and part of the third one).

RAYMOND FELTON EXTREMELY OUTSTANDING, TY LAWSON EVEN BETTER, AND GEORGE KARL IN A BITCHY MOOD AS PORTLAND BEATS DENVER
But I did see the Portland Trailblazers defeat the Nuggets in Portland on December 29, and I was happy to see Karl lose, especially since Karl was extremely pissed about it. Karl was in one of his really bitchy moods, probably at least partly because he was worried that Raymond Felton would be better than Ty Lawson in the game. Karl getting all bitchy with the officials by itself made the game worth watching, laugh out loud. But there was far more than that to enjoy in that game.

Portland starting point guard Raymond Felton, who is clearly a superstar point guard, was a Nugget last year, but he demanded to be traded when Karl made the mistakes of considering Ty Lawson to be better than he is and when Karl made Lawson the starter rather than Felton, and when Karl gave Lawson more playing time minutes than he gave Felton. Lawson may be a superstar himself, but Felton is clearly and measurably better, especially when you look at which you would rather have in a playoff game.

The interesting twist in the December 29 Nuggets – Trailblazers game was that even though Denver lost the game, Karl’s point guard Ty Lawson was off the chain and had 8 assists and a Real Player Rating in the historical superstar stratosphere. Felton was also a historical superstar for the game, but had a lower rating than Lawson since he could hardly beat Lawson’s career best type of night.

To make a long story short and to simplify, that game was mostly guards versus guards, and since Karl is especially poor at managing guards, the Trailblazers were able to win the game despite the fact that Lawson had a completely off the chain game featuring 8 steals.

Oh well, I guess a coaching hack like Karl can’t win even when he catches a break; ball don’t lie!

But back to the main subject at hand….

WITH QFTR WATCHING, THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES LOSE ANOTHER GAME THAT REALLY WAS A WIN
After on opening night having defeated one of the very best teams in the League, the Oklahoma Thunder, but not getting credit for the win due mostly to the incredible bad luck of missing almost every single three attempted, the Thunder lost their second straight home game of the young season on the last Friday of 2011 (December 30). Legally, the Miami Heat won the game over the Minnesota Timberwolves 103-101, but realistically, they didn’t really win the game.

This latest Timberwolves loss was due to bad calls made by referees, pure and simple. I don’t have the time to specifically review what the bad calls were (and like most of them this QFTR Report is already a long one). If you don’t believe me, consider that Rick Adelman became so upset with the officiating that he was called for a technical foul (and Adelman getting a technical is rare). And/or consider that Adelman was repeatedly upset with the officials during the game. If you still don’t believe me, visit a Timberwolves forum and read the game thread (or perhaps even a Heat forum for that matter). Or else download and watch the damn game yourself. If you know basketball and watch that game, you will have to agree that there were bad calls going against both teams in that game, but many more went against the Timberwolves, and since Miami won by just two points, the Timberwolves were obviously the victims of bad officiating in this game.

So at one point, Timberwolves Coach Adelman was so upset about bad calls that he got a technical foul for being upset with the officials. Adelman getting a technical foul is a very rare event.

Although overall most basketball games are won by the team that really won, one of the exceptions is games where bad officiating goes more against one team than another, costing that team a game. As a rough estimate, that happens one time in every 200 games.

For the record, in the very first week of the 2011-12 season, the Timberwolves have now defeated two of the very best teams in the NBA, the Oklahoma Thunder and the Miami Heat. Ricky Rubio has indeed arrived.

QFTR MIGHT BE THE PROBLEM
Unfortunately, the QFTR jinx has apparently reared it’s ugly head. This jinx is where if I watch a game the wrong team (which is of course the team I want and expect to win) loses the game. This jinx is yet another reason I should not be watching very many regular season games.

The jinx seems to be much stronger in the regular season than it is in the playoffs. But don’t get me wrong, it seems I do once in a while cost a team a win by watching a game in the playoffs. For example, I may be the one responsible for costing the Boston Celtics the chance to win what would have been a game seven in their 2011 playoff series versus the Miami Heat. That chance was lost when Dywayne Wade intentionally tried to injure Rajon Rondo and, unfortunately, the try to injure Rondo turned into the actual injury to Rondo. Rondo being injured ended any chance that the Celtics could beat the Heat in those 2011 playoffs.

And now I am thinking it may be yours truly who is really responsible for the Timberwolves winning two of their first three 2011-12 games against two of the very best teams, but not getting credit for either won of those wins. I have a long history of watching games that end up controversial to put it nicely and stolen by the wrong team to put it more realistically. More generally, I have a long history of bad luck that boggles the mind, although eventually I prevail in every little and every big thing.

Of course, since you remember the games that turn out wrong more easily and for a longer time than you remember the ones that turn out right, there is a tendency for the power of the jinx to be exaggerated. However, that does not mean there isn’t a jinx. The truth is brutal: the QFTR jinx is very real. I have to stop watching Timberwolves games or they will continue to every once in a while be cheated out of a win. I might have to have someone tie me up so that I won’t be able to watch any of the Nuggets-Timberwolves games.

But on the other hand, realistically, what am I going to do? I can’t resist watching a few regular season games, and I absolutely have to watch a few playoff games or else I would not be fully 100% qualified to produce QFTR. Unfortunately, the jinx is going to occasionally cost a team a win.

Let’s see what might be salvaged after the jinx and any injuries have done the damage that they are going to do….

TIMBERWOLVES AND NUGGETS THINGS WE NEED AND WANT TO HAVE HAPPEN TO MAKE 2012 A GOOD YEAR
The more wins the Timberwolves are cheated out of, the less they will achieve. Let’s review what they are capable of achieving this year, in order from the biggest to the most modest achievement, customized to a QFTR perspective:

-- (1) The Timberwolves make the 2012 playoffs, taking the last playoff spot in the West from the Denver Nuggets, who are on their way back down to the League basement, mostly due to Nuggets Coach George Karl’s persuasion (on the down low and indirectly of course which is how Karl does all of his dirty deeds) of many of their best players to quit the team (Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, Raymond Felton to name three but there are more than this). Yes, Karl really is that destructive; that Karl eventually decimates teams and franchises is not just an urban legend, laugh out loud.

Or, if that can’t happen due to the jinx or injuries or what have you, how about this:

-- (2) The Timberwolves make the 2012 playoffs but the coaching hack Karl squirms his way into the playoffs as well (only to be quickly dumped in round one as usual).

Or, if that can’t happen due to the jinx or injuries or what have you, how about this:

-- (3) Neither the Nuggets nor the Timberwolves make the playoffs. But the Timberwolves finish with a better win-loss record than the Nuggets.

Or, if that can’t happen due to the jinx or injuries or what have you, how about this:

-- (4) The Timberwolves defeat the Denver Nuggets in head to head match-ups. The Timberwolves win all four games against the Nuggets, or at least they win three of four of them. And this causes George Karl to fall short of the 38-26 record he needs to get to to avoid being directly responsible for the Nuggets drop-off from 2011 to 2012. For details about what is on the line for Karl in 2012, see this Report.

Or, if that can’t happen due to the jinx or injuries or what have you, how about this:

-- (5) The Timberwolves defeat the Denver Nuggets in head to head match-ups. The Timberwolves win all four games against the Nuggets, or at least they win three of four of them. But somehow, George Karl still manages to finish with a record of 38-26 or better and thus avoids responsibility, at least for now, in this particular year, for the Nuggets going to hell and a hand basket due to his chasing away most of the better players on the Nuggets.

Note that once it finally becomes obvious that the Nuggets are heading for the basement of the NBA, that’s when Karl will probably finally retire, leaving the mess and the impossible task of cleaning up after the Karl fiasco to some hapless fool who stumbles into that impossible to quickly clean up mess.

So I want one of those five things just described to happen. The lower the number of the item (and the higher up the item is on the list) the more celebration there will be at QFTR headquarters this coming spring.

NUGGETS-TIMBERWOLVES GAMES IN 2011-12
Despite there being just being 66 games in this regular season instead of the usual 82, there will be a full slate of four Nuggets-Timberwolves games this year as usual:

--Monday Feb. 20 in Denver at 9 pm; Both teams will be playing on back to back nights.

--Sunday March 25 in Minneapolis at 330 pm; Neither team will be playing on back to back nights.

--Wednesday April 11 in Denver at 9 pm; Neither team will be playing on back to back nights.

--Thursday April 26 in Minneapolis at 8 pm; the Denver Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights; the Timberwolves will be rested.

Those teams are Eastern times; watch those games if you get a chance. Maybe if just one QFTR reader watches a game based on a QFTR recommendation the jinx will be defeated by an anti-jinx.

ADELMAN GAGGED
After the game, Timberwolves Coach Rick Adelman had this to say in the brief post-game news conference that coaches usually give after games.



WHAT ADELMAN REALLY MEANT TO SAY BUT COULDN’T DUE TO VERY HEAVY FINES IMPOSED IF A COACH CRITICIZES BAD CALLS

“We were hammered by a large number of bad calls and that cost us the game. We really won that game. The officiating in the game was horrible, far worse than normal. There were about seven bad calls against us and maybe two bad calls against the Heat, for a net of five against us. If you just take back any two of those five net bad calls against us we win that game over the Miami Heat.”

If Adelman had said that, it would have been the real truth, but it would have cost him many thousands of dollars because the League would have fined his ass. Adelman is way to professional and too experienced with bad officiating to fall into the trap of criticizing officials in a stupid little news conference and then getting fined. Fortunately, the League can not fine the ass of QFTR.

OFFICIAL QFTR APOLOGY TO THE TIMBERWOLVES
So QFTR apologizes to the Timberwolves for watching Timberwolves games. Even though we are not really responsible for the jinx, it does live at our headquarters and therefore good manners require that we apologize for the bastard. To try to get rid of this jinx, we have tried Raid, other bug sprays, rat killer, mouse killer, and complete fumigation by a licensed exterminator. Hell, we even had a freaky Catholic priest come and do an exorcism at QFTR headquarters. But jinxes in general, or at least the jinx that is at HQ, appear to be immune to all of those things, because obviously since the Timberwolves have now legally lost two games that were actually wins, out of just three games watched by QFTR, who can deny the power of the Jinx?

