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#12 - Denver Nuggets

PG - Ty Lawson, Andre Miller
SG - Evan Fournier, Randy Foye
SF - Wilson Chandler, Jordan Hamilton
PF - Kenneth Faried, Darrell Arthur
C - Javale McGee, Timothy Mozgov
D - Danilo Gallinari (guess back by Christmas), JJ Hickson, Nate Robinson, Anthony Randolph

"What have I done to deserve this?" - Pet Shop Boys

George Karl wants to know. He led this team to 57 wins only to get the ax.

What have I done to deserve this?

Denver fans want to know. Denver fans were treated to the team that was maybe a few tweaks away from being a contender and instead saw the most marquee name on the roster traded for Randy Foye.

What have I done to deserve this?

Andre Miller wants to know. He busted his butt for this team, sacrificing his desire to be a starter for the good of the team. And they bring in Nate Robinson to challenge his backup role?

What have I done to deserve this?

Kenneth Faried wants to know. He has averaged a 19.6 PER in his two years in the league. Lays it all out there every minute of ever game and what's his reward? The team trades for Arthur and signs JJ Hickson.

What have I done to deserve this?

Kosta Koufos wants to know. He earned a starting center role for this team beating out a highly touted Javale McGee and his reward is getting buried on the bench behind Marc Gasol in Memphis. (ok, Koufos kinda deserves this after his playoff showing)

Javale McGee wants to know. He's been a million dollar body with a 2 cent brain ever since he's been in the league. And suddenly for no reason related to his performance he's thrust back into a starting role.

What did he do to deserve that?

There just seems to be no justice in Denver. There is a lot of talent though. Too much by my eye. And with the additions of JJ Hickson and Darrel Arthur it would seem to me that Denver is looking to package Faried up with some other depth to get a difference maker. Not sure they'll have any luck with that, but, that's waht it looks like to me. Would Faried and Javale get you LMA?? Maybe. I'm going to keep my eye on them for trades, I think they are primed to make a move.

This roster is arguably 14 deep. Not just 14 bodies, any team can do that. But, 14 NBA caliber players. I think that's going to lead to some tension in the locker room as there will be 4-5 guys who think they are letting their talents rot in Denver. It's going to be a tough coaching assignment, especially for a rookie coach.

Brian Shaw wants to know as well.

What have I done deserve this?

Projected record: 50/32

agreed we're in a great position to make a big trade splash to get an all-star. i do think the team as assembled now, minus andre miller, will fit together just fine and win enough games to get a mid-playoff seed and potentially advance if shaw's as good as i think he is and gallo's back to 100%. but it also looks like some of the signings were just asset collection to give ourselves a chance at a big move if a situation like the LMA one comes up.

i.....errrr......we (almost all) think karl deserved it for underachieving once again and going into next season being a lame duck coach and putting pressure on ownership to give him another extension despite never earning one in the postseson.

iguodala was gone. not much we could do about it since he left money & years on the table. same situation as karl, letting him leave now is the better option as opposed to giving him a multi-year extension worth too much money. i have confidence in fournier to step up, and the all-around 3 point shooting of the roster to change the way we can play offense.

andre miller deserves it for throwing karl under the bus after the post season. whining about minutes during the season while still playing more than he deserves. saying we'd never win in the playoffs in the middle of the 12-13 season because we don't have a superstar. saying we'll never win 57 games again, despite him still being on the team (shouldn't he be a leader?). and finally not being able to hit a jumpshot.

expect him to be traded before the season or shortly into it.

faried can still be pushed to play better man defense. to practice enough to make free throws. to develop a 15 foot jumpshot. etc. we love him, but without those additions he may be a career 25mpg energy player.

koufos deserved it for playing soft and making andrew bogut look like a first team all-nbaer.

javale needs to put up and shut up at some point to show he's worth the contract he signed. hopefully shaw can make him the defensive impact player that he easily has the potential of being.

