George Karl's Cheating of JaVale McGee - The Complete Story to Date

Recently, Denver Nuggets Coach George Karl was caught red handed by a few Nuggets reporters and fans cheating out of playing time one of the best two or three players on the team, Center JaVale McGee. Specifically, I recently spotted a basketball news report that said that a lot of Nuggets fans had tweeted during the Thursday, November 15 game versus the Miami Heat that Karl blew the chance to beat the 2012 Champions Miami Heat by not playing JaVale McGee enough in the fourth quarter. McGee earlier in that game played one of his best games so far this year.

It was nice to see some signs of brain activity in the normally dumbed down worlds of Nuggets fans and Twitter users. I wonder, who on average is more dumb, Twitter users (not counting celebrities and politicians etc. who can use Twitter to maintain popularity) or Nuggets fans? That is an interesting question that I wish I could answer, but I guess I am too dumb to answer it, laugh out loud.

Several weeks before Karl and the Nuggets blew the Miami game and fans became upset about McGee being cheated out of playing minutes, Quest for the Ring (QFTR) already produced a long and detailed Report regarding how JaVale McGee was going to be cheated out of playing time this season and how that would lead to the Nuggets losing a small number of regular season games against playoff teams and, more importantly, how that would lead to losing in the playoffs (assuming the Nuggets make the playoffs this year which, however, is starting to look unlikely). That earlier Report is here.

Not to mention that we have been reporting on how Karl cheats certain players out of playing time for years.

THE NUGGETS SHOULD HAVE BEAT THE HEAT ON NOVEMBER 15

The Nuggets obviously should have defeated the Miami Heat on November 15 even though the Heat won the 2012 Quest for the Ring and even though they are favored to win the 2013 Quest as well. For this game, the Heat came in to Denver playing their fourth game in five nights and missing two starters. The Heat were without historic superstar Dwyane Wade because of a sprained left foot. And they were without starting point guard Mario Chalmers, who went to the bench after just 7 1/2 minutes with a strained right triceps. Meanwhile, the Nuggets came in with no significant injuries and they came in after two days rest. Plus, obviously, the Nuggets had home court advantage and as many are aware, the Nuggets' home court advantage is a whopper due mostly to the altitude.

Although in general using Twitter may be a dumb thing to do, those particular tweets regarding McGee were not dumb at all. Although Denver owner Stanley Kroenke and Coach George Karl can fool most of the people most of the time, they can't fool all of them all of the time. Or, to put it another way, you can only be so dumb before you get less dumb if only because you get lucky, laugh out loud.

Anyway, in the Heat game, Kosta Koufos started at Center instead of JaVale McGee. There are 48 minutes in a basketball game and so the total playing time for any two positions should be about 48 X 2 = 96. So the minutes for centers and power forwards should total about 96. Let's check the Nuggets' power forwards and centers playing times for the Heat game:

Kosta Koufos, Center, Starter 14 minutes

JaVale McGee, Center, 21 minutes

Kenneth Faried, Power Forward, Starter, 36 minutes

That's it folks; all other Nuggets players in the Heat game were guards and small forwards; the idea that small forward Danilo Gallinari can be shifted to power forward is laughable. The total for the three shown above was 71 minutes, which is 25 minutes short of 96 minutes. So not only was McGee cheated out of playing time, but the positions of center and power forward in general were cheated. As a result, the Nuggets failed to beat the Miami Heat in the November 15 game even though they could have and should have.

Real Player Rating numbers are showing that McGee is better than Faried by at least 15% and that McGee is better than Koufos by at least 20% and probably by 25% These are very substantial differences; in a playoff series and in a regular season game versus a really good team, every percentage point Real Player Rating advantage counts.

We better take a look at the bigger picture. Looking at all nine of the first nine Nuggets games this season, the total minutes for centers and power forwards should be about 864 (9 X 48 X 2). The actual minutes have been:

Kenneth Faried, Power Forward, 273 minutes

Kosta Koufos, Center, 202 minutes

JaVale McGee, Center, 175 minutes

Anthony Randolph, Power Forward, 5 minutes

Timofey Mozgov, Center, 22 minutes

The total is 677 minutes, which is way short of 864 minutes; it is just 78.4% of 864 minutes. So the Nuggets are about 22% short on the playing time needed for centers and power forwards. So we have stumbled on another scandal / big problem for the Nuggets for this year: George Karl and the Nuggets are not giving enough playing time to power forwards and centers in general. This is a problem that is at least as serious as cheating McGee in particular. 