But at the same time, who can deny the power of Ricky Rubio, Kevin Love, Derrick Williams, Rick Adelman, and the Minnesota Timberwolves? They just defeated the Oklahoma Thunder and the Miami Heat, two of the very best teams in the NBA.

NBA 2011-2012 Schedule in Excel - Teams Highlighted Versions - Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves

Quest for the Ring (QFTR) recently published the 2011-12 NBA schedule on Excel in two versions: Plain and with the top teams highlighted. Those are the primary schedule versions we post every year at all costs and are located here.

This is the fourth of four extra schedule postings showing schedules with particular teams highlighted. Each of the four postings will have two separate NBA schedules, each one with the games of one team highlighted. This year, the four extra schedule postings will have these teams:

--Boston Celtics and New York Knicks

--Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors

--Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma Thunder

--Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves

Due to the limited traffic QFTR gets and due to the fact we do several dozen other types of reports, including the all important text Reports on how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, we don't have the resources to post schedules with particular teams highlighted for all thirty teams (but we did manage to squeeze out the eight above). QFTR does guarantee an absolute minimum production level, which though limited is enough to establish the Site as one of the most important basketball Sites on the World Wide Web. But if you want more QFTR production, you need to post links to QFTR whenever and wherever you can. If we get more links, we'll definitely get more traffic. If we do get more traffic, the production will increase.

Thank you for visiting QFTR, the Site that explains how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, AND the Site that gives you basketball information that you were not supposed to know. Remember, to avoid losing out on future production you should definitely bookmark the page you are on right now: www.nuggets1.blogspot.com

QFTR is NOT on Twitter or Facebook or any other silly and very limited platform because we have better things to do and because we do not waste time trying to get cheap and fleeting traffic. QFTR currently appears surprisingly well in Google search results, but those results change from time to time for reasons that are generally not known to the general public. So it's possible that QFTR will become hard to find using Google Search in the future. So therefore, if you are serious about basketball, it is highly recommended that you bookmark QFTR (www.nuggets1.blogspot.com) and then use your bookmark to visit from time to time.

PLAYING DUMB: A LESSON ABOUT THE INTERNET
There is playing dumb in basketball and there is also playing dumb on the Internet. Recently, we have noticed many visitors coming from Google Search and landing on the 2010-11 schedule and leaving before noticing that we do have the 2011-12 NBA schedule posted in Excel. As mentioned above, the primary schedule posting is here.

QFTR is very surprised and happy about how well Google Search is indexing Quest for the Ring. This note here is just to remind people that if when you use the Internet all you do is use Google Search and you just do "hit and run visits" to Sites, where you leave if you don't instantly get what you want, you will often miss out on exactly what you are looking for. For example, this will happen if Google Search happens to lead you to last year's posting rather than the recent one for this year. If you are playing dumb, you will do a hit and run and miss out on exactly what you were looking for. All you had to to was look around a little on the Site that Google led you to but you didn't do that; you just did the hit and run and lost out. If you spend a two or three minutes and can't find what you were looking for, then you can move on. The moral of the story is that you are often going to be wasting your time if you don't take a little time to look around a little for what you are really looking for on the Sites that Google leads you to.

QFTR makes it extremely easy to find our recent postings / Reports. See especially the panels near the top showing the most recent 40 Reports.

More broadly, what you really should do to get things from the Internet is bookmark Sites that give you what you want and then use that bookmark system AND Google Search to find things on the Internet. The bookmark system is like your personal, customized Google Search system. To use an analogy, Google Search is a general tool and your bookmark system is a customized tool you need to get certain jobs done easily and well. Sometimes you need that specialized tool that most other people don't have to get a job done.

Bookmarks should be organized into a folder system that make it easy to find bookmarks that you need.

Bookmark QFTR now if you have not done so already.

Don't play dumb in basketball or on the Internet.

VERY QUICK USER GUIDE TO THE SCHEDULES
Each team schedule shows the whole NBA schedule with every game and every team, with all the games of a particular team highlighted in orange. This posting shows the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the Dallas Mavericks games highlighted and then the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the Oklahoma Thunder games highlighted.

All versions show the schedule in four primary columns:
--Primary Column 1: December 2011 and January 2012 Games
--Primary Column 2: February 2012 Games
--Primary Column 3: March 2012 Games
--Primary Column 4: April 2012 Games

Within each of the primary columns there are these three secondary columns:
--Sub Column 1: There are date headers and for every game the two teams playing using the format Road Team at Home Team are shown.

--Sub Column 2: Under the header "TIME" the game start time using Eastern Time is shown for every game. If you have not memorized the US time zones, see the conversions to the other zones at the top of some of the primary columns.

--Sub Column 3: Under the header "TV" the national television network that is covering the game is shown if there is one. Only a small percentage of games are covered by a national television network (but many of the most important games are). Most games that are not broadcast by a national network are broadcast regionally or locally. In the TV column, for games that are broadcast only regionally or locally there is always a blank space. Note that some or all ESPN games are also available on the Internet on ESPN 3.

2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE DENVER NUGGETS GAMES HIGHLIGHTED


2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES GAMES HIGHLIGHTED

NBA 2011-2012 Schedule in Excel - Teams Highlighted Versions - Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma Thunder

Quest for the Ring (QFTR) recently published the 2011-12 NBA schedule on Excel in two versions: Plain and with the top teams highlighted. Those are the primary schedule versions we post every year at all costs and are located here.

This is the third of four extra schedule postings showing schedules with particular teams highlighted. Each of the four postings will have two separate NBA schedules, each one with the games of one team highlighted. This year, the four extra schedule postings will have these teams:

--Boston Celtics and New York Knicks

--Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors

--Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma Thunder

--Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves

Due to the limited traffic QFTR gets and due to the fact we do several dozen other types of reports, including the all important text Reports on how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, we don't have the resources to post schedules with particular teams highlighted for all thirty teams (but we did manage to squeeze out the eight above). QFTR does guarantee an absolute minimum production level, which though limited is enough to establish the Site as one of the most important basketball Sites on the World Wide Web. But if you want more QFTR production, you need to post links to QFTR whenever and wherever you can. If we get more links, we'll definitely get more traffic. If we do get more traffic, the production will increase.

Thank you for visiting QFTR, the Site that explains how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, AND the Site that gives you basketball information that you were not supposed to know. Remember, to avoid losing out on future production you should definitely bookmark the page you are on right now: www.nuggets1.blogspot.com

QFTR is NOT on Twitter or Facebook or any other silly and very limited platform because we have better things to do and because we do not waste time trying to get cheap and fleeting traffic. QFTR currently appears surprisingly well in Google search results, but those results change from time to time for reasons that are generally not known to the general public. So it's possible that QFTR will become hard to find using Google Search in the future. So therefore, if you are serious about basketball, it is highly recommended that you bookmark QFTR (www.nuggets1.blogspot.com) and then use your bookmark to visit from time to time.

PLAYING DUMB: A LESSON ABOUT THE INTERNET
There is playing dumb in basketball and there is also playing dumb on the Internet. Recently, we have noticed many visitors coming from Google Search and landing on the 2010-11 schedule and leaving before noticing that we do have the 2011-12 NBA schedule posted in Excel. As mentioned above, the primary schedule posting is here.

QFTR is very surprised and happy about how well Google Search is indexing Quest for the Ring. This note here is just to remind people that if when you use the Internet all you do is use Google Search and you just do "hit and run visits" to Sites, where you leave if you don't instantly get what you want, you will often miss out on exactly what you are looking for. For example, this will happen if Google Search happens to lead you to last year's posting rather than the recent one for this year. If you are playing dumb, you will do a hit and run and miss out on exactly what you were looking for. All you had to to was look around a little on the Site that Google led you to but you didn't do that; you just did the hit and run and lost out. If you spend a two or three minutes and can't find what you were looking for, then you can move on. The moral of the story is that you are often going to be wasting your time if you don't take a little time to look around a little for what you are really looking for on the Sites that Google leads you to.

QFTR makes it extremely easy to find our recent postings / Reports. See especially the panels near the top showing the most recent 40 Reports.

More broadly, what you really should do to get things from the Internet is bookmark Sites that give you what you want and then use that bookmark system AND Google Search to find things on the Internet. The bookmark system is like your personal, customized Google Search system. To use an analogy, Google Search is a general tool and your bookmark system is a customized tool you need to get certain jobs done easily and well. Sometimes you need that specialized tool that most other people don't have to get a job done.

Bookmarks should be organized into a folder system that make it easy to find bookmarks that you need.

Bookmark QFTR now if you have not done so already.

Don't play dumb in basketball or on the Internet.

VERY QUICK USER GUIDE TO THE SCHEDULES
Each team schedule shows the whole NBA schedule with every game and every team, with all the games of a particular team highlighted in orange. This posting shows the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the Dallas Mavericks games highlighted and then the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the Oklahoma Thunder games highlighted.

All versions show the schedule in four primary columns:
--Primary Column 1: December 2011 and January 2012 Games
--Primary Column 2: February 2012 Games
--Primary Column 3: March 2012 Games
--Primary Column 4: April 2012 Games

Within each of the primary columns there are these three secondary columns:
--Sub Column 1: There are date headers and for every game the two teams playing using the format Road Team at Home Team are shown.

--Sub Column 2: Under the header "TIME" the game start time using Eastern Time is shown for every game. If you have not memorized the US time zones, see the conversions to the other zones at the top of some of the primary columns.

--Sub Column 3: Under the header "TV" the national television network that is covering the game is shown if there is one. Only a small percentage of games are covered by a national television network (but many of the most important games are). Most games that are not broadcast by a national network are broadcast regionally or locally. In the TV column, for games that are broadcast only regionally or locally there is always a blank space. Note that some or all ESPN games are also available on the Internet on ESPN 3.