.

i think hicksons in front of arthur in your depth chart. and nate is in front of andre, trade pending.

don't disagree with the projected record though. something around 50's probably right given the gallo injury, and a rookie coach playing younger guys.

(in before ujirifan hijacks this thread)

I'm not sure I agree with the "almost all" comment regarding Karl. Not sure how a guy that wins coach of the year from his peers, and breaks multiple win records for the organization 'deserves' to get fired. Both Ujirifan and myself think it was disastrous and horrible, whereas there is a following on this board that does agree with you. It's hardly 98%, as I've seen before, or even almost all.

Regarding Jazzfan's critique - I am puzzled by all the same questions. I think the Nuggets are had a horrible offseason which is pretty much echo'ed by all non-biased fans.

its certainly 98% at nuggetstalk.

management gave karl a team that was 100% suited to him. they were all selfless, they all played hard every night, they bought into his concepts, they played fast, they played crazy trapping collapsing defense, he was able to play two point guards like he loves....and he still lost 2-4 to a team that won 10 fewer games in the regular season and was also down a 19/10 starter.

it was a true test of his coaching philosophies in the modern nba era of playoff basketball....and he failed.

the other options were...
-let him coach out his contract in a year where gallo will be out until january, and we lose iguodala. so we most definitely lose more games....he doesn't have as much control over the players given his contract status. andre miller's already stated outright that the nuggets got outcoached by a rookie. wouldn't surprise me one bit in a situation like that to see team morale die, and the record to take a nosedive....forcing management to fire karl early, and bring in a new guy who has to implement new stuff in the middle of a lost season.

-give him an extension through 15-16. and let him get 3 more cracks at trying desperately to outrun opponents and get more layups than them in the postseason. all while lawson gets older, mcgee sits on the bench, and he chooses another old & slow guy to anchor his perimeter defense.

josh kroenke chose the best option moving forward.

Just glad someone posted on response. I was beginning to wonder if this forum was all lurkers.

LMAO, corona! Just how do you define "hijacking" a thread? Is it something I shouldn't do and but you can?

Given your bias against Karl, see if you can bring yourself to peruse the following link and check out the first, oh, 50-100 responses to the favorable article on McGee pertaining to Karl and the overall moves made by the Nuggets which are FAR, FAR from 98% either anti-Karl or pro-Nugz moves.

http://www.denverstiffs.com/2013/8/1/4573716/the-spotlight-will-be-on-denver-nuggets-center-javale-mcgee

Also, given your continuing denigration of KK's contributions based largely upon his poor performance against Bogut in the P.O.s, I'd really like to see you respond, specifically, to the following.

A.) Just who and/or where can I find a significant amount of ranting - by others - about Koufos "soft" D, prior to the P.O.s

B.) Why should it not be regarded as very silly to ignore the fact that his 6.9 RPG in 22.1 MPG was 7th among all NBA centers in RPer48 and his 2.6 ORbs was tied for 9th, with all those ahead of him having played more MPG and that his FG% was 2nd among all centers?

C.) How is it that you find KK's overall performance last year to be so lacking but cannot bring yourself to admit that, DEFENSIVELY, the subtraction of Iggy - and even Stone, if he were to have been brought back - combined with the addition of Foye and Nate renders the backcourt significantly worse off, when the priority, supposedly, was to improve.

in the article comments i see random gifs, memes, and a string of babble about KK vs. Mcgee vs. Mozgov. didn't find much pro-karl sentiment. it's summertime drivel because nobody has anything better to do than complain about why KK was traded and how he's so much better than everyone else. on any other team in the league he's a 5-15mpg bench player....but he got glorified here because karl chose to start him to send mcgee a message and try to make him work harder and put in his dues to the league.

he did exactly the same thing with anthony carter. and steve blake. and dahntay jones. how are those 3 guys working out post-nuggets?