The minutes that McGee is being cheated out of are being distributed all over the place. Some of those minutes are going to Faried. Some of those minutes are going to Koufos. Some of those minutes are going to small forward Danilo Gallinari. And some of those minutes are going to various guards.

To correct this fiasco, aside from giving McGee a lot more playing time, the Nuggets have to give either Anthony Randolph or Timofey Mozgov some more playing time as well, or else they need to give Faried, Koufos and McGee (especially McGee) even more playing time.

As things are, the Nuggets are playing way too small and so they are extremely vulnerable in the paint in sets and are extremely vulnerable to giving up a lot of points to opposing centers and power forwards. The Nuggets are apparently going to be shredded in the paint this year, and as a result, it will be very difficult for them to make the playoffs this year. In recent years the Nuggets have mostly been damaged in the paint but not completely shredded. This year, it looks like it will be more of a shredding than a damaging, laugh out loud.

So now those twittering Nuggets fans should get even more upset still (and even before this additional increase in the upset level they should already have decided to stop going to Nuggets games, laugh out loud). When McGee is cheated out of playing time, not only is he personally cheated, and not only are the Nuggets and the Nuggets' fans cheated out of chances for wins against good teams, but George Karl and the Nuggets are cheating the power forward / center positions overall. Minutes that should go to those positions are being shifted to the other three positions, which creates big or huge defensive problems and to a lesser extent is going to create offensive problems.

NUGGETS FANS WOULD BE EVEN MORE UPSET IF THEY KNEW THE WHOLE JAVALE MCGEE IS BEING CHEATED STORY

As upset as they were when George Karl and the Nuggets blew the Miami game, the Nuggets fans would be even more upset if they knew that the effect of cheating a player like McGee out of playing time is even more damaging in the playoffs than in the regular season. And they would be even more upset if they knew that, in fact, Karl cheated McGee out of playing time and starts last year (2011-12) in both the regular season and in the first round of the playoffs where the Nuggets were defeated by the Los Angeles Lakers 4 games to 3.

And they would be still more upset if they knew that the Nuggets could have defeated the Lakers in that series if JaVale McGee had started games and had played more minutes.

The George Karl cheating certain really good players out of playing time thing is like a broken record. Quest for the Ring (QFTR) has in recent years been chronicling how and why George Karl cheats one or two really good players out of playing time almost every year. When he does cheat them, Karl leaves the Nuggets unable to win a few regular season games against the best teams and he leaves the Nuggets unable to win playoff series unless they get lucky, for example, if they get to play a team with big injury problems.

To make a long story short (a story that we have told many, many times) if Karl does not like the personality, the style, and / or the age of the player (any of those three factors by itself or any combination of those three) then he will cheat that player out of playing time that the player should get based on objective basketball considerations.

And Karl will most likely cheat that player for the whole season long regardless of just how good the player is and regardless of how many games the Nuggets lose as a result. Once Karl makes his decision that Player A is not going to start even though he should be starting and even though most other coaches would start him, that player is most likely not going to start at all for that entire season (except when there is an injury situation). And once Karl decides he is going to cheat Player A out of roughly 750 - 1,000 minutes of playing time or possibly more during a season, you can almost safely bet the ranch that when the season is over, sure enough, player A will have been cheated out of those 750 - 1,000 minutes.

So Nuggets fans, you can tweet to your heart's content that JaVale McGee needs to play more, but guess what? George Karl is not going to listen to your silly tweets and he is not going to change his mind about cheating McGee, who unfortunately this year's "Player A". And don't think that QFTR can do anything about it because this is a low traffic Site and so therefore we can not put any pressure at all on anyone to do anything.