2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE DALLAS MAVERICKS GAMES HIGHLIGHTED


2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE OKLAHOMA THUNDER GAMES HIGHLIGHTED

NBA 2011-2012 Schedule in Excel - Teams Highlighted Versions - Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors

Quest for the Ring (QFTR) recently published the 2011-12 NBA schedule on Excel in two versions: Plain and with the top teams highlighted. Those are the primary schedule versions we post every year at all costs and are located here.

This is the second of four extra schedule postings showing schedules with particular teams highlighted. Each of the four postings will have two separate NBA schedules, each one with the games of one team highlighted. This year, the four extra schedule postings will have these teams:

--Boston Celtics and New York Knicks

--Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors

--Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma Thunder

--Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves

Due to the limited traffic QFTR gets and due to the fact we do several dozen other types of reports, including the all important text Reports on how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, we don't have the resources to post schedules with particular teams highlighted for all thirty teams (but we did manage to squeeze out the eight above). QFTR does guarantee an absolute minimum production level, which though limited is enough to establish the Site as one of the most important basketball Sites on the World Wide Web. But if you want more QFTR production, you need to post links to QFTR whenever and wherever you can. If we get more links, we'll definitely get more traffic. If we do get more traffic, the production will increase.

Thank you for visiting QFTR, the Site that explains how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, AND the Site that gives you basketball information that you were not supposed to know. Remember, to avoid losing out on future production you should definitely bookmark the page you are on right now: www.nuggets1.blogspot.com

QFTR is NOT on Twitter or Facebook or any other silly and very limited platform because we have better things to do and because we do not waste time trying to get cheap and fleeting traffic. QFTR currently appears surprisingly well in Google search results, but those results change from time to time for reasons that are generally not known to the general public. So it's possible that QFTR will become hard to find using Google Search in the future. So therefore, if you are serious about basketball, it is highly recommended that you bookmark QFTR (www.nuggets1.blogspot.com) and then use your bookmark to visit from time to time.

PLAYING DUMB: A LESSON ABOUT THE INTERNET
There is playing dumb in basketball and there is also playing dumb on the Internet. Recently, we have noticed many visitors coming from Google Search and landing on the 2010-11 schedule and leaving before noticing that we do have the 2011-12 NBA schedule posted in Excel. As mentioned above, the primary schedule posting is here.

QFTR is very surprised and happy about how well Google Search is indexing Quest for the Ring. This note here is just to remind people that if when you use the Internet all you do is use Google Search and you just do "hit and run visits" to Sites, where you leave if you don't instantly get what you want, you will often miss out on exactly what you are looking for. For example, this will happen if Google Search happens to lead you to last year's posting rather than the recent one for this year. If you are playing dumb, you will do a hit and run and miss out on exactly what you were looking for. All you had to to was look around a little on the Site that Google led you to but you didn't do that; you just did the hit and run and lost out. If you spend a two or three minutes and can't find what you were looking for, then you can move on. The moral of the story is that you are often going to be wasting your time if you don't take a little time to look around a little for what you are really looking for on the Sites that Google leads you to.

QFTR makes it extremely easy to find our recent postings / Reports. See especially the panels near the top showing the most recent 40 Reports.

More broadly, what you really should do to get things from the Internet is bookmark Sites that give you what you want and then use that bookmark system AND Google Search to find things on the Internet. The bookmark system is like your personal, customized Google Search system. To use an analogy, Google Search is a general tool and your bookmark system is a customized tool you need to get certain jobs done easily and well. Sometimes you need that specialized tool that most other people don't have to get a job done.

Bookmarks should be organized into a folder system that make it easy to find bookmarks that you need.

Bookmark QFTR now if you have not done so already.

Don't play dumb in basketball or on the Internet.

VERY QUICK USER GUIDE TO THE SCHEDULES
Each team schedule shows the whole NBA schedule with every game and every team, with all the games of a particular team highlighted in orange. This posting shows the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the Chicago Bulls games highlighted and then the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the Toronto Raptors games highlighted.

All versions show the schedule in four primary columns:
--Primary Column 1: December 2011 and January 2012 Games
--Primary Column 2: February 2012 Games
--Primary Column 3: March 2012 Games
--Primary Column 4: April 2012 Games

Within each of the primary columns there are these three secondary columns:
--Sub Column 1: There are date headers and for every game the two teams playing using the format Road Team at Home Team are shown.

--Sub Column 2: Under the header "TIME" the game start time using Eastern Time is shown for every game. If you have not memorized the US time zones, see the conversions to the other zones at the top of some of the primary columns.

--Sub Column 3: Under the header "TV" the national television network that is covering the game is shown if there is one. Only a small percentage of games are covered by a national television network (but many of the most important games are). Most games that are not broadcast by a national network are broadcast regionally or locally. In the TV column, for games that are broadcast only regionally or locally there is always a blank space. Note that some or all ESPN games are also available on the Internet on ESPN 3.

2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE CHICAGO BULLS GAMES HIGHLIGHTED


2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE TORONTO RAPTORS GAMES HIGHLIGHTED

The First Day is a Fiasco, but the Battle Between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets has Only Just Begun

Is it The Quest for the Ring (QFTR) jinx or is it that the world in general sucks? Or it could be both. Anyway, on the opening day of the race between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets, just about the worst possible thing happens: the Wolves lose and the Nuggets win. But wait, it’s worse: the Wolves outplayed their opponent, the Oklahoma Thunder, but still lost the game due to two exceptions to the rule that the better team wins in basketball, more on that later. But wait, it’s still worse: the Nuggets not only won; they won big, by 22 points (and QFTR thinks that 20 or more points is a rout). So overall, there were at least two insults added to the two injuries.

THE RACE BETWEEN THE NUGGETS AND THE TIMBERWOLVES
But wait, what is this “race between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets” all about anyway? I’m glad you asked, or else I’m glad I asked if you didn’t ask. The race is between a team moving up (the Timberwolves) and a team moving down (the Nuggets). The question is, can the Wolves tie or beat the Nuggets this year? If so, it will make our year here at QFTR, because of the following….

In case you don’t know, since we started out as a Denver Nuggets fan site (yes, it’s really true, laugh out loud) and since we have to this day continued to be relatively obsessed with reporting on them (but don’t judge too harshly, because sometimes obsessions can be good, laugh out loud) QFTR has saturated the Earth with Reports detailing the doings of Denver Nuggets coach George Karl. And now, more than ever, the Nuggets are George Karl’s team.

In fact, the Nuggets this year are really Karl’s team, lock stock and barrel. The owners of the Nuggets legally own the Nuggets and the Nuggets do have a manager, but so much authority to run the team has been actually or at least indirectly and / or effectively given over to Karl that in the operational sense the Nuggets are much more Karl’s team than anyone else’s. Although many key decisions for 2011-12 have technically been made by the managers and owners of the Nuggets, Karl has been behind most of them. For further proof and details see this report here.

So whatever happens to the Nuggets in 2011-12, good or bad, will really be one hundred percent (or 97-99 percent, anyway) the doings of George Karl. The players on the roster, the players not on the roster, the playing times, the specific rotations, the strategies, and the tactics, George Karl is behind them all. So the Nuggets’ 2011-12 win-loss record is and will continue to be equal to George Karl’s 2011-12 win-loss record. The Nuggets of 2011-12 are George Karl 24/7, George Karl all the time as it were. True, the 2011-12 Nuggets’ win-loss record will not be an absolutely precise reflection of Karl, due to injuries, schedule factors, and random events, but it will be a close reflection anyway. When QFTR looks at the standings and sees the Denver Nuggets listed, we will see “George Karl” instead of “Denver Nuggets” in those standings on the page, laugh out loud.

QFTR has discovered, proved and reported over the years that Karl is a miserable NBA playoffs Coach. There are dozens of Reports that give you all the details on the hows and the whys for that fact. But his coaching and team management is much better if all you look at are regular seasons (while ignoring the playoffs). But this year, since Karl rather than either the managers or the owners are completely responsible, QFTR is expecting that the Nuggets will finally (we’ve waited several years for this, laugh out loud) be pretty lousy and worse than expected in the regular season. For once, we should not have to wait for the playoffs to once again confirm that George Karl is not really a great coach who should be worshiped, but merely a very lucky one who has been given (by managers and owners) way more than his share of above average players over the years.

MEASURING GEORGE KARL FOR 2011-12
First let's look at the "loose standard". The loose standard is based on the preseason expectations for the Nuggets of the general public. Those expectations are roughly that the Nuggets will finish with a record of 33-33. So the loose standard baseline is a final record of 33-33, and worse than expected will be any losing record. If you were using that standard, in order to confirm that when Karl is given total control, really bad things happen, the Nuggets would need to win fewer than 33 games, 32 games or fewer to be exact. The fewer the better, laugh out loud (and yes, laughing at the poor Nuggets too much may be becoming a bad habit of mine).

That's the loose standard, and is overly generous toward George Karl. This would be an example of how the rose colored wearing general public often falls into the trap of being too easy on coaches, managers, and owners. Because by setting the expectation at 33 wins, you are already failing to charge George Karl for losses that are really his responsibility. Because really, strictly speaking, the standard for the Nuggets for 2011-12, and the standard by which George Karl should be judged this year, is that the Nuggets match their 2010-11 record, which was 50-32. Since there are just 66 games this year instead of the usual 82, we need to use the winning percentage from last year and multiply by the 66. When you do this, you get 40 wins; so George Karl needs to finish with a record of at least 40-26 in 2011-12 to validate himself as a quality regular season coach. (And even if he succeeds at this, he will of course very likely lose out in the playoffs as usual.)

So we have two standards for evaluating George Karl this year on the table, the loose and the strict. the loose standard is that Karl needs to finish at least 33-33. The strict standard is that Karl needs to finish at least 40-26. The strict standard is much more defensible and by rights should be the one used. But QFTR will compromise a little and use a standard of 38-28 (which allows for a little bad luck). So bottom line, George Karl needs to finish at least 38-28 in 2011-12 or his reputation as a good regular season coach has just taken a really big hit.