if koufos is so darn good via advanced metrics and the eye-test....

then the only contention you have left is that the new front office is so incredibly incompetent that they only fielded offers from one nba team and got the first thing back that was offered. really?
you think they gave him away for fun?
you think they didn't send his name around the league to get the best return they could?
what player did you think he's worth that they could have gotten?

if koufos is so darn good....

then why did karl immediately lose faith in him in game 2 of the playoffs? he went straight back to being what he was before the nuggets got him. 10-15mpg, and you wouldn't even know he was on the court in those minutes if you didn't make a point of searching for him. either koufos did suck, have a negative impact and showed his RS numbers didn't translate to games where it matters, or karl made a really bad decision to keep one of the best rebounding and offensively efficient centers in the entire league off the court. which is it? i thought they could both do no wrong?

maybe other front offices watched the playoffs. maybe they knew that his regular season offensive & rebounding numbers were a result of playing with the fastest paced team in the league, where he was the team garbage man and had no other responsibilities.

C.) How is it that you find KK's overall performance last year to be so lacking but cannot bring yourself to admit that, DEFENSIVELY, the subtraction of Iggy - and even Stone, if he were to have been brought back - combined with the addition of Foye and Nate renders the backcourt significantly worse off, when the priority, supposedly, was to improve.

iguodala left us without options. you're still arguing under the premise that he could have been here for the next 4 years when, within reason, that's clearly not the case.
yes, iguodala is a better all-around basketball player than randy foye is.
iguodala left for nothing.
randy foye is a better basketball player than nothing is.

you have to work with what you're given.
if iguodala leaves you don't have the capspace to just go out and get a james harden replacement or something. that's a given.
so you either massively overpay iguodala to keep him, even though he thinks the culture and coach of another team is better.
you let iguodala walk and try to get a "star"-type replacement in brandon jennings or monta ellis.
you let iguodala walk and play the young guys you have...
or you let him walk and accumulate tradeable assets on reasonable contracts that have skillsets that you need, to fight with the young players you have for minutes.

imho the 4th option is the best. i'm happy the new FO agreed.

and if brian shaw is a good defensive coach, this team is capable of being better defensively overall than last years team with iguodala and a bunch of bad schemes by an outdated coach.
this team is better offensively now given that they can all shoot the basketball.

Pretty incredible stuff. Very little objectivity or honesty, for that matter.

Quite a few of the posts in that link are not flattering to the Nuggets braintrust or overall prognosis for the future and not a whole lot that were trashing Karl - CERTAINLY NOT 98% - but then anything you don't agree with is just "babble".

and if brian shaw is a good defensive coach, this team is capable of being better defensively overall than last years team with iguodala and a bunch of bad schemes by an outdated coach.
this team is better offensively now given that they can all shoot the basketball.
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corona Forum Mod - Nuggets

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You did not respond specifically to the positives which I enumerated regarding Koufos overall play during the season because you could not defend yourself so you just put out a lot of "babble" yourself.

Your last comment above shows just how much of a toe-the-line, blind believer in what Kroenke is doing as to basically discredit most of what you write. If you know squat about the game, you know that Nate and Foye, UNDER ANY SCHEME, are a big downgrade defensively, especially if Nate plays many minutes in tandem with Ty.

And, I said before, if you live in the Denver Metro area I'd be happy to meet with you and make some specific wagers on the fortunes of the Nuggets next year, based upon the team as it is constituted at this moment.

The primary asset of this team is its youth. Karl was not committed to developing it, so the front office chose to go with a coach that is. The team last year was not a championship contender, and would not have gotten better without development of the young guys. Koufos starting over McGee says more about the lack of McGee's development than it does about Koufos's skill.