For further details on all of the George Karl cheating and on the cheated players, see any of numerous QFTR Reports. We have gone over this in at least twenty different Reports over the years. The names of the cheated players often change from year to year (although J.R. Smith was cheated several years in a row) but the cheating itself repeats itself year after year. Since we have been closely covering the Nuggets starting in 2006-07, there has been at least one player cheated out of a lot of playing time every single year. For examples, details, and / or proof regarding this subject, check the title lists and / or use one of the Google custom search boxes on the QFTR home page.

ONE OF THE RICHEST OWNERS OF THE NBA IS NOT GETTING EVERYTHING HE SHOULD GET FROM PAYING FOR A REALLY BIG PAYROLL

When George Karl cheats a superstar or at least a high end star player out of playing time, he often is cheating a very highly paid player. This year's cheated player is JaVale McGee, who has the biggest contract on the team and who has the second highest salary for this particular season. So Karl year after year, and very much so this year, continues to waste some of the huge amount of money that Denver owner Stanley Kroenke spends on payroll. McGee's salary for 2012-13 is ten million dollars and George Karl is wasting roughly half of that money.

Kroenke is one of the very richest owners in the NBA and he consistently sports a very fat payroll, which means that the Nuggets year after year are provided with a roster that is clearly better than average. Although there have been limits, and although Kroenke panicked to some extent during the "economics emergency" in 2008, Kroenke has been willing to pay fairly hefty luxury taxes in various years. (Owners pay a luxury tax to the NBA if and when they go over a "payroll cap".)

Given how strong and how unusually "deep" the roster has consistently been, if the Nuggets had had high quality coaching over the years, they could have been a major contender to win a championship in certain years within the last seven years or so. Specifically, they could have been a major contender when they had Marcus Camby, Allen Iverson, and Carmelo Anthony back in 2007 and 2008. (2008 would probably have been the year that the Nuggets could have made a major run for the Championship if they had been coached well.)

FLASHBACK TO ROUND ONE OF THE PLAYOFFS, 2012:

Time for producing Reports like this has been so hard to come by that we have not yet discussed the Nuggets' 2012 playoff appearance. That is a scandal itself, by the way, caused partly by the failure of the power company to provide reliable power in the area where QFTR headquarters is. Let's finally discuss that round one Denver Nuggets - Los Angeles Lakers series right now:

In round one of the 2012 playoffs, the Nuggets played the Los Angeles Lakers, who before the season ever started lost a major playoff series asset in Lamar Odom. And then at the end of the season they lost Ron Artest (aka Metta World Peace) for most of the Denver series when he was suspended for six games because he lost his mind during one of the last games of the regular season and attacked James Harden of the Thunder because Harden was just too good for Artest / World Peace to tolerate.

Moreover, at the time that the Lakers played the Nuggets in round one, the Lakers'  point guard situation was not at all good in that for all practical purposes historical superstar 2-guard Kobe Bryant was playing both guard positions at once. Starting point guard Derek Fisher was overrated as a point guard for many years and was even more lackluster than career average by the time the 2012 playoffs rolled around. And the second point guard, Steve Blake, was not quite good enough to be a significant asset in the playoffs.

Another big problem for the Lakers for the 2012 playoffs was that other than major historical superstar Kobe Bryant, the Lakers were very weak at the two-guard. The Lakers' shooting guards other than Bryant were not anywhere near good enough to help the Lakers win playoff series in 2012. Hell, they were not really good enough to play at all in the series.

Finally, the Coach of the Lakers at the time, Mike Brown, was nothing to write home about. Brown was fired early this season. I guess beating George Karl in the playoffs is not enough of an accomplishment to ensure you will not be fired early in the next season, laugh out loud.

So all in all, the Lakers were in a very beatable condition when they and the Nuggets played in round one in late April and early May of 2012.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets had a big payroll (as did the Lakers) and they had players who George Karl said he really liked. Karl said that the 2011-2012 Nuggets were one of his all time favored teams. By the time the Nuggets played the Lakers in 2012 round one, most of the players who Karl did not like very much from 2010-2011, including Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith, and Raymond Felton, were long gone from the Nuggets (having quit or been pressured out by being cheated out of playing time and starts).

