Y'know, the Nuggies...

[Apathy]

Just aren't as deep as we thought.

I was one of those who thought the Nuggets would contend for the No. 1 seed, particularly after OKC traded Harden. (Seriously.)

We all thought Iggy was perfect. And sure, there are huge spacing problems we waved off, and the problem of playing Iggy out of position at the 2.

But one of the bigger stories is how an elite bench hasn't been elite.

Whomever of Koufos/McGee coming off the bench is great. But Andre Miller doesn't fit the roster composition anymore with Iggy coming into town. He's still a productive player but he's not a productive fit -- he doesn't space the floor and I think he takes away from Lawson's aggressiveness/killer instinct when the two share the court.

I do not understand Karl's love affair with Brewer but it has to go. His energy is great, his D is solid, and when he's hitting from 3 he's serviceable, but he tries to do too much and is best served as an 8th guy off the bench, specializing in matchups.

Outside of those two (three) there's little left. Chandler's been AWOL and is frankly redundant: the same spacing problems. Jordan Hamilton doesn't get to the line and can't shoot when he manages to anyway.

Where do they go from here?

[eathb_au]

Pretty much spot on with everything except Hamilton.

The rotations and lineups need a change.

Lawson has been terrible this season because half of his minutes are at SG because of Karl's obsession of running a 2 PG lineup. Honestly, watch Ty and Miller when they are on the court at the same time. One of them stands in the corner and does nothing and both are not good enough shooters to be able to play off the ball. It's basically 4 on 5 on offense. Miller is basically the worst 2 PG guy you put next to Lawson.

Floor spacing is another huge issue, and the bench does not help with this. The players in Karl's rotation that come in bring nothing to help this. No guy in the current rotation that can come in and make a 3. No guy that can come in and create his own damn shot off the dribble. It's so easy to defend against this team right now because all you need to do is pack the paint.

As for where to go from here. Get a new coach that can work proper rotations to help this team, or trade in a (or two) reliable shooter/scorer that Karl would use. I would also trade Miller and get a backup PG that can play with Ty (ie a backup 3pt shooting specialist) but I doubt that will happen.

Fwiw Melo, JR Smith and Felton are playing waaaay better under Woodson than when they were under Karl. I wonder if it's a coincidence.

[The Rebel]

Pretty much spot on with everything except Hamilton.

The rotations and lineups need a change.

Lawson has been terrible this season because half of his minutes are at SG because of Karl's obsession of running a 2 PG lineup. Honestly, watch Ty and Miller when they are on the court at the same time. One of them stands in the corner and does nothing and both are not good enough shooters to be able to play off the ball. It's basically 4 on 5 on offense. Miller is basically the worst 2 PG guy you put next to Lawson.

Floor spacing is another huge issue, and the bench does not help with this. The players in Karl's rotation that come in bring nothing to help this. No guy in the current rotation that can come in and make a 3. No guy that can come in and create his own damn shot off the dribble. It's so easy to defend against this team right now because all you need to do is pack the paint.

As for where to go from here. Get a new coach that can work proper rotations to help this team, or trade in a (or two) reliable shooter/scorer that Karl would use. I would also trade Miller and get a backup PG that can play with Ty (ie a backup 3pt shooting specialist) but I doubt that will happen.

Fwiw Melo, JR Smith and Felton are playing waaaay better under Woodson than when they were under Karl. I wonder if it's a coincidence.

I will agree with you that karl's rotations suck, and Miller and TY should not be playing nearly that much together.

I will also agree that Melo is playing better for Woodson then he ever did for Karl, but Felton and JR are not playing better, in fact despite the hype neither one of them are doing all that well compared to their time in Denver. JR is putting up nice stats, but he is getting more minutes then he ever did in Denver, and he is less effecient then he ever was in Denver, a 50.6 TS% is the worst he has put up since his rookie year. He is also a net negative on his teams plus minus. Felton like JR has higher scoring average, but he is also 63 points lower on his TS% then he was while in Denver, not to mention Felton has more turnovers and less assists then he did while in Denver. Carmelo finally deciding to play hard almost all the time, as well as the Knicks finally building a team around him that actually fits his game well are the reasons that team is doing so well, JR is still the same player he always was in Denver, and felton despite complaining while in denver actually was a better PG in Denver.