MEANWHILE, WAY UP NORTH
Meanwhile, we have the Minnesota Timberwolves, coached by a far better playoffs coach, Rick Adelman, and featuring a new player who will most likely in the coming years be among the best three or four point guards in the NBA: Ricky Rubio. And the Timberwolves also have the second pick in the 2011 draft: Derrick Williams, SF(3) / PF(4). And they have Michael Beasley at the very same positions as Williams coming on strong this year (we hope). And they also feature historical superstar Kevin Love at center. For more details about the 2011-12 Timberwolves, look for more Reports about them in the next few months. This is the team that QFTR has adopted as our favorite formerly really bad team that is now on it’s way up.

So aside from the actual number of Nuggets wins, QFTR is also hoping that the Minnesota Timberwolves can finish at least one game ahead of the Denver Nuggets in the 2011-12 regular season.

We can not and do not officially “expect” things to happen because when you say “expect” you are really making a prediction and we don’t do official predictions due to all the wild card factors, first among them injuries. We sometimes unofficially expect things to happen and we sometimes unofficially do predictions. With respect to the Wolves versus the Nuggets this year, to be honest and clear, QFTR is not even unofficially predicting the Wolves will finish ahead of the Nuggets. But we are hoping they will. Hope is the next level down from unofficial predictions. If a hope comes true it makes you happy; it’s like when the weather is not as bad as was forecasted (or not as bad as it usually is by climate) or it’s like getting money you didn’t expect to get. A hope coming true is a really nice thing, and QFTR hopes the T-Wolves finish ahead of the Nuggets this year.

And that is an overview of what the race between the Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves is about.

But one final thing before we discuss what happened to the Timberwolves on opening day. The race between Denver and Minnesota may turn out to be something more than a thing which matters only at QFTR and nowhere else. There is a fairly good possibility that Denver and Minnesota will battle for the final 2012 playoff spot or two in the West Conference. Were the Minnesota Timberwolves to make the playoffs and the Denver Nuggets not make them, that would cause dancing in the streets here at QFTR headquarters. We would be very happy about that for years to come.

But for now it’s on to the first game of the season for the T-Wolves…

OPENING DAY: THE WOLVES CLEARLY OUTPLAY THE THUNDER BUT LOSE
The Timberwolves opened the 2011-12 season at home against the Oklahoma Thunder and outplayed them but still lost (damn it). In general the wrong team wins a game in basketball much less than in football, but it does happen, and this game is an excellent example.

The T-Wolves clearly had the better offense except for two unusual things (to be revealed later). On the things that matter the most in playoff series, the T-Wolves offense featuring rookie point guard Ricky Rubio was better than the Thunder offense featuring point guard Russell Westbrook and historical superstar Kevin Durant at small forward.

Let’s first check the basic offensive factors showing that the T-Wolves were better than the Thunder…

First, the T-Wolves had many fewer turnovers than the Thunder (17 versus 12, with 14 turnovers being the average number for a team in a game). The five turnover gap was outstanding. T-Wolves coach Rick Adelman has been stressing the necessity for the Wolves to keep turnovers down and they responded big time in the opener. Although the number of turnovers is often not a crucial thing in a regular season game, it can be crucial in razor close playoff games.

Second, the T-Wolves made more offensive rebounds and had more shots on goal than did the Thunder. The T-Wolves made 10 offensive rebounds and had 87 shots on goal versus just 8 offensive rebounds and just 76 shots on goal for the Thunder. The average or standard number of offensive rebounds made by teams in games is 11.

Third, the T-Wolves had a better, more efficient, more productive offense than the Thunder did as shown first by the all-important assist counts. The T-Wolves made 22 assists versus 18 for the Thunder with 21 assists being the average number for a team in a game. Although teams can sometimes get away with not so many assists in regular season games (for example, if they have shooters who were able to make a lot of shots more or less in isolation) teams generally lose playoff series unless they make more assists than their opponent.

There is a great calculation almost anyone can quickly do which reveals much more than does the number of assists…

BASIC QUALITY OF OFFENSE
A quick way to approximately but accurately evaluate the quality of an offense is to run the following quick and fairly easy calculation:

Basic Quality of Offense (B Q OFF) = 2 X # of assists made by point guards + 1 X the number of assists made by shooting guards.

For point guards, if two played you take their assists and multiply by two. If more than two point guards played, you take the two who made the most assists and then any assists made by the third point guard are counted at 1X instead of 2X. For forwards and centers, assists are ignored; in other words, you multiply assists by forwards and centers by zero. Assists by them are better than no assists at all, but it’s the assists by guards that matter for determining the quality of an offense and it’s ability to win playoff games.

This quick and relatively simple calculation that you can do in your head in less than one minute produces a number which approximately but accurately tells you how well organized and efficient the offense was.

So for example, in this game, the T-Wolves point guards were Ricky Rubio who made six assists and Luke Ridnour who made four. There was a third point guard, JJ Barea (who often in reality is more of a shooting or 2-guard). Barea made 2 assists, fewer than Rubio or Ridnour, so he is the third point guard and his assists count at 1 X.

For shooting guards, the T-Wolves do not really have a good one (JR Smith, please come to Minnesota). In this game, Wesley Johnson was the starting shooting guard and he made three assists. No other shooting guard played in the game (due to Minnesota Timberwolves Coach Rick Adelman realizing that Minnesota is very weak in the shooting guard department).

So given all of that, this is how you calculate the Basic Quality of Offense for Minnesota:

B Q OFF was 2 X (Rubio assists) plus 2 X (Ridnour assists) plus 1 X (Barea assists) plus (1 X Johnson assists).

Putting in the actual number of assists:

T-Wolves B Q OFF = (2 X 6) + (2 X 4) + (1 X 2) + (1 X 3) = 25

For Oklahoma, here were the guard assists:

Russell Westbrook, point guard, 6 assists
Eric Maynor, point guard, 2 assists
James Harden, shooting guard, 3 assists
Thabo Sefolosha, shooting guard, 0 assists
Daequan Cook, shooting guard, 0 assists

Therefore:

Thunder B Q OFF = (2 X 6) + (2 X 2) + (1 X 3) + (1 X 0) + (1 X 0) = 19

So the T-Wolves had a much better Basic Quality of Offense number, 25 versus 19 for the Thunder. This means that the T-Wolves offense was better run and much better designed for winning NBA playoff games. A six point gap in B Q OFF is often enough to insure a win, but obviously not always, because it did not insure a win for the T-Wolves in this case.

DEFENSIVELY
While the T-Wolves were clearly and substantially better offensively, defensively, the game was more mixed. The T-Wolves committed 24 personal fouls while the Thunder committed 26 of them, with 21 being the average number for a team in a game.

But the Thunder did have a few more steals and blocks than did the T-Wolves, 6 steals and 5 blocks versus 4 steals and 2 blocks, with 7.5 steals and 5 blocks being the average number of steals and blocks for teams in games. Reflected in those very weak T-Wolves steals and blocks numbers you can see right there two big problems for them: they have poor shooting guards and they probably will continue this year to have weak paint defending and also weak man to man defending in general.

Defensive rebounding was about equal.

Points in the paint surrendered is very important in the regular season and is one of the most important things of all in the playoffs. In this game the Timberwolves were far, far better defensively than the Thunder when you look at points in the paint. The normal or standard points in the paint for a team in a NBA game is about 40 (an easy to remember number). In this game the Thunder surrendered 60 points in the paint, which is about as bad as it ever gets. So the Timberwolves scored 60 points in the paint, which ordinarily is more than enough to insure winning either a regular season or a playoff game. About the only way you can lose a game where you score 60 points in the paint is where you miss almost every three you attempt, which, um, is unfortunately exactly what happened.

The Thunder scored just 36 in the paint, which is just low enough to be a little disturbing for them.

So obviously, when you look at points given up in the paint, Minnesota overwhelmingly dominated (60 versus 36) which is yet another reason why they really won (and should have actually won) this game.

SO HOW EXACTLY DID THE TIMBERWOLVES LOSE WHEN THEY SHOULD HAVE WON?
The Minnesota Timberwolves really defeated the Oklahoma Thunder in this opening night game, when you look at the things that matter most in the playoffs, when in other words you look at the game from a playoffs perspective. If your objective is to win NBA playoff games, you would be much better off playing like the Timberwolves did than like the Thunder did.

But the Timberwolves lost this particular regular season game because of two very unusual gaps. Had either one of these gaps not existed, the Timberwolves would have won instead of the Thunder.

First there was the free throw gap. The average or standard made free throw percentage is about 77% (but I usually use 80% so I can do extremely quick comparisons). Anyway, in this game, the Thunder had 31 free throws, and 80% of 31 rounded is 25. But the Thunder actually made 29 free throws, four more than the 25. The T-Wolves had 26 free throws, and 80% of 26 rounded is 21. But the Thunder made 19 free throws, two fewer than the 21 they should have made on average. So the total free throw gap in favor of the Thunder was 4 + 2 equals 6 points, which is more than the margin of victory for the Thunder. In other words, if the free throws had come out as they do on average, the Timberwolves would have won this game by 2 points.

Note that coaches have a right to be upset when free throws are not made, all the more so since they themselves often get the blame for close losses.

Incidentally, a free throw gap of six is not rare but it is uncommon. Most games have gaps of four or fewer. Had the gap been two (still in favor of the Thunder) this would have been an overtime game. Had the gap been less than two, the Timberwolves would have won.

THE HUGE GAP ON THREES IN THIS GAME
Did you know that many NBA games are decided by 3-point shooting? This game is a great example. The Thunder made 5 of 16 threes, which was a lackluster 31.3% of them. The average or standard percentage for threes is about 36%.

But always remember that just 33% of threes corresponds to 50% of twos which is a very solid shooting percentage for ordinary two-point shots. In other words, if a player or team is just making 33% of threes, contrary to the false beliefs of some less intelligent coaches, this is not really a bad thing.