So Karl and the believers in George Karl thought sure Karl and the Nuggets could beat the Lakers. And to tell you the truth, your Quest for the Ring (QFTR) producer (being often cynical and pessimistic) was thinking the same thing, that the Nuggets could and should beat the troubled and substantially depleted Lakers.

Well, you most likely already know what happened. It was a seven game series, but George Karl and the Nuggets failed to beat the beatable Lakers. Let's list out and fairly briefly (by QFTR standards) discuss the top five reasons why the Nuggets lost to the Lakers in 2012 round one:

DISCUSSION OF FIVE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT REASONS THE NUGGETS LOST TO THE LAKERS IN ROUND ONE OF THE 2012 PLAYOFFS

REASON NUMBER ONE THAT THE NUGGETS LOST TO THE LAKERS EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD HAVE WON

The Nuggets were way over-dependent on fast breaking for offense. This topic has been extensively discussed and proven in numerous QFTR Reports and we don't have the time to rehash here. See especially this report. 

REASON NUMBER TWO THAT THE NUGGETS LOST TO THE LAKERS EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD HAVE WON

The Nuggets' paint defending was very lacking and it was inconsistent.

Let's check how many points the Lakers scored in the paint by game. It's very easy to judge paint defending: just remember the number 40. In general, good paint defense is allowing fewer than 40 points in the paint; poor paint defense is allowing more than 40.

LAKERS SCORING IN THE PAINT IN THE ROUND ONE 2012 SERIES VERSUS THE DENVER NUGGETS

Game One: Lakers score 64 in the paint; Lakers win

Game Two: Lakers score 52 in the paint; Lakers win

Game Three: Lakers score 32 in the paint; Nuggets win

Game Four: Lakers score 48 in the paint; Lakers win

Game Five: Lakers score 44 in the paint; Nuggets win

Game Six: Lakers score 32 in the paint; Nuggets win

Game Seven: Lakers score 36 in the paint; Lakers win

So in the series, the Lakers won games one, two, four and seven. The Nuggets won games three, five and six. When the Lakers failed to take full advantage of Denver's weak paint defense in games in three, five and six, they lost all three of those games. On the other hand, when the Lakers did take full advantage of Denver's weak paint defense in games one, two, and four, the Lakers won all of those games. Games one and two were a complete and embarrassing breakdown (by the Nuggets) of the kind of paint defending needed to prevail in playoff series.

So in three of the four Lakers wins, heavy paint scoring paved the way. The other Lakers' win was game seven. In that game, the Lakers didn't need heavy paint scoring because they went to town on three-point shooting; see below for more on this.

REASON NUMBER THREE THAT THE NUGGETS LOST TO THE LAKERS EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD HAVE WON

The Nuggets were over-dependent on having all their players including even their guards driving the ball into the paint in search of fouls and free throws. Various QFTR Reports have proved in detail that this is a poor strategy for the playoffs. This topic has been extensively discussed and proven in numerous QFTR Reports and we don't have the time to do rehashing here.

REASON NUMBER FOUR THAT THE NUGGETS LOST TO THE LAKERS EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD HAVE WON

The Lakers were a very poor 3-point shooting team last year. However, they finally realized by game seven of the series that Karl and the Nuggets were leaving the door wide open for threes. That is, the Nuggets were literally leaving a lot of 3-point shooters undefended as a result of all of their defensive switching and as a result of their excessive collapsing in the paint (including by guards who if they collapse in the paint are not in good position to defend the three-point shot). This defensive weakness continues this season, by the way. So although Lakers' Coach Mike Brown was apparently too dumb to take advantage of the Nuggets' lame 3-point shot defending for most of the series, either he, an assistant coach, or the Lakers' players who can make threes themselves finally decided in game seven of the series to make the Nuggets pay for their cavalier attitude toward defending against the 3-point shot. So in game seven in Los Angeles, the Lakers made 11 out of 24 threes for a percentage of .458. Between that and the embarrassing, almost complete breakdown of the Nuggets' ill-conceived offense, the Lakers won game seven very decisively 96-87.

REASON NUMBER FIVE THAT THE NUGGETS LOST TO THE LAKERS EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD HAVE WON

As already stated, Center JaVale McGee was being cheated out of playing time and out of starts both during the regular season and during the playoffs. In the series, McGee never started, and his playing time was up and down like a yo-yo depending apparently on just how determined Karl was to cheat McGee out of playing time on any particular day.

