corona wrote:wang000hk wrote:You must be joking,right?
That team will win 25-30 games if lucky,let alone making playoff in the west.
You are taking out the best and 2nd best player from a team of 20-16 record.
Who will be the 1st option on that team?
Nene? He wll struggle with no one take pressure from him,he's no amare.
Lawson? I still think he's just a good starter on playoff team,not a franchise player.
What if Favors becomes a bust like Kwame?
As for others,they are really just role players.
That team has no true 1st option,no player can play in clutch.
They have good young talents,i will give you that.
couple points.... the 20-16 is a bit deceiving considering the distractions and injuries to the team. shelden williams (aka practice player for boston celtics/atlanta hawks) has gotten a lot of starts this season because of injuries to bird/kmart. billups was in a huge slump with a bum wrist. melo's sister just passed away....and the whole trade debacle has been an obvious distraction to him and the team. so it's not like as currently constructed the best they could do is 20-16. at best they're probably 3rd in the west and mid-50's in wins. you're not really taking away the two best players from a 45 win team and saying they still would make the playoffs.
nene's arguably better than billups at this point in their respective careers. PER over 20, always at the top in +/-.
lawson as a starter has put up some pretty darn good games when billups was out...this season and last. he'd be closing out games in p&r situations with nene. and with afflalo/morrow on the wings (both 40%+ 3 shooters)....it's wouldn't be easy to defend.
with harris/smith/harrington/favors/bird, they'd still have arguably the best bench in the nba. shouldn't have any problem putting up big scoring runs in 2nd quarters & late 3rd/early 4th situations.
and perhaps the most important point....i don't like karl as far as a championship playoff coach goes because i don't think his style bodes well for playoff basketball, and i think he fails to make adjustments in a series.....but the guy does know how to maximize talent and get wins in the
regular season. he hasn't had a losing nba record since 1987-1988.
Billups was horrible in the first couple months,but he has been playing better during the stretch without Melo.
He's still the 2nd best player on nuggets,maybe not production wise,but at the very least on leadership.
The only reason Nuggets has reasonable record without Melo last few years is Billups stepping up in most of the games,if you take him away.This team has no leadership and don't know how it takes to win.
Lawson puts up some good numbers as starter,but he's also quite terrible in certain games at starter.He struggles with some of better pg out there.
wow,you still talk how good the bench is? Their playing like crap right now.
JR,Al have 1 good game out of 5 games. Birdman is garbage.
Harris is overrated and injury prone. Favors is still unknown,not sure how good he will be.
I doubt their overall production isn't even on top 10 right now.
The huge problem is that they still lack a go to guy that can make play in clutch. Watch the 76ers,Spurs games last month.