Dempsey says stand pat on bigs

[MHZ]

So you're looking for big-man help for the Nuggets?

I'm not.

If you're of the opinion that two faulty inbounds plays were the difference between the Nuggets losing to the Los Angeles Lakers last spring or possibly moving on to the NBA Finals, your vote is for "as is" too.

The Nuggets were even with the Lakers on the boards in that playoff series. There is not much to suggest the Nuggets' roster, as presently constituted, can't get them to the Finals.

If a big man isn't necessarily the answer, how can their roster be improved?

First, stabilize the bench. That means getting consistent, positive production from J.R. Smith, who seems to be headed in that direction. Smith's scoring average (15.2) is fine, but his .332 shooting percentage on 3-pointers has to get to around .400. And his 1-to-1, assist-to-turnover ratio must be at, or very near, 2-to-1.

The bench also has to establish an identity. There is still a helter-skelter, mix-and-match nature to what the Nuggets do when Smith, Ty Lawson, Chris Andersen, Anthony Carter and Joey Graham check into the game. When the reserves get a comfort level and rhythm to what they're doing, the Nuggets will be that much stronger.

Second, and this is no secret, the Nuggets need to even out their performances. The Nuggets have wins over Cleveland, Orlando, the Lakers and San Antonio, and three victories over Utah, so they have a track record of beating the NBA's best. That helps come playoff time.

But the Nuggets have lost seven times to teams with losing records. Win four of those, and we would be talking about a 30-10 team and an entirely different set of perceptions.

As for all the talk of adding a big man, the Nuggets are being out-rebounded by an average of only two per game.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_142 ... z0d5d8GHRV

Kind of a bizarre column. I like Dempsey. I've met the dude when he worked on the CU beat, but this seems a bit asinine. I know generally people always overhype the need to trade/sign FA's, especially on boards like this one, but this seems pretty clear. The Nuggets have zero depth with their bigs. One goes down (which we've seen happen to both K-Mart and Bird), the Nuggets are screwed. The notion that the only way the Nuggets should need to improve is internal improvements is foolish to me. We've already seen how fragile the Nuggets rotation can be if they lose a guy or two. Adding a fourth big who can actually play should be a priority, and I'm not sure why one of the Nuggets beat writers believes otherwise.

[almost famous]

Gibberish.

[SnakefromHell]

That's stupid... almost even in rebounding? We outrebounded the Lakers by 18 in Game 4 but we were outrebounded in the other 5 games.

Unfortunately, in case he didn't notice, the 18 rebounding advantage was not transferrable to the other games in the series. Is he joking?

That's like going nuts on J.R.'s 41 pt night thinking he'll do it nightly. That's like saying Tony Delk is gonna terrorize defenders in the NBA because he scored 50 pts once.


Being outrebounded by only 2 rpg? That's **** stupid, it's enough to drop the elite rebounding teams 20-25 places if they're slacking off by 2 rpg.

[eslr]

We;re actually only being outrebounded by 1.3 per game. But thats a damn big differential in the long run.

[MHZ]

The point is that nobody has any realistic expectations to get a big who's going to play 35 minutes. The team is looking for a fourth big to play 15-20 minutes, who can rebound the ball, defend in the post, and stretch the defense a bit offensively. They're not looking to replace Kenyon Martin.

It almost seems to me like Chris Dempsey is doing some writing on behalf of the Nuggets front office, who doesn't think they can swing anything at this point, so they're having guys hit the papers and act like they don't need to anyway. I like the dude, but it's just a bizarre point of view that the Nuggets shouldn't try to bring in another big.

[Nutty Nats Fan]

Snake, wrong as usual, no surprise there.

In one regard, the article can be agreed with. Against LA last year, bigmen weren't the problem against LA. It wasn't the inbound plays either though, it was AC playing any meaningful minutes.

But I completely disagree the team doesn't need a 4th big. When someone gets hurt, this team is in trouble. The best way to prevent that from happening is to have a 4th big to help keep Nene, Kmart, and Birdman fresher.

The 4th big may not be played against LA in the playoffs, but his job would be making sure the other three are fresh enough to not need him.

[MHZ]

Except that rebounding isn't the only thing that makes big men important, especially against the Lakers. The problem is trying to defend the trio of seven footers the Lakers regularly play. Trying to defend Gasol and Bynum is a challenge, and a fourth big who can actually see the floor would give the Nuggets another option for doing so. Birdman had a tough time guarding Gasol in that series, and it takes away from what Birdman does best when he has to do that all the time.