But getting back to the Thunder-Timberwolves game, the Thunder made just 31.3% of their threes. They should have made at least one more of them (they should have made 6 of 16 if not more). The Timberwolves made just 3 of 22 threes, which was a horrendous, nightmare 13.6% of them. To match the NBA average for a team in a game, the Timberwolves should have made 8 threes. The Timberwolves were five made threes short, so they were 15 points short! We saw just above that the Thunder were one made three short, meaning they were 3 points short. Since 15-3 is 12, overall the Timberwolves lost 12 points on threes, and since the game margin was just 4 points, obviously the Timberwolves should have and would have easily won the game had they made their threes. In fact, if the Timberwolves had just made two more threes than they made, if they were 5 of 22 instead of the horrible, miserable 3 of 22, they would have won the game while still being well below average on threes. But they were really, really horrendous on threes and lost the game due to that.

When a team is that pathetic on threes, it can't be just due to the defending; it has to be more that the team missed some threes that should have been made.

Incidentally, this shows you that the quality of offense factors discussed earlier showing the Timberwolves offensively outplayed the Thunder by a lot do accurately show you who was supposed to win the game (when the defending was roughly equal). If a team loses a game it should have won based on basic quality of offense calculations, it will very often be because of some fluke(s) involving free throws and/or threes.

It could of course also be a gap with two-point shots but this would be less common than a gap on threes and no more common than a gap with free throws. For the record, in this game the Thunder made 30 of 62 twos, or 48.4% of them. The T-Wolves made 36 of 65 twos, or 55.4% of them. Aside from being more proof that the T-Wolves were the real winners of this game, this gap on twos in favor of the T-Wolves validates the quality of offense discussion above. Better quality of offense (including the right players making the right number of assists) leads automatically to a higher scoring percentage (on twos at least) with the 3-ball percentage being more of a wild card factor. So again, this game is a great example of how the 3-point shot wild card factor can sometimes turn a game won by a better offense into a loss.

But you can not react by rebelling against threes and telling your team to not try to make a good number of threes and by telling your team to obsessively run plays into the paint because if you do that you will no longer be playing smart basketball and you will not be able to win playoff series unless you play a very inferior team in a series.

So again, for emphasis and clarity, this particular game is a perfect example of the exception to the rule. Again, the rule is that if a team is almost as good defensively as their opponent (or defensively better than their opponent) and is clearly better offensively than their opponent (as shown for example by B Q OFF) then it will win the game. The exceptions to the rule generally and most often involve shooting discrepancies and flukes, as discussed right here in this Report.

So the Timberwolves were grossly short on threes and obviously lost the game right there. The thing about threes is, you can’t live without them (and they become more important and not less important in the playoffs) but sometimes you can’t live with them either! In this game, the Timberwolves were unable to live with threes; they lost a game they should have won due to the existence of and the need to make threes.

DON'T TAKE ANY DUMB SHORTCUTS THAT LEAD TO NOWHERE
So (Minnesota Coach) Rick Adelman, you need more threes from your squad. It’s time to have all of your three-point shooters practice shooting threes (while guarded) in practice. It’s time to bring the Ray Allen out in them. You are already doing an outstanding job of running the offense; specifically, so far this season, the passing, the spacing, the cutting, and the overall flow of the offense of the T-Wolves are outstanding and is exactly what wins regular season and especially playoff games. So don’t let your team get discouraged about missing threes in any particular game (or even in a bunch of games).

So Rick Adelman, please never do what George Karl does: don’t try to become a regular season only coach by discouraging the 3-point shot in favor of tactics and cheap tricks that squeeze out a few extra regular season wins but then leave the team unable to win playoff series. Please continue doing what you are doing, Coach Adelman; please continue to be smart, big minded, generous, and courageous. Continue to focus on the offense first because that’s where the greatest potential is for the Timberwolves this season. The defense can be optimized later in the season; for now, I would just preach defense generically.

And always remember, small minded basketball coaches who opt for cheap tricks never win basketball championships. That is also known as the “Why George Karl will never win a Championship Rule”, laugh out loud.

NBA 2011-2012 Schedule in Excel - Teams Highlighted Versions - Boston Celtics and New York Knicks

Quest for the Ring (QFTR) recently published the 2011-12 NBA schedule on Excel in two versions: Plain and with the top teams highlighted. Those are the primary schedule versions we post every year at all costs and are located here.

This is the first of four extra schedule postings showing schedules with particular teams highlighted. Each of the four postings will have two separate NBA schedules, each one with the games of one team highlighted. This year, the four extra schedule postings will have these teams:

--Boston Celtics and New York Knicks

--Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors

--Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma Thunder

--Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves

Due to the limited traffic QFTR gets and due to the fact we do several dozen other types of reports, including the all important text Reports on how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, we don't have the resources to post schedules with particular teams highlighted for all thirty teams (but we did manage to squeeze out the eight above). QFTR does guarantee an absolute minimum production level, which though limited is enough to establish the Site as one of the most important basketball Sites on the World Wide Web. But if you want more QFTR production, you need to post links to QFTR whenever and wherever you can. If we get more links, we'll definitely get more traffic. If we do get more traffic, the production will increase.

Thank you for visiting QFTR, the Site that explains how playoff games and Championships are won and lost, AND the Site that gives you basketball information that you were not supposed to know. Remember, to avoid losing out on future production you should definitely bookmark the page you are on right now: www.nuggets1.blogspot.com

QFTR is NOT on Twitter or Facebook or any other silly and very limited platform because we have better things to do and because we do not waste time trying to get cheap and fleeting traffic. QFTR currently appears surprisingly well in Google search results, but those results change from time to time for reasons that are generally not known to the general public. So it's possible that QFTR will become hard to find using Google Search in the future. So therefore, if you are serious about basketball, it is highly recommended that you bookmark QFTR (www.nuggets1.blogspot.com) and then use your bookmark to visit from time to time.

PLAYING DUMB: A LESSON ABOUT THE INTERNET
There is playing dumb in basketball and there is also playing dumb on the Internet. Recently, we have noticed many visitors coming from Google Search and landing on the 2010-11 schedule and leaving before noticing that we do have the 2011-12 NBA schedule posted in Excel. As mentioned above, the primary schedule posting is here.

QFTR is very surprised and happy about how well Google Search is indexing Quest for the Ring. This note here is just to remind people that if when you use the Internet all you do is use Google Search and you just do "hit and run visits" to Sites, where you leave if you don't instantly get what you want, you will often miss out on exactly what you are looking for. For example, this will happen if Google Search happens to lead you to last year's posting rather than the recent one for this year. If you are playing dumb, you will do a hit and run and miss out on exactly what you were looking for. All you had to to was look around a little on the Site that Google led you to but you didn't do that; you just did the hit and run and lost out. If you spend a two or three minutes and can't find what you were looking for, then you can move on. The moral of the story is that you are often going to be wasting your time if you don't take a little time to look around a little for what you are really looking for on the Sites that Google leads you to.

QFTR makes it extremely easy to find our recent postings / Reports. See especially the panels near the top showing the most recent 40 Reports.

More broadly, what you really should do to get things from the Internet is bookmark Sites that give you what you want and then use that bookmark system AND Google Search to find things on the Internet. The bookmark system is like your personal, customized Google Search system. To use an analogy, Google Search is a general tool and your bookmark system is a customized tool you need to get certain jobs done easily and well. Sometimes you need that specialized tool that most other people don't have to get a job done.

Bookmarks should be organized into a folder system that make it easy to find bookmarks that you need.

Bookmark QFTR now if you have not done so already.

Don't play dumb in basketball or on the Internet.

VERY QUICK USER GUIDE TO THE SCHEDULES
Each team schedule shows the whole NBA schedule with every game and every team, with all the games of a particular team highlighted in orange. This posting shows the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the Boston Celtics games highlighted and then the 2011-12 NBA schedule with the New York Knicks games highlighted.

All versions show the schedule in four primary columns:
--Primary Column 1: December 2011 and January 2012 Games
--Primary Column 2: February 2012 Games
--Primary Column 3: March 2012 Games
--Primary Column 4: April 2012 Games

Within each of the primary columns there are these three secondary columns:
--Sub Column 1: There are date headers and for every game the two teams playing using the format Road Team at Home Team are shown.

--Sub Column 2: Under the header "TIME" the game start time using Eastern Time is shown for every game. If you have not memorized the US time zones, see the conversions to the other zones at the top of some of the primary columns.

--Sub Column 3: Under the header "TV" the national television network that is covering the game is shown if there is one. Only a small percentage of games are covered by a national television network (but many of the most important games are). Most games that are not broadcast by a national network are broadcast regionally or locally. In the TV column, for games that are broadcast only regionally or locally there is always a blank space. Note that some or all ESPN games are also available on the Internet on ESPN 3.

2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE BOSTON CELTICS GAMES HIGHLIGHTED


2011-12 NBA SCHEDULE WITH THE NEW YORK KNICKS GAMES HIGHLIGHTED

The 2011-12 Denver Nuggets Preview: They Fell Off a Cliff, are now at Best an Average Team, and the Devastation Could Easily Have Been Even Worse

EDITORIAL NOTES
Originally we were planning to first produce a Report called “How to Beat the Denver Nuggets and Teams like Them Even on Their Home Court”. The Nuggets take full advantage of the high altitude in Denver and they also use some fairly cheap and easy to deal with tricks to pick up a lot of easy wins in Denver. But if you know what they do and what their tricks are, you can beat the Nuggets in Denver now that they have lost a lot of above average players.

Then we realized that before we explain how you beat them in Denver that we should first explain exactly who the 2011-12 Nuggets are and how they are degraded from 2010-11 and other recent years. And that we should explain how they fell off the cliff from last year to this year (although regular QFTR readers probably already know a lot of the reasons). Then for awhile we were planning to combine the two explanations (who they are now and how to beat them) into a series. But then, and although it was a close call, we decided that it would be a little better to put the two Reports out as two separate ones. But even though they won’t officially be a series, this Report and the one that will be appearing shortly on how you defeat the 2012 Nuggets should loosely anyway be considered a series. So you should really read both of them and not just one or the other.