[The Rebel]

Just aren't as deep as we thought.

I was one of those who thought the Nuggets would contend for the No. 1 seed, particularly after OKC traded Harden. (Seriously.)

We all thought Iggy was perfect. And sure, there are huge spacing problems we waved off, and the problem of playing Iggy out of position at the 2.

But one of the bigger stories is how an elite bench hasn't been elite.

Whomever of Koufos/McGee coming off the bench is great. But Andre Miller doesn't fit the roster composition anymore with Iggy coming into town. He's still a productive player but he's not a productive fit -- he doesn't space the floor and I think he takes away from Lawson's aggressiveness/killer instinct when the two share the court.

I do not understand Karl's love affair with Brewer but it has to go. His energy is great, his D is solid, and when he's hitting from 3 he's serviceable, but he tries to do too much and is best served as an 8th guy off the bench, specializing in matchups.

Outside of those two (three) there's little left. Chandler's been AWOL and is frankly redundant: the same spacing problems. Jordan Hamilton doesn't get to the line and can't shoot when he manages to anyway.

Where do they go from here?

I will agree with you that our bench was overrated and that iggy is not the best fit, I said it before the trade and ignored it after the trade. Hell the truth is that miller and Iggy not fitting is not really the problem either, it is the fact that karl refuses to give the only scorer on the roster more then minimal minutes.

Hamilton is a good shooter, but he has had his minutes yanked around so much that I am sure it has affected both his confidence and his ability to work through his minor ups and downs. Hamilton is actually averaging less then 8 minutes per game, if he has a bad start even just missing good shots he is yanked immediately and may not get back into a game for a week, that is not the way to treat a shooter, where confidence and the ability to always believe the next one is going in, is a big big deal. No other player in the rotation is treated nearly like that by karl, Brewer, Gallo, Lawson, Iggy, and Miller can all shoot the ball as often as they want, miss almost every shot in the game, and yet they still get their minutes, plus some.

Which brings me to another point, this team is Karl's supposed dream, they built it will a bunch of guys willing to try on defense, and nobody selfish especially on the offensive end. Which means no true scorer, the only one close is Hamilton, the rest are role players being asked to be more then they are able to be. Lawson is never going to be Chris Paul, Igoudala is never going to be Scottie Pippen, Gallo is never going to be Larry Bird, Faried has a long way to go to ever be considered even close to Rodman, and Koufos while being the most productive according to advanced stats is never going to be more then a solid 5th starter. The Nuggets and Karl act as if this team can compete in the playoffs, and with Afflalo and Harrington they did compete against the Lakers, but without a single dependable scorer that can get minutes, not to mention this teams horrible outside shooting, this team is a 1st round exit team, just like 8 of the last 8 years.

Fact is the Nuggets front office and ownership need to decide who they want this team to be, do they want to win a championship or do they just want to continue selling tickets and have a 1st round exit team. Personally I have been leaning towards the later, although I do not think the Nuggets realize that their ticket sales are going to drop off as the momentum they had built with fans is slowly fading away. Denver is still a football town, as the Broncos have done better and the Nuggets have treaded water, the interest in the Nuggets has taken a back seat, as evidenced by the posts on here and other boards, not to mention just the things I see posted on facebook on which many of the friends I grew up with have spent most of their time worrying about the Broncos despite usually going to Nuggets games throughout even the worst years of the Nuggets.

[Maf]

Nice post Rebel.