A fourth big simply gives you more options, and it's stupid to think the Nuggets don't need one.

[KAVK]

Why are we going so cheap when you have good shot at the goal? Petro is chost so that alone assures we need another big can provide reb, post D on beefy frontline teams like LAL, CLE, BOS etc.

i don't see any other reason for FO being so patient/being cheap this year on the roster improvement is hopefully they are targeting to land a major piece in upcoming mega free agency! IMO..... What else it could be????

[Nutty Nats Fan]

Except that rebounding isn't the only thing that makes big men important, especially against the Lakers. The problem is trying to defend the trio of seven footers the Lakers regularly play. Trying to defend Gasol and Bynum is a challenge, and a fourth big who can actually see the floor would give the Nuggets another option for doing so. Birdman had a tough time guarding Gasol in that series, and it takes away from what Birdman does best when he has to do that all the time.

A fourth big simply gives you more options, and it's stupid to think the Nuggets don't need one.

Good points, and I'm not saying a 4th big isn't needed. I want one that can at least help keep the three fresher, one that could also help against LA would be great.

[MHZ]

Why are we going so cheap when you have good shot at the goal? Petro is chost so that alone assures we need another big can provide reb, post D on beefy frontline teams like LAL, CLE, BOS etc.

i don't see any other reason for FO being so patient/being cheap this year on the roster improvement is hopefully they are targeting to land a major piece in upcoming mega free agency! IMO..... What else it could be????

As far as trading, they just don't have much to work with right now, which makes it pretty tough. Very few tradeable assets. In the offseason, we had to use most of our MLE on Birdman, which is a problem we won't have this coming offseason. Certainly there's potential to add somebody in the offseason.

[Nutty Nats Fan]

Pretty sure they could have had Boone for the TPE. So there really is no excuse for the FO.

[pickaxe]

Dempsey is assuming we will have exactly the same roster and will be facing exactly the same team under the same circumstances. Of course that is asinine.

Depth in the big man realm is a minor problem but WILL be exploited come playoff time. Keep in mind our bigs are very athletic, but being smaller and lacking backup will have to use speed, which with a couple of bad plays they can quickly lose energy.

What's wrong with having a big guy that can help absorb some of that damage so our very good team can play at that high level they are capable of. Those scrappy sub 500 teams have the right idea.....wear out the front line and then expose.

JR's consistency however I agree needs to be on par, because he is the most likely (other than ac) to generate a couple of bad plays in a row. JR's active rebounding seems to add that extra element though that I think we miss with Balkman on the bench.

I think those in favor of a big man are frustrated because we have a bench and we can't go deep when we need to. Karl never plays Balkman, can't play Petro (always misses), and Allen has been used sparsely.

Karl wants to win and play guys that will win the game....well, either we need something revealed to use like he has a gameplan to start incorporating our bench more, or we need a reliable big that no question will provide backup support to our front line.

[Teens On Acid]

ridiculous article. we absolutely need size inside.
bird, nene and kmart might be enough to throw at D12 in the regular season but come playoff time against the lakers they're gonna end up taking us down again unless we get SERIOUS size in the paint. rebounding is definitely a problem. size in the paint needs to be addressed, this team is in a prime position to go for a championship run given the right size inside...FO needs to front some cash for the players needed to win. Lakers are well over the cap and it shows in the quality of their players that they'll pay the price to win it all.

[Powder Blue]

Dempsey later blogged about the article he wrote and i think he strengthened his argument....

The Nuggets run a tight rotation, basically eight deep; nine on good nights. Off the bench spots are reserved for J.R. Smith (27.5 mpg), Chris Andersen (22.4 mpg) and Ty Lawson (22.7 mpg). Add in Anthony Carter’s 18.7 mpg and you have a lineup that no other player can crack unless there are injuries.

Very few, if any, teams in the NBA even play four legitimate post players 10 minutes or more per game. The Lakers don’t even do that. It’s just that their three as a collective are better than everyone else’s. After Andrew Bynum/Pau Gasol/Lamar Odom they only have one player that stands over 6-8 – D.J. Mbenga, and he’s a spot center. Four bigs that play enough to produce tangible stats is not how the NBA operates. Three post players is the norm. In Martin/Nene/Andersen, the Nuggets have three. If the Nuggets have three they like – and they do – then why trade any commodity for a player that’s going to sit on the bench?