So let’s proceed to break down the 2011-12 Nuggets and how and why they fell off the cliff from last year and from recent years....

FLASHBACK TO AUGUST 2010: THE NUGGETS FIRE THE EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR
On August 3, 2010, General Manager Marc Warkentien was fired by the Nuggets ownership. Warkentien’s official title from when he was hired in 2006 until when he was fired in 2010 was Vice President of Basketball Operations. He did an extremely good job for the Nuggets. (If you don’t believe me, consider that he was NBA League Executive of the Year for 2008-09.) But he could not get a contract extension in 2010 because the Nuggets ownership was too cheap to pay what he deserved to get and/or because Warkentien and/or Warkentien’s decisions were disliked by George Karl.

Why were those the reasons for the firing? Despite being one of the richest ownerships of them all, the Nuggets ownership has been from time attempting to save some money in recent years, most likely due to the poor and scary economy. Unfortunately, many of these moves have been penny wise and pound foolish. As for Karl, the ownership of the Nuggets has been so enthralled with Karl that it seems very likely that if and when Karl ever wanted a general manager to be fired that the manager would most likely be fired.

Of course, more often, and normally, it is the other way around: the coach gets fired if the manager wants him to be fired, while generally, coaches can not successfully demand that managers be fired. Make no mistake; the normal way is generally the much better way to run a team. Having the coach outrank the general manager is generally a very bad way to run a pro basketball team. The only exception would be if you knew for certain that you had one of the best basketball coaches in history, you might want to have that coach be able to overrule the manager (but not be doing so all of the time).

So to be extra clear, the reason why the NBA Executive of the Year was fired by the Nuggets was:

--Nuggets ownership wanting to save some money in a rough and scary economy.

--George Karl did not like decisions made by Warkentien or did not like Warkentien in general.

--Both of the above

Warkentien was then hired by the New York Knicks as a high level consultant in January 2011. Justice is served since the Knicks are now among the roughly eight teams who are real contenders to win The Quest for the Ring while the Nuggets are not even close.

By the way, have you ever noticed that hiring and firings in pro Sports are on average even more irrational than they are in the American economy overall? Of course, not every pro sports management and coaching hiring and firing is irrational, but a disturbingly large percentage of them are. It seems that in American pro sports team management and coaching, you don’t have job security even if you are literally one of the best managers or coaches of your type.

And also by the way, this is a good example of “information you were not supposed to know,” which is one of the newest catchy phrases we are going to use to try to raise our readership from three to four (laugh out loud, but seriously, we do have more readers than that).

And as yet another important “by the way,” always remember that one reason QFTR spends so much time perfecting and operating the Real Player Rating system is because players too are often hired or fired for irrational reasons. We want to identify as many stupid player moves as we can as time permits, and allow readers to identify more of them on their own.

GEORGE KARL UNOFFICIALLY ASSUMES GENERAL MANAGER POWERS BEGINNING IN AUGUST 2010
George Karl, who despite having a miserable playoffs record, is almost literally worshipped by the ownership, by some fans, and by many others in the Nuggets organization and beyond. When I watch a Nuggets game, I often cut the sound and just watch the game because I can’t stand all of the worshipping of George Karl that is described by the announcers and that the announcers themselves do.

Unfortunately for the Nuggets, Karl became, in the wake of the firing of the General Manager Warkentien, a sort of unofficial General Manager. He had, especially within the last year, a huge influence on player movements to and from the Nuggets. In the last year especially, Karl has been the moving force behind decisions normally made by general managers and assistants to them, and also behind decisions by players to get out of Denver.

After Warkentien was fired in August 2010, the Nuggets’ general management was shared by an official and an unofficial General Manager. The unofficial one was George Karl. The official General Manager was Masai Ujiri, who the owners were able to hire relatively cheaply because he was a younger manager who had never been a general manager before. Exact numbers are extremely difficult to find, and I have not found them, but it is believed that as of now Ujiri is one of the lowest paid general managers in the NBA.

Aside from the fact that it’s interesting information, and aside from the fact that it is an example of giving QFTR readers information they were not supposed to know, the main reason I took time to report about Warkentien is to make sure I am believed when I say that the 2011-12 Nuggets are “George Karl’s Team” lock, stock, and barrel. He doesn’t legally own the 2011-12 Nuggets, but Karl certainly owns them in the management sense and in the conversational sense of the word. Whatever happens in 2011-12 is mostly George Karl’s doing.

If for example Ricky Rubio and the Minnesota Timberwolves finish ahead of the Denver Nuggets in the Northwest Division, it will be mostly and arguably 100% Karl’s fault. I mean, the Wolves are vastly improved and Ricky Rubio will be outstanding out of the box, but given the chasm between Denver and Minnesota that existed as of June 2011, there is no way that Minnesota should be better than Denver in 2011-12. If they are, than Karl will have really and truly hosed up the Nuggets beyond all recognition. (In case you missed the message “between the lines,” QFTR suspects that the Minnesota Timberwolves actually will finish a little ahead of the Denver Nuggets in 2011-12., and what a joyous thing it will be, even more enjoyable than the Oklahoma Thunder dismantling the Nuggets in the 2011 playoffs as anticipated by QFTR.)

To some extent before then but especially since August 2010, with little if any interference from management or ownership, George Karl drove away players he didn’t like. People like Karl who put career above all else (including winning) seldom directly get rid of employees (or players). Instead they do it on the down low. They indirectly get rid of employees and players they don’t like by over many moons pressuring them and indirectly persuading them to leave.

To be specific, Karl didn’t like the personalities and/or the playing styles of the players who ended up quitting. And at the same time there were players who didn’t agree with Karl’s views and decisions who, to put it bluntly, quit the team. Those are technically two separate ways players leave a team, but obviously they are two sides of the same coin.

AMONG THE PLAYERS WHO QUIT THE NUGGETS: TWO SUPERSTARS AND A NEAR SUPERSTAR
In the last year, Carmelo Anthony, Raymond Felton, and J.R. Smith were the most notable players who quit. Felton and Smith quit mostly because they were being underrated and cheated out of playing time by Karl. Carmelo Anthony quit mostly because he correctly realized that Karl and the Nuggets were most likely never ever going to win The Quest for the Ring doing what they do. So Anthony rebooted his career by moving to the New York Knicks.

True, Anthony in his heart always wanted to play for the Knicks. For one thing, he was born and spent his early childhood in New York City. Once you are a New Yorker in your heart you are always a New Yorker to one extent or another; there is no other place like it. But Anthony even more so in his heart wants to win a Championship, and like any other rational human being could have been persuaded to stay in Denver if the Nuggets were NOT clearly a team that most likely will never win The Quest for the Ring for the next ten years rock bottom minimum. Because ten years from now Anthony’s career will be all but over. If Anthony had remained in Denver for his entire career, there is a fairly high probability that he never would have had a chance to win The Quest for the Ring. In other words, Anthony saw the handwriting on the wall (and / or he is a QFTR reader; we can dream, laugh out loud).

Unfortunately for the Nuggets, two of the former Nuggets I just mentioned are superstars and could be major components on a Championship squad. J.R. Smith may not be a superstar overall but is arguably a superstar among shooting guards, (using the easier to meet shooting guard Real Player Rating standard).

In fact, in recent years, J.R. Smith has been about as good as Jason Terry of the 2011 Quest winners Dallas Mavericks. Do you perhaps get the point before I even complete the point? Jason Terry has a high reputation, J.R. Smith has a low reputation, but in actual fact they are about the same quality in basketball terms. Yes, they do have very different playing styles and personalities, but when all is said and done they are about equal in terms of what they contribute on the hardwood.

Let’s broaden the focus and completely break down what happened to the Nuggets between 2010-11 and 2011-12…

THE NUGGETS HAVE LOST MANY SUPERSTARS IN RECENT YEARS AND, AMAZINGLY, THEY JUST LOST FOUR OF THEM IN A SINGLE YEAR
If you were to add up all of the superstars who left the Nuggets in, say, the past five years (not counting any who retired) and you could compare to other teams, you would find that the Nuggets rank at or near the top of the heap for teams losing superstars. Also, it’s very possible that the Nuggets just came close to setting or actually did set the record for “Greatest Number of Superstars on a Team that never was a True Primary Contender During any Five Year Period”. (Another idea for a brand new and interesting award from the creative minds at QFTR, laugh out loud).

True, many of the Nuggets’ superstars have been borderline ones that many do not consider to be superstars, but nevertheless, the points I am making here are accurate.

History will record that the most famous and most devastating losses in the 2006-2011 period were Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, and Marcus Camby. But there were many other less famous losses.

If you just looked at Denver over the last five years, you might make the mistake of thinking it was normal for a team to be continually losing superstars. But not only is it nor normal, it proves that the team / franchise is a failure and will not be able to be primary contenders to win The Quest for the Ring either right now or for the foreseeable future. There is something very, very wrong if you get a very large number of superstars over a few years and yet you never become a true, major contender to win the Quest for the Ring.

In the very last year, there was a truly massive exodus of superstars, well in excess of what generally ever happens around the League. All told, the Nuggets had seven superstars in 2010-11 and four of them are gone for 2011-12. It’s really remarkable wreckage when you look at it rationally and in the light of day. The TNT Television network monitored the carnage and decided that there will be very few if any Nuggets games on TNT on Thursday nights this season. Thanks, TNT, for putting viewers out of their misery, laugh out loud.

Let's briefly look at the typical number of superstars on different teams. Generally, on the worst teams, on the ones that lose most of their games, there are either zero superstars or one superstar. On the teams that have losing records but are not among the absolute worst teams, there are typically one or two superstars. On teams that win roughly as many games as they lose, there are typically between one and three superstars. On teams that win more than they lose but lose in the first round of the playoffs, there are typically between two and four superstars. On the eight teams that reach the second round of the playoffs, there are typically between three and five superstars. On the very best teams, the ones that reach the Conference finals, there are typically between three and six superstars.