The roster took a hit defensively with Iggy leaving. We would be a worse defensive team, compared to the last year, if Karl was still the coach. However, we may be better defensively this year, compared to last, with a new defensive system. Team defense is more than the sum of individual parts.

ujirifan wrote:You did not respond specifically to the positives which I enumerated regarding Koufos overall play during the season because you could not defend yourself so you just put out a lot of "babble" yourself.

i have in other threads. you completely ignore the point and my questions to you and keep rambling on your other talking points like you work for fox news.

koufos's numbers are inflated by the style, the system and his role. that's why nenes fg% was off the charts here and has collapsed since. it's why mcgees fg% has gone up significantly since joining denver. big men in karl's system are there for catch-and-dunk opportunities, and defensive rebounding while ~2 guards/forwards leak out. add that to playing at a pace that blows most other teams away....and you come up with average bench big men with really good fg% and rebounding numbers....despite being a bad defensive rebounding team overall.

Your last comment above shows just how much of a toe-the-line, blind believer in what Kroenke is doing as to basically discredit most of what you write. If you know squat about the game, you know that Nate and Foye, UNDER ANY SCHEME, are a big downgrade defensively, especially if Nate plays many minutes in tandem with Ty.

we've gone over this as well...and you refuse to respond directly to the premise.

defense is more about schemes & team commitment than it is about having a collection of elite athletic defensive specimens. i gave you examples in another thread about year-in-year-out great defensive teams that have players with reps as poor defenders and still rank top 5 defensively. yes, if you have 5 or 9 elite athletic defensive guys, then playing a defensive system with them will trump a team without those guys. but losing one defensive wing player while changing the entire defensive philosophy/system does not mean the team is necessarily weaker than it was last year defensively. albeit if we had been able to keep iguodala (not without massively overpaying), then i reckon we'd be significantly better as a defensive team with shaw as the coach.

but for the last time....keeping iguodala wasn't simply an option. we gave him a great offer. we offered more money than the other teams in the hunt. denvers a nice city. we just won 57 games. the team plays pretty darn unselfishly together. he still chose golden state. if you're going to keep going on about this, then you need to be very specific about what should have been done to keep iguodala. should we have hired jerry west as a consultant? should we have upped it to 60 million over 4 years? is iguodala worth 15 million when he's 33 years old? do you really think keeping ujiri would have swayed iguodala to stay? what evidence is there to support that?

And, I said before, if you live in the Denver Metro area I'd be happy to meet with you and make some specific wagers on the fortunes of the Nuggets next year, based upon the team as it is constituted at this moment.

i live in boulder and gave up gambling years ago. although i was good at it, the cost vs. added stress ratio was never worth the winnings.

A lot of Nuggets fans are going to jump on me for this, but I think the team misses the playoffs.

I think it's fair for Nuggets fans to be annoyed at this suggestion, since they overachieved last year and won 57 games. After that, you'd think they deserve some more respect. But I think they've got some serious problems:
1) Karl, for all his faults, knew how to use this team in the regular season. When you've got a team massively overachieving (and based on paper talent, they did) coaching continuity is important. Shaw is probably a good coach, but he's got a complex system which is going to disrupt all the chemistry the old group built up. His system (as I understand it) should rely more on the starters, and less on bench depth and running. Bench depth and running were what helped the Nuggets a lot last season, a system that takes away from that could potentially have terrible results. I know it's cliché, but the Nuggets should take advantage of their home court advantage- high altitude ball.
2) Iggy is probably an understated loss. He's not as good as a lot of people make out, but he was one of the few Nuggets who was very consistent, night after night. They'll miss that consistency.
3) Management is going to press coaching to play JaVale more. Long term that might make sense, but short term I see it resulting in more losses.
4) Is the rooster healthy? I doubt it, the guy always seems to be down with one injury or another.
5) Brewer was a solid role player. Losing him won't help chemistry.
6) Fournier is a good young talent, but in the short term (i.e. next season) he'll lose you games with his inexperience.
7) Andre Miller is one year older, and with his consecutive games record broken, he may not be so keen on going 100% as the team starts to struggle.