Are we saying that all that stands between the Nuggets and an NBA title is a 10-minute, 2.3-point, 2.7-rebound, 0.9-block per game player? For their sake, I certainly hope not.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/nuggets/201 ... he-nuggets’-big-man-dilemma/

I agree with him. GK is only gonna play 8 players in the playoffs. Only a trade including one of our top 8 has the possibility of making us better. Parting with JR changes the dynamics of the team. For better or worse? idk, i guess that would depend on who we got in return.

[pickaxe]

Dempsey later blogged about the article he wrote and i think he strengthened his argument....

The Nuggets run a tight rotation, basically eight deep; nine on good nights. Off the bench spots are reserved for J.R. Smith (27.5 mpg), Chris Andersen (22.4 mpg) and Ty Lawson (22.7 mpg). Add in Anthony Carter’s 18.7 mpg and you have a lineup that no other player can crack unless there are injuries.

Very few, if any, teams in the NBA even play four legitimate post players 10 minutes or more per game. The Lakers don’t even do that. It’s just that their three as a collective are better than everyone else’s. After Andrew Bynum/Pau Gasol/Lamar Odom they only have one player that stands over 6-8 – D.J. Mbenga, and he’s a spot center. Four bigs that play enough to produce tangible stats is not how the NBA operates. Three post players is the norm. In Martin/Nene/Andersen, the Nuggets have three. If the Nuggets have three they like – and they do – then why trade any commodity for a player that’s going to sit on the bench?

Are we saying that all that stands between the Nuggets and an NBA title is a 10-minute, 2.3-point, 2.7-rebound, 0.9-block per game player? For their sake, I certainly hope not.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/nuggets/201 ... he-nuggets’-big-man-dilemma/

I agree with him. GK is only gonna play 8 players in the playoffs. Only a trade including one of our top 8 has the possibility of making us better. Parting with JR changes the dynamics of the team. For better or worse? idk, i guess that would depend on who we got in return.

It is my opinion that having a fourth big that can give the Lakers' trio some trouble......chink in their armor and whatnot, get em a little edgy in a bad way, will allow our trio (Birdman, Kenyon, Nene) to be at their prime. Honestly Melo can do that kind of stuff but that would take away from his focus on Kobe. Beat size with speed and athleticism.....Nene and Kenyon can do that. We just need to find a role for Bird to play when he gets dwarfed.

Look.....one minute of play is all a guy needs to get under the skin of of one their trio, maybe two. We're talking about an ultimate role-player. Someone who simply changes the mindset and allows our athleticism to go to work.

I don't mind if it's one on our current rotation, I just want to see the work getting done.

[J Smitty]

I disagree with Dempsey's point in that Karl wouldn't play a nine man rotation anyway, so why add someone.

You don't have to go back that far to realize that he would, and is more then willing. It happened just last year.

Player ---------------G--Min
Chauncey Billups 77 35.3
Carmelo Anthony 66 34.5
Nene 77 32.6
Kenyon Martin 66 32.0
J.R. Smith 81 27.7
Anthony Carter 78 22.9
Linas Kleiza 82 22.2
Chris Andersen 71 20.6
Dahntay Jones 79 18.1


That's a nine man rotation, with essentially everyone playing the majority of the season, so the mpg is pretty close to accurate(It adds up to 245.9 mpg, out of a possible 240).

It's basically the same cast of characters too, with AA replacing Jones' role, and Lawson taking over AC's duties as backup PG. The only other difference between last year's nine man rotation, and this year's eight man...is Linas Kleiza.

He obviously left, and we didn't find a bonafide rotation caliber player to replace him at the backup forward spots. And that right there is all that fans are saying we miss....a 20 mpg backup forward. But somehow a player like that would never get minutes here or be able to contribute? Considering it worked pretty damn well last year, I don't really see Dempsey's point.


Not only do I think we could use more depth at the forward spots in a pure basketball sense, but it would also allow us to cut down on Nene and Kenyon's minutes, which is VERY important, IMHO. We saw those guys start to get a little sluggish as the grind of the playoffs went on, and we need them to be fresh if we're ever going to make it the Finals and hopefully win.

Last year they both average about 32 mpg, now they're each up around 35 mpg. Even Bird has seen a rise in his minutes, from 20 to over 22 mpg.


Now if we were to add a guy like, say, Jeff Foster...and have him play 15-20 mpg, it would have an enormous trickle down effect on the whole roster. Not only could we reduce our bigs' minutes, but it could allow Melo to play more minutes strictly at small forward, which means less of having to play J.R. there, and thereby less of a three guard lineup...which could then also limit Chauncey's minutes some more if we need to. Not that we necessarily need to do that all the time, because Melo playing at the four and Ty/Chauncey playing together has definitely been good for us a lot of times this year.....this would just give us the option and flexibility to give even more looks to teams then we already do.