There are major exceptions. For example, remarkably, the 2011 Quest winning Dallas Mavericks technically had only one superstar: Dirk Nowitzki. Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd were almost but not quite superstars. This proves that the Mavericks had to and did play very smart basketball to win the Quest over the Miami Heat, who had three superstars. The Heat had fewer superstars than average for a finals team while the Mavericks had far fewer of them. The Heat reached the 2011 Championship mostly because they had the best pro basketball player (LeBron James) and because they had two other extremely strong superstars (Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh). The Mavericks had only one strong superstar and two major stars who were close to being superstars. The Mavs reached and won the NBA finals first and foremost because they played very, very smart basketball.

But you can not directly compare the Nuggets seven superstars with the numbers of superstars that the Mavericks and the Heat had, because of the huge within the season trade that the Nuggets had. If you count only the post trade players, the Nuggets had these superstars:

Nene Hilario
Raymond Felton
Chris Andersen
Kenyon Martin
Danilo Gallinari

So they had five, still more than either the Heat or the Mavericks. But another little catch is that Kenyon Martin and Danilo Gallinari were borderline superstars, whereas Nowitzki was a major historical superstar for Dallas and whereas LeBron James was the best player in the League (and also of course a major historical superstar) and whereas Miami also had major historical superstar Dywayne Wade and strong superstar Chris Bosh.

Some readers are going to be saying: alright, I get the point about the Nuggets losing a lot of really good players, but all of those superstar numbers are exaggerated. Well, Quest for the Ring (QFTR) considers more players to be superstars than most other American basketball fans and commentators do. Many fans and writers will not consider any player who has just an average or a poor overall reputation, nor any player who has a style and/or a personality that is low key and/or that has not “caught on” with the public to be a superstar even though in terms of basketball the player is as good or better than players who are considered to be superstars. QFTR reminds you that if you get hung up with personalities and styles you will most likely never win The Quest for the Ring.

The QFTR Real Player Rating (RPR) system identifies ALL superstars, not just the ones the general public thinks are superstars. Furthermore, the RPR system makes absolutely sure all superstars are identified by using a fairly generous standard for “superstars”.

COMPLETE BREAKDOWN OF ALL 2010-11 NUGGETS SUPERSTARS
Here in RPR order are the superstars the Nuggets had in 2010-11, before AND after the Carmelo Anthony trade:

Nene Hilario
Raymond Felton
Chris Andersen
Carmelo Anthony
Kenyon Martin
Danilo Gallinari
Chauncey Billups

Now let’s break down what happened with each of these….

NENE: RETURNING
Nene is a man of few words and he is a loyal and trusting sort of individual so it was no surprise when he was one of the exceptions to the rule of Nuggets superstars leaving. He was very unhappy that it took so long for the Nuggets to finally offer up a competitive contract and so he tried to leave, but he was unable to find a team that would match or beat what would end up being a generous Nuggets contract offer that came shortly before the 2011-12 season began.

Incidentally, due to Nene’s relatively low key personality and / or due to his inability to speak English well (he is from Brazil where Portuguese is the language) he is a good example of a superstar who many Americans do not consider to be a superstar. The fact that few Americans think of Nene as a superstar is most likely the main reason why he was not able to get a contract from another team as much or more generous than the one eventually given to him by the Nuggets.

RAYMOND FELTON: GONE
Raymond Felton quit the Nuggets by demanding to be traded. He believes he is a starting point guard in the NBA and he believes he is better than actual 2011-12 Nuggets starting point guard Ty Lawson. But George Karl contended incorrectly that a favorite of his, the actual 2011-12 starting Nuggets point guard Ty Lawson, is better than Felton. And, remember, whatever Karl thinks goes in Denver whether it is right or wrong. Felton was and is completely correct and, thankfully, he was traded to the Portland Trailblazers (for Andre Miller) and is now the starting point guard for them.

CHRIS ANDERSEN: RETURNING
Andersen is under contract through 2012-13. Also, not only is Andersen a Karl favorite, he is even more so a fan favorite in Denver, so all in all there was never any doubt that Andersen would be back for 2011-12 regardless of how many other players left.

CARMELO ANTHONY: GONE
As has been reported extensively in previous Reports and summarized in this one, Anthony quit the Nuggets not only because but primarily because he concluded that it was extremely unlikely and possibly impossible that the Nuggets would ever win The Quest for the Ring during his basketball career. He wanted to go somewhere where the odds of winning a Ring would be substantially greater than approximately zero.

One detail that may not ever have been mentioned in any previous Report (and even if it was mentioned deserves another mention) is that Anthony was especially frustrated when the Nuggets failed to repeat in 2009-10 the ferocious and aggressive defending (aka the “football approach” to basketball) that they used in 2008-09 to reach the West Conference finals. While Anthony was frustrated, disappointed, and confused, QFTR was mostly just confused. Although we said you could not win The Quest for the Ring just doing that alone, we did go out of our way to point out all of the advantages of that strategy. Then the next year George Karl and the Nuggets inexplicably went back to a much more loose and a much less aggressive defending system. It was quite a surprise even if you are used to Karl making incorrect and inconsistent decisions. Before 2009-10 began, we thought for sure that the Nuggets would repeat that ultra aggressive defensive style. But they failed to do so, which in my judgment was the final straw for Anthony; after the Nuggets in 2009-10 relapsed to looser defending , especially in the paint, Anthony decided that he absolutely had to get out of Denver at all costs.

KENYON MARTIN: GONE
The injury plagued and aging power forward’s contract expired at the end of 2010-11 and the Nuggets never had any intention of giving him a new contract. Given how many injuries Martin has had and given the fact that he is in fact overrated (and the two issues are related) the Nuggets were smart to not try to keep Kenyon Martin. When the lockout froze out player / management negotiations, Martin ended up playing in China for 2011-12.

DANILO GALLINARI: RETURNING
This younger small forward was acquired from the Knicks in the Carmelo Anthony trade (and was technically Anthony’s primary replacement at the three-spot). Gallinari is contracted through and including 2012-13. So barring a trade (and the Nuggets were not really in the trading mode for off season 2011) it was always certain that Gallinari would be back for 2011-12.

CHAUNCEY BILLUPS: GONE
Chauncey Billups is now 35 years old which puts him in the primary retirement age range for guards (35 to 38 years old). He went to New York in the multi-player trade involving Carmelo Anthony. Very recently, he was waived by the New York Knicks to provide salary relief for the Knicks’ acquisition star and possibly superstar Center Tyson Chandler. According to someone reporting in Wikipedia, “the Los Angeles Clippers placed the winning bid for (Billups) rights on December 12, 2011. Billups had previously said he would consider retirement if a team claimed him instead of allowing him to clear waivers and sign with a contender.”

So in summary, more than half of the Nuggets’ 2010-11 superstars, four out of seven of them, are gone for 2011-12, which, not including any new superstars they might have, takes them from having seven of them to having just three of them: Nene, Chris Andersen, and Danilo Gallinari. Of these, Chris Andersen is now 33 years old which means he might not be able to repeat as a superstar this year. Danilo Gallinari may not be able to repeat because he was just barely a superstar in 2010-11 and also because in general it is relatively difficult for small forwards to be superstars. The most specific reason why Gallinari might fall short of being a superstar in 2011-12 is that Ty Lawson might not get the ball enough to him often enough for him to produce enough on offense.

The odds are that one of the two between Chris Andersen and Danilo Gallinari will fall a little short of superstar status in 2011-12. So most likely, the Nuggets start out with a base of two superstars (not counting any new player they have who ends up being a superstar). Two superstars is the typical number you see on:

--Losing teams (that are not among the very worst though)

--On teams that win roughly as many games as they lose

--On teams that get quickly bounced in the first round of the playoffs.

The bottom line is that the Nuggets have suffered a huge outflow of superstars, could easily now have fewer superstars than the average NBA team, and are therefore moving from the rich side of town to a much poorer side of town as far as superstars are concerned.

WHEN SUPERSTARS QUIT IT MEANS THE TEAM / FRANCHISE HAS FAILED
At the risk of stating the obvious, no pro sports team and franchise can have a bunch of superstar (or star if you think the word superstar is an exaggeration) players quit and be able to compete for a Championship any time soon after that. In fact, whenever you see a major superstar and/or several plain superstars demanding to be traded (or just quitting because their contracts are over with and so they are free agents and can simply quit and find another team) that is the sure fire signal that the team / franchise has failed and will have to reboot over three to five years rock bottom minimum before it will again be able to be a serious contender to win The Quest for the Ring. Superstar players very seldom make a mistake when they give up on a team / franchise. They are the canaries in the coalmine as the old saying goes. Teams that are serious contenders keep all or at least almost all of their superstars for many years during which time they remain serious contenders. Whereas, failed teams / franchises lose superstars who get out of town one way or another.

So therefore one of the most important things in The Quest for the Ring is: how do you keep all or at least almost all of your superstars (other than the ones you use in strategic trades)? Although that is not as difficult as you might think, it’s not a piece of cake either. You could write a book on that subject, which obviously is way beyond the scope of this Report.

What I want to stress here is that the Denver Nuggets are, as of right now, a clearly and obviously failed pro sports team and franchise. Mark Warkentien and other managers brought a large number of superstars on to the team from 2006 through 2010 yet the Nuggets were never among the real primary contenders, except arguably in 2009 when to make a long story short the Nuggets were surprisingly successful when they used what you might call a football approach to basketball. But there was no way they could actually have won the Quest in 2009, which is shown clearly by the fact that they were routed out of their own building by the Los Angeles Lakers when they were finally eliminated in the 2009 West Conference Final.

But as of now, in fact, the Nuggets must be an excellent textbook example of a failed team and franchise. And yes, as stated and proved in previous Reports and to some extent in this Report, the blame lies with the owners and, in this case, with the coach and the unofficial general manager, George Karl.