Small Forward Kenneth Faried was the recipient of some of the minutes that McGee was cheated out of and Kosta Koufos received most of the other minutes taken away from McGee.

Here were the playing minutes for Nuggets' centers and power forwards for the 2012 round one series versus the Lakers:

Kenneth Faried, Power Forward,  193 minutes

Kosta Koufos, Center,  26 minutes

JaVale McGee, Center,  181 minutes

Al Harrington, Power Forward, 163 minutes

Timofey Mozgov, Center, 99 minutes

Total minutes for the two positions were 662 minutes. The total should have been approximately 7 (games) * 48 (minutes in a game) * 2 (positions) = 672 minutes. So in the series, at least Karl avoided the mistake of not giving enough playing time to power forwards and centers.

But McGee was cheated. As indicated previously, Real Player Rating numbers are showing that McGee was in 2012 better than Faried by at least 15% and that McGee was better than Koufos by at least 20% and probably by 25% These are very substantial differences; in a playoff series, every percentage point real player rating advantage counts.

McGee should have averaged 33 minutes a game as a rock bottom minimum. At 33 minutes a game, he would have totaled 33 X 7 = 231 minutes for the series. So he and Nuggets fans were cheated by at least 50 McGee minutes. Actually, it could have been worse, and if it had been worse, the Lakers would not have needed seven games to defeat the Nuggets. McGee played about 78% of the absolute minimum number of minutes he should have played in the Lakers series.

Although Faried is a really promising player and is good enough to start already in his second year, he was just a rookie in 2011-12 and he was not the kind of major star before his time type of rookie that a team wanting to win playoff series is going to start. At the time, McGee was 24 years old while Faried was only 22. More importantly, McGee was playing in his fourth NBA year while Faried was playing in his first.

In the series, McGee should have started at center and either Al Harrington or Kenneth Faried at power forward in each and every game. Whether you started Harrington or Faried, the Nuggets were destined to have big problems dealing with Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum (with McGee starting). When McGee never started a game, the situation went from bad to worse, and at that point Nuggets were destined to have even bigger problems.

Another aspect of the scandal of Faried getting some of McGee's minutes (both last year and now this year) is that McGee is seven feet tall whereas Faried is only 6 feet 8 inches. You can if you insist think of Faried as an undersized power forward. In come circumstances, giving a power forward playing time that should go to a center can be justified. But the best power forwards are 6 feet 10 inches or 6 feet 11 inches, and you are better off thinking of Faried as a regular sized small forward who has some power forward attributes and capabilities (mostly because he can jump extra high and because he is very quick and energetic and athletic). So if a coach takes minutes from McGee and gives them to Faried, he is losing out big time in height and also he is allowing minutes that have to go to centers and power forwards to leak out to somebody who very arguably is more of a small forward than a power forward. The bottom line is that it was a major coaching error to cheat JaVale McGee out of playing time and to give some JaVale McGee minutes to Kenneth Faried.

THE AFTERMATH OF THE LAKERS' DEFEAT OF GEORGE KARL AND THE NUGGETS

In 2012, George Karl and the Nuggets had lost yet another playoff series that they could have and should have won. The winners, the Los Angeles Lakers, went on to play the Oklahoma Thunder in round two and the Lakers' weaknesses detailed above caused the Lakers to be badly beaten by the Thunder.

Apparently, Lakers management was not very impressed that they had beaten the Nuggets in round one. During the summer of 2012, after the Lakers were knocked out by the Thunder, the Lakers heavily retooled. Most NBA observers are aware by now that the Lakers brought in Steve Nash to correct point guard problems. At center, the Lakers' off season wheeling and dealing involved bringing in Dwight Howard to replace Andrew Bynum in a bid to remain at least as strong in paint defending and in power offense down low while at the same time and with the same wheeling and dealing they brought in serious reinforcements for the back court.

So in summary, George Karl's cheating of (or if you prefer, mismanagement of) JaVale McGee both last season and in the current season is a major scandal and the losses caused by this mistake have been piling up left and right and all over the place.