Not to mention the fact that depth is never a bad thing, especially in case of injuries and foul trouble. Being able to throw a legit player out there against the Lakers, when Kenyon or Nene picks up a couple of quick fouls, will definitely go a long way. Does anyone honestly want to see Malik Allen try to guard any of their big men, for any stretch of time? I know I don't.

[SnakefromHell]

^I agree.

Some people just don't understand, especially the Dumbo Dat Fan, when we say we need a big man, it's not strictly because we need rebounding help. Numbers don't tell the whole story. Just because we outrebounded the Lakers by 18 in one frickin game, it says we're a superior rebounding team? Or it says "yeah we're about even with them so we don't need to worry"?

These are the same guys who I bet get excited about J.R.'s 41 pts and forget about his inconsistencies in the other games. People who get excited KMart is averaging double-digit in rebounding for one month, saying and yelling "yeah KMart is the man!!! Who needs a big man??? Bring on the Lakers!", forgetting he's a 7 rpg career player.


I will be the first to say Nene is one of the best defensive big men in the L. He has great defensive instincts, where to position his body and hands against post players, how to defend penetrating guards, and even take ocassional charges. I will also say Kenyon is one of the better defensive power forwards in the L, especially when he's motivated. But even if you guarantee me they're both healthy and will stay out of trouble in a 7 game series against Lakers, I wouldn't trust they can guard Bynum and Gasol in the post. You can't teach height, you can't beat height. We know how Nene was helpless a lot of times against Bynum and Gasol, Bynum and Gasol just put their hands up and they got all the offensive rebounds and putbacks. That's the area where they had clear advantage... and more importantly that's where we're exposed and appear overwhelmed.


For that matter, Nene and KMart are so overwhelmed by their size, when Lakers have a tough time getting off their shots because of our defense, they can simply throw it up and hope Gasol/ Bynum get the offensive rebound and putback. That's how confident they are in their chances in rebounding against us. We have to eliminate these ridiculous GIVE AWAY psyche advantage.

And I still haven't mentioned Odom, and how he seems to be a magnet to offensive rebounds? Don't believe me, watch Laker games. And how come we mentioned Bynum so much last season when he only averaged 6 ppg and 3 rpg in that playoffs series? My God, I mean if we bitched about someone who put 6 ppg and 3 rpg, I guess we'll really be bitching about him when he comes back with his 15 ppg and 8 rpg this year. That's how numbers don't tell the whole story. Only the dumb see stats and turn a blind eye on size. With a mere 6 ppg and 3 rpg, Bynum had a tremendous impact in the paint last season's playoffs by only putting his hands up. I guess we'll have our hands full now.


When you are in a fight, you're always looking for ways to attack. Rarely, you will see your opponents give his weakness(es) exposed. But when weaknesses are exposed that's where the opposition keeps coming back to for their hardest attacks. That's where they gain their victory. But even more rarely, is when you know you have a weakness your opponent has attacked at in previous battles, and you don't do anything about it to cover it. You keep letting your opponent to attack your weakness to beat you, that's so idiotic. To me at least.


I trust Nene and KMart against Dampier-Dirk, Lopez-Amare, Okur-Boozer, but not against Bynum and Gasol. I don't care if stats show we outrebound them every game by 20, that's not the point, the point is we're WEAK when it comes to the paint battle, the point is they have psyche advantage when it comes to the paint, the point is we are defenseless against those guys when it matters most.


I say we put someone like Haywood to reduce some of KMart, Nene, and Bird's minutes... and give us a solid 15-20 mpg, you can START saying "we're about even with the Lakers". Pair him at C with Nene at PF and we're gonna fight beasts with beasts. Right now, we're not there unless Kobe's finger keeps getting worse or if Gasol has a sprained crotch.

[Powder Blue]

Ok, that's a good example of GK playing 9. My thing is LK didn't even have that good of a season last year. Certainly Graham or Balkman could be getting 15-20 min and produce the 10 and 4 LK did.

The trade deadline is less than a month away...If the front office can trade a couple of our scrubs for a legitimate post player i'll buy ever person that's posted in this thread a beer.

JR's probably the only player in the rotation that I can see the nuggets parting with, I think he's on his way to being in the GK doghouse after seeing his piss poor showing against the hornets.