The West overall has gotten a little tougher this season (it always seems to), and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Nuggets win less than 40 games. I could be wrong, but short term I see bad things from ditching George Karl.

Durins Baynes wrote:A lot of Nuggets fans are going to jump on me for this, but I think the team misses the playoffs.

I think it's fair for Nuggets fans to be annoyed at this suggestion, since they overachieved last year and won 57 games. After that, you'd think they deserve some more respect. But I think they've got some serious problems:
1) Karl, for all his faults, knew how to use this team in the regular season. When you've got a team massively overachieving (and based on paper talent, they did) coaching continuity is important. Shaw is probably a good coach, but he's got a complex system which is going to disrupt all the chemistry the old group built up. His system (as I understand it) should rely more on the starters, and less on bench depth and running. Bench depth and running were what helped the Nuggets a lot last season, a system that takes away from that could potentially have terrible results. I know it's cliché, but the Nuggets should take advantage of their home court advantage- high altitude ball.
2) Iggy is probably an understated loss. He's not as good as a lot of people make out, but he was one of the few Nuggets who was very consistent, night after night. They'll miss that consistency.
3) Management is going to press coaching to play JaVale more. Long term that might make sense, but short term I see it resulting in more losses.
4) Is the rooster healthy? I doubt it, the guy always seems to be down with one injury or another.
5) Brewer was a solid role player. Losing him won't help chemistry.
6) Fournier is a good young talent, but in the short term (i.e. next season) he'll lose you games with his inexperience.
7) Andre Miller is one year older, and with his consecutive games record broken, he may not be so keen on going 100% as the team starts to struggle.

The West overall has gotten a little tougher this season (it always seems to), and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Nuggets win less than 40 games. I could be wrong, but short term I see bad things from ditching George Karl.

1) How do you know what system Brian Shaw will run? inside info or something? He has already said he will not run a full triangle and intends on running quite a bit but using more sets when slowed down, like most well coached teams. Also not sure where you get that he won't use his bench depth as much... We only brought in more depth this year, making me to believe that we are sticking to the philosophy of everyone fighting for minutes, making each other better. Kinda hard to say Shaw will stray away from all of that when he has said nothing of the sort.
2) I'm guessing you didn't actually watch a whole lot of Nuggets games last year. Iggy was anything but consistent. His monthly averages weren't even consistent. He was as much of a wild card as just about anybody on the team last year.
3) While this is a potentially valid point, but Javale did have very good numbers in his limited minutes last year and it is very much possible that he continues that in more minutes under a coach that will actually try to develop him.
4) Gallo did play 71 games last year prior to his ACL injury, but yes injuries are a concern with him. The fact that it wasn't a full tear means he should be back relatively sooner than expected, but his absence is why this teams depth is so important and was a key to why the team did so well last year even in the absence of players through out the year.
5)Brewer was a big part of the team emotionally and hopefully that rubbed off on the younger players, but his shooting hurt the team as much as his hustle help. I feel like more people who think fairly highly of him from last year should note his stats which aren't flattering. This was another problem with Karl. He played his veteran favorites more than he should have instead of developing youth and allowing them to play more. In this case, it probably hurt the team more nights than not.
6) Oh no, not a game! The team is clearly willing to take a step back in order to help better the future and this is something that the Nuggets will have to live with. Brewer's horrible shooting also cost the team a few games.
7)Nate Robinson. I question if Andre Miller will be on the team by the start of the season and highly doubt that he is on the team by the end of the year. He is a bit of a locker room cancer who seems to think far too highly of himself. He constantly hurt the team as he can't keep up with any guards with speed and his inability to shoot from distance allowing defenses to pack the paint. I love some of the things that Dre brings like his passing and low post game, but he has outstayed his welcome with comments he has made and his age catching up to him. Honestly, with all the credit that Ujiri gets for a lot of his moves, resigning Andre Miller to the contract he is currently on last summer should be a negative mark on his record. He was given far too much money for too long for an aging point guard with strong limitations that is now a tough asset to move.