I have no problem with Denver being "just" good team with first round exits every year. How many teams can say they were in PO 9 straight years? I believe Spurs and thats all. I am glad Nuggets are very good and watchable team. Someone would change it for two years of misery and changes, two years of true contending and back to misery. Because let's be real. Any team doesn't have A) owner like Prokhorov, Cuban or Dolan who mostly don't care how much they lost. B) True superstars. Since like 1980 champs had on their rosters- Magic, Bird, Jordan, O'Neal, Bryant, Olajuwon, Isiah Thomas, LeBron, Duncan and Dr. J. They're locks in TOP 50 players of all time. And you could argue about Dirk and KG belongs as well. That leaves you with only team who made it without top talent- Detroit Pistons with Billups, Wallaces, Rip and Prince. And HoF coach.
Does anyone see true top talented player available? Because we're not gonna get Durant or James. And please, players like headcase Cousins is NOT who I'm talking about.

After all- I think we are back when we wanted our team to be. Yeah yeah, we lost to Memphis. That's gonna happen to lot of teams. They're pretty good. Denver is always pretty good home team. And at home they're like 9 or 10-1 this year. We're over 50% with twice as much games on the road. Thank god most of that Karl-hate is lost. We know his flawes but fans are sometimes very ungrateful and stupid. Yesterday I looked on Mavs forum and I read that Carlisle is very bad coach, idiot who can't do nothing right. Rick Carlisle who they win ring with... Crazy.

And we can't blame our team or our coach because some wannabe experts wrote we will be better than Clippers. Those are the experts who love to say our eight man rotation is "very deep team." Problem is what I thought from beggining. This team is not very intelligent. I don't need to talk about JaVale, Corey and A-dolph. Or as I called them all-dumb frontcourt. Look at Mozgov who has like average of 5 thousand fauls per 36 and defensive three seconds for every four possetions. How many times JaVale throw inbound pass right to opponents hands. Or how many times him and Faried got T for hanging on the rim? Iggy is sometimes good. Sometimes his brain collapses and he thinks he can shoot turnaround fadeaways or make no-look behind-the-back through-defenders-legs passes. Or in short automatic turn overs. Our PG of the future is so short he can't see on the clock and he screws our chance to win. They're too dumb and inexperienced to win in postseason.

And still don't get the love for Hamilton. Look. I know every team's fans have players who they claim to make a difference given a chance. They ignore like you their player can't play D. Or handle the ball. Or pass. And his coach sees him every day at practice so he knows what that player can and cannot. You act like his 35% threes would bring us to another level. And Hamilton is no Korver or Morrow or Meeks or Novak or Bonner. They are such great shooters you found them minutes even they can't do much more. There you're wrong Rebel. Good shooters don't need minutes to have confidence they can shoot. They KNOW it. Prove? Bonner over 50% 3pts in 11 minutes. Well every season of Steve Novak. Korver had 53.6% while playing least minutes of his career in Utah. Hamilton might the best shooter of our team. But far from NBA elite.


And dear Santa. I wished our Nuggets learned how to make these damn free throws. Make it happen!

[pickIBL]

It is unusual to see a fan board for a team all pretty much on the same page. The reality is this team is not built to maximize the potential as the individual pieces do not exactly suit each other perfectly. Right now as a team guided by Karl we have hit a ceiling. That kind of honesty is way better than the kool aid a lot of fans are drinking right now.

I happen to be on the Hamilton bandwagon but based on how little he plays it is easy to see why the fanbase is divided on him. I feel he has earned the opportunity to be in the rotation for 20 mins a night, and I blame Karl for stunting his growth.

What I can say is that we can't just recycle players again and again. We need to acquire a solid core and keep building on it. Right now the FO has to decide who the core is. Right now Faried and Lawson are two in the yes column for me as I say we keep our draft choices.

I could possibly get on board with a Gallinari trade in a rare circumstance. I would feel a lot better about such a move if Hamilton got more burn, what we get back makes sense, and we snag someone like Karasev with our 1st rounder.