By the way and for the record, if anyone ever tells you that it is possible to win The Quest for the Ring with no superstars at all, tell him that he doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about. Even if you play the smartest basketball you possibly can, you have to have at least one superstar, rock bottom minimum. The best you can say about such a ridiculous claim that you could win a Championship with zero superstars is that the person who thinks they know of a team that won the Quest with no superstars is not counting at least one player as a superstar who actually was a superstar, due probably to that player (or those players) having low key or unpopular personalities and/or unpopular styles. It is a virtual 100% certainty that it is mathematically and literally impossible to win the Quest with zero superstars.

ARE THERE ANY NEW SUPERSTARS ON THE NUGGETS?
Let’s go on the hunt for new Nuggets superstars…..

First, although there was massive turmoil in the Nuggets between last year and this, there is one returning player who had a major role last year and will again have a major role this year: point guard Ty Lawson. In 2010-11 Lawson was fairly close to superstar status but not there. In 2011-12, if he gets better he will probably be a borderline superstar. How well Lawson does is the most important factor that will determine whether the Nuggets make the 2012 playoffs or not. If Lawson doesn’t get better the Nuggets will probably not even make the playoffs in 2012.

Next on the hunt for new Nuggets superstars, consider that the Nuggets acquired point guard Andre Miller from the Trailblazers for Raymond Felton. Miller will most likely back up Lawson even if he is technically better than him, mainly because Karl really likes Lawson’s style and personality but also because Miller is close to retirement. Although Andre Miller is traditionally a superstar, he has reached the age where it starts to be very, very difficult to maintain superstar status: Miller is now 35 years old. It’s very difficult to say for certain, but if forced to say I’ll say that Miller will probably just barely still be a superstar in 2011-12. So that’s one new one so far.

Let’s continue the hunt for more new Nuggets superstars….

On December 13, 2011, shooting guards Corey Brewer and Rudy Fernandez were traded from the Dallas Mavericks to the Denver Nuggets for a future second round draft pick. As of that date, the Nuggets were in desperate need of shooting guards. J.R. Smith had quit the team and, as a result of the lockout, gone to China for 2011-12. And slightly above average shooting guard Aaron Afflalo and his agent were off trying to see if they could parley George Karl’s going crazy about him into a contract from a NBA team much larger than anyone including Afflalo himself ever thought he might get. So in other words, as of December 13, the Nuggets were still uncertain whether the Karl super favorite at the position, Aaron Afflalo would agree to sign a new contract with the Nuggets for the most that the Nuggets could possibly offer. No other team fell for George Karl’s exaggerated opinion of Afflalo and so no other team was willing to offer Afflalo a ridiculously generous contract. But even so, the Nuggets must have had some competition for Afflalo because they ended up offering Afflalo an extremely generous contract: $43 million over five years. (A ridiculously generous contract would have been 10 million dollars a year, for example, $50 million dollars over five years; $43 million is extremely generous but is just short of “ridiculously or insanely generous”).

Laugh out loud how Karl jacked up the cost for Afflalo. Now, thanks to Karl, Afflalo becomes one of the most overpaid players in basketball. For those who think ALL pro basketball players are overpaid, they will be able to say “I told you so” on nights when Afflalo scores 7 or 8 points in 32 minutes playing time and plays some decent defense but, nonetheless, the guards Afflalo guards score 20 points (meaning that Afflalo was minus 12-13 points head to head; and remember, he is making more than 8 million dollars a year!). But hey, George Karl loves him so who are we to judge.

Incidentally, if you are wondering who the Mavericks have at shooting guard for 2012 now that they traded Brewer and Fernandez to the Nuggets, aside from Jason Terry who traditionally plays major minutes, they now have Vince Carter from Phoenix and they also have young Dominique Jones who as of yet has not played much in the NBA.

So what about the Nuggets two new 2-guards they received from Dallas? Corey Brewer was a well below average shooting guard in both 2009-10 and in 2010-11. As of now this is not even a close call: he is not a superstar now and most likely will not be one for the foreseeable future. And unfortunately for Brewer, he will get little playing time since Aaron Afflalo will get a lot of it. This will make it difficult for Brewer to become a better shooting guard.

As for Rudy Fernandez, he was a well above average two-guard for the Portland Trailblazers but not really all that close to being a superstar. It is very unlikely (but technically possible) that he will now become a superstar for the Nuggets. Even if he does turn out to be better than Aaron Afflalo, he will most likely not get close to the playing time that Aaron Afflalo will be getting. Of course, you can bet that if Fernandez IS better than Aaron Afflalo but gets a lot less playing time then him, you will hear about it here at QFTR.

LONG SHOT HUNT: DO THE NUGGETS HAVE ANY SUPERSTAR ROOKIES OR NEAR ROOKIES?
Players who don’t play at least 300 minutes are (a) not very significant for the season and (b) are not eligible to get a Real Player Rating, which means we can’t officially say whether they are a superstar or not.

In general, rookies on a George Karl team are unlikely to get at least 300 minutes. George Karl is well known for generally being stingy to rookies and near rookies, especially forwards and centers. With guards he is stingy with rookies but arguably not so stingy with near rookies in their second years.

Whether rookie small forward Kenneth Faried (2011 Draft, Round 1, Pick 22, Nuggets) gets to play more than 300 minutes in 2011-12 is a crap shoot. Faried may possibly turn out to be this years’ Renaldo Balkman. That is, he may be that young but outstanding power forward who Karl refuses to play for some combination of stupid and incorrect reasons, resulting in the Nuggets having a poor paint defense which, in turn, will result in the Nuggets being uncompetitive in the playoffs (should they finish ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves and make the playoffs). On the other hand, if Karl likes Faried’s style and/or his personality, he probably will get more than 300 minutes.

If Faried does play at least 300 minutes, he probably won’t be a superstar simply because it is rare for rookie small forwards to be superstars. Also, the main point guard, Ty Lawson, probably won’t distribute the ball enough to Faried because Lawson will be taking the ball to the rim too much. Our best guess is that either Faried won’t play enough or that he will fall short of being a superstar in 2011-12.

Another rookie the Nuggets have is Jordan Hamilton (small forward aka “wing player”). Hamilton is probably not going to get much playing time under Danilo Gallinari. Although not a major superstar, Danilo Gallinari is a borderline one, is generally reliable, is only 23 years old and probably not peaked yet, is very well liked by George Karl, and is a fan favorite. For all of those reasons, Gallinari is going to get the bulk of playing time at the small forward position. Another problem for a small forward trying to get playing time on a George Karl team is that Karl has the bad habit of playing three guards at once (usually two points and one shooting). So all things considered, it is unlikely that Hamilton will play at least 300 minutes and get an official RPR rating. So Hamilton will lack both prior year experience and playing time this year. These are all reasons why it will be extremely difficult for Hamilton to be a superstar this year.

Moreover and generally, only a minority of eventual superstars are superstars when rookies (although most of the eventual historical and major historical superstars are superstars right from when they are rookies). Finally, remember that it is more difficult for shooting guards and small forwards to be superstars than it is for the other three positions. All things considered, it is a huge long shot that Hamilton will be a superstar in 2011-12.

Tomofey Mozgov from Russia came from the NY Knicks in the Carmelo trade and it is extremely unlikely that he will ever be a superstar center. He is overrated by Karl and by some (many?) of the rose colored glasses wearing fans of the Nuggets.

Kosta Koufas was not a superstar but was an above average player and played well for Utah in 2008-09. But in 2009-10, Koufas was not good at all for Minnesota. It is all but impossible that he will ever be a superstar center.

So now we have discussed the entire team and can sum up the superstar situation.

Last year, before the Carmelo Anthony trade, these were the superstars:

Nene Hilario
Chris Andersen
Carmelo Anthony
Kenyon Martin
Chauncey Billups.

After the Carmelo Anthony trade these were the superstars:

Nene Hilario
Raymond Felton
Chris Andersen
Kenyon Martin
Danilo Gallinari

After both the Carmelo Anthony trade and the 2011 off season here is the outlook for Nuggets superstars:

Nene Hilario will almost certainly be a superstar
Andre Miller is likely to be a superstar
Danilo Gallinari will probably be a superstar
Ty Lawson may or may not be a superstar; it is very difficult to predict.
Chris Andersen may or may not be a superstar; flip a coin on it.

So the bottom line (after the possibility of injuries is factored in) is that the Nuggets will most likely end up with between two and five superstars, with three probably being the most probable number. If they do end up with three, this would be two fewer than they had both before and after the Carmelo Anthony trade last year.

THE DEVASTATION COULD EASILY HAVE BEEN EVEN WORSE
The last phrase in the title of this Report is "and the Devastation Could Easily have been even Worse". How could it have been even worse than it was? Well, both Nene and Aaron Afflalo tried to get a generous contract from some other team before they signed with the Nuggets. Neither one of them were going to sign with Denver at all costs and either one of them or both of them would have bolted if they had snagged a big offer from another team. If another team had gone for and signed Nene, this would have been especially devastating for Denver; this would likely have resulted in the Nuggets becoming one of the worst teams in the League in 2012.

WILL GEORGE KARL BE HUMILIATED BY FINISHING BEHIND THE MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES?
The Denver Nuggets may or may not make the playoffs in 2012; it is most likely going to be a close call. If forced to say I would say that Denver will not make the playoffs in 2012. (Remember, QFTR does not make any official predictions and so that is just an unofficial prediction.)

Watch the race between the Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Northwest Division! The Nuggets will in fact most likely not make the playoffs if the Timberwolves get the best of them. While the Nuggets are obviously on the way down, the Timberwolves are obviously on the way up the ladder. QFTR is looking forward to finding out whether George Karl will be humiliated by the Timberwolves finishing ahead of his Nuggets in 2012.

Next up, we’ll look at exactly how the Timberwolves or anyone else can defeat the 2011-12 Denver Nuggets, even when they play with their big home court advantage in Denver.