The Nuggets still have one of the deepest rosters in the league which will make them tough to deal with in the regular season and should help them get another playoff birth. While other teams have guys go down and have poor replacements for them, the Nuggets have depth at all positions that could be rotational players on most teams in the league. There are a lot of question marks with the team, but they really aren't that far off from last years team and in some aspects have drastically improved which should help offset the losses that they have had.

If everything breaks right for them, sure, they could make the playoffs. But a lot of things can go wrong, and if I had to bet I'd say a lot will. Shaw has never really coached a team before, and has no experience with this group. I think it's safe to safe whatever system he uses, there will be a transition period. That and a lot of other things make it pretty likely the Nuggets take a drop off from last year (where they frankly overachieved).

the people who think they overachieved last year in the regular season are the same ones who think they'll miss the playoffs and drop to .500 this year. not surprising.

they were on a 47 win pace the season before (same number of games the 6th seeded warriors just won), all without wilson chandler and much without gallinari.

His system (as I understand it) should rely more on the starters, and less on bench depth and running.

using legit sources, please fill us all in on what system he intends on using, where you learned about it...and how exactly it relies more on the starters, and how he intends to implement that same thing here. we're all intrigued and listening.

But a lot of things can go wrong

this goes for every team. and in a lot of ways, less so for the nuggets since they have so much depth. they're already out a starting SF for 20-30 games, but have a starting caliber SF to fill his shoes no problem.

everyone just pencils the rockets in like they'll be guaranteed top 4 seed. dwight howard didn't make the lakers better. he can always break like he has in the past. not to mention they were super healthy last year, everything seemed to go right....and they still barely squeaked into the playoffs. they're gonna be incredibly turnover prone with lin & howard and i'm not sure howard will ever play like he did in orlando again....and even if he does, the makeup on that team isn't as well suited for him.
spurs are another year older, once again. tim duncan & manu ginobili cant play forever.
warriors have lost depth and shooting, and have two guys who are notorious for being injured. how will iguodala fit in? how will losing jack & landry effect their bench play? can curry prove he's a legitimate ball handler under end-game pressure without the help of jack?
clippers have a new coach too, and in a lot of ways he's a guy that rode the coattails of KG, PP & Thibodeau's defense to a title. i don't think they're a lock to simply keep improving.
the thunder lost kevin martin and got back.....nothing. they're relying on reggie jackson & jeremy lamb to step up and pick up the slack. don't be surprised if durant & westbrook start getting a little frustrated that all these other stars around the league get surrounded by great role players, and they work their asses off every night for 82 games with kendrick perkins and a couple sophomore guards.

continuing on your bullet points.....iguodala was a model of inconsistency.

this is what we think of corey brewer


i remain confident fournier will have a semi-breakout season, and i think the games he 'loses' will be far fewer than the ones where he drops an unexpected 15+ points on an opponent and is the difference in winning the game.

andre miller is inconsequential.

i remain confident fournier will have a semi-breakout season, and i think the games he 'loses' will be far fewer than the ones where he drops an unexpected 15+ points on an opponent and is the difference in winning the game.

andre miller is inconsequential.

Hopefully, the reason for Miller being "inconsequential" is because he will not be a Nugget by the start of the season. If he still is, you are being naïve in making such a statement.

Fournier having a "semi-breakout" season is fully dependent upon Shaw giving him a full opportunity for meaningful PT - 24 MPG from the get-go - regardless of whether or not he starts.

But, of course, it is simply a matter of conjecture at this point as to how the backcourt minutes will be allocated by Shaw.

As far as I've seen, you have not weighed in as to how Ty, Nate, Fournier, Foye and, yes, possibly, Miller and even Hamilton will see PT there.

i have.

i have.

Strike 3. With bat on your shoulder.