[Apathy]

I don't understand the love for Corey Brewer. I'd rather play Hamilton 15mpg for a couple of months, really see what they have there, then keep giving a retread like Brewer minutes. I get it: he is energetic and has decent intangibles, but he does NOT need a green light to shoot all the time. He's usually a ~31% 3PT shooter, taking do-or-die long jumpers all the time that compromise the integrity of the D when he misses. And literally doesn't do anything else. Even his D is overrated because he lacks strength and is a mediocre rebounder.

I do think it's time for a new coach. Wages of Wins have been bashing Karl for a long time and I've finally come around to their viewpoint.

Aside from Chandler they have a lot of tradeable pieces, too. Ujiri is really smart. One good trade and they can be contenders again.

[The Rebel]

I have a love hate thing for Karl, I love the way he is able to get teams to overachieve with mediocre talent playing a ton of minutes, and his ability to get through to some of the players with the biggest problems from around the league. People forget just how bad Kmart, Camby, Melo, JR, and even earlier guys like Shawn Kemp were seen, only to be very productive while with the Nuggets. However karl also has always had his favorites, and he overplays them to the point of hurting the team, guys like Boykins, AC, and Brewer all have their roles and are good enough to play those roles, but they are not good enough to play the minutes and roles that Karl asks of them.

As for tradable pieces and the way the team is built, I personally do not like the way the team is built, I think Ujiri and the front office have went out and got a bunch of defense 1st guys hoping that a couple of them could become dependable scorers, it does not look like it is going to happen. I also feel like the trade pieces the Nuggets have are slowly losing value, the longer Gallo stays a streaky on the offensive end, Faried struggles when teams get to physical, Lawson is only aggressive once in a while, McGee has his screwups nightly, and every other bad habit this team has, the more their trade value goes down. Though the biggest part of this teams problem is lack of scorers, they do not even have to be very good scorers, but they need some players that the defense has to always account for, right now we really do not have anybody getting those minutes.

The lack of scorers and shooters is one reason i do not think this team is as good as the team last year, allowing the opposition to just pack the paint and try to beat them with streaky shooters is not a recipe for a contender.

[pickIBL]

It doesn't pay enough and I've always turned it down but it would be fun to coach a little entry level ball overseas. And I've seen it happen plenty of times... teams with small budgets trying to move up looking for a 10k a month player that they can get who is under the radar for 1 or 2k. So you find them that diamond in the rough in the NAIA and that gets them competitive with clubs in their league that spend 5 times as much on imports.

I hold the belief that if all the players overseas were free agents and you gave me the NBA salary cap floor that I could put together a club that could go close to .500 in the NBA. It would be a grind it out slow physical team with the highest BB IQ in the league.

Why I bring this up is because I think Denver needs to abandon the breakneck basketball philosophy in the future. The only NBA teams that have beaten the star studded teams in the modern NBA where the old school "lunch pale" teams (Pistons, Spurs, etc). We aren't going to out star the Heat or Lakers. The Thunder and Bulls got extremely lucky with Durant and Rose because they are first class people.

A basketball team with the right parts together can play way above and beyond the sum of their parts. Right now the Nuggets are closer to the sum of their parts.

If you can get to the rim of course you do just that. But if we don't have a point blank shot I think the Nuggets should grind it out. Defensively you take a page out of Europe or small college basketball (or Butler basketball) as that is how you play defense. The packline defense is the way to go. You don't gamble on the perimeter. Perimeter shots are exactly what you want. All you want to do is keep those paint points down and run out and get a hand up on the perimeter. And instead of truly contesting... committing fouls while trying to block shots... it makes a lot more sense that when you recover... put your hand right in the shooter's line of sight... right in their grill.

What it comes down to is an overall philosophy. For the Nuggets to contend we need to look at a model that will work for a smaller market. Nobody on this team is as good as Gary Payton or Shawn Kemp and that Sonics team is not going to beat the Heat anyways.