The Quest for the Ring: The Nuggets Can't Deal With a 1-Game Kenyon Martin Suspension and Get Blown Out at San Antonio 102-91

USER GUIDE JUMP>>> CLICK HERE TO JUMP PAST THE USER GUIDE TO THE LATEST QUEST FOR THE RING REPORTS. IF YOU ARE HERE FROM A SEARCH ENGINE OR FROM ANY OTHER LINK, CLICK HERE TO GET TO THE ARTICLE YOU CAME FOR. ALTERNATIVELY, TO IMMEDIATELY PICK AND READ ANY OF THE LATEST 25 POSTS, SIMPLY PROCEED TO THE LIST OF THEM WHICH IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS If you are someone who knows about most or all of the goodies that are available at Nuggets 1, and you don't need to or don't want to check out the User Guide that starts just below this note, you do NOT need to scroll to get to the latest, original reports and posts; just click the link immediately above.

THE LATEST 25 QUEST POSTS--ANY OR ALL CAN BE READ RIGHT HERE

Quest for the Ring has graduated from the "read everything we write or else" page format. By using the following tool, you can quickly choose among any of the latest 25 posts and read them right here right now. You don't even have to use the "User Guide Jump," which is in yellow just above, to read any or all of the latest 25 posts. --You can read any of the latest 25 posts right here by clicking on the icon at the left or on the title and then using the vertical scroll as necessary. --To close an article you have opened, click the icon on the left next to the title. This icon is like an on-off switch. --Remember that only the latest 25 posts are here; there are hundreds more. The full archive can be found near the top of the right column. The full archive has many nice capabilities. For example, you can bring up all posts from a certain month. Or of course you can pick a particular post among the entire universe of posts to check out. --The User Guide immediately follows the quick access to the latest 25 posts. This guide explains most of the good stuff that you will find if you hang with The Quest. Following the User Guide, the traditional posting format takes over; there are four posts in full below the User Guide. You can click on "Older Posts" to go to the next four.

THE QUEST FOR THE RING USER GUIDE
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SITE WILL BE GRADUALLY MOVING TO WWW.THEQUESTFORTHERING.BLOGSPOT.COM DURING 2009. This site will never be entirely abandoned, however, and will always link to the new all-NBA site.
The User Guide has been extensively updated as of Oct. 24, 2008
The information here at the top end of the main page will cover the following subjects:
*Primary Features and Organization of The Quest For the Ring
*Why You Should be Here Instead of Elsewhere
*Some of Our Favorite Pictures and Videos
*Information and Links About Watching Live & Recorded Games

The User Guide has been extensively updated as of October 24, 2008, to reflect the 2008-09 production plans, which are substantially different from those of last year. The User Guide will be continually updated and tweaked to reflect the latest publishing strategy and tactics for this site.

MISSION OF THE QUEST FOR THE RING

MISSION: Is this just a typical fan site? Yes, it is a fan site, but the teams we focus on are going to change every once in a while. And this site is way more than just that. This is the beta or developmental site for Basketball Winning Inc., which is currently a completely non-profit organization. The scope of what we do is expanding and so the site address will gradually become www.thequestforthering.blogspot.com during 2009.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE
As the name of our company implies, our mission, first and foremost, is to inform players, coaches, and managers about what they need to do if they want to become basketball winners. When you are a loser, basketball is nowhere near as fun and rewarding as it is when you are a winner. And you make a lot less money when you lose in basketball than when you win. So our objective is to make our readers winners.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
What are the main missions, themes, and topics of Nuggets 1 / The Quest for the Ring? They are as follows:

1. How basketball games are won, specifically and in general, which is information that can be worth millions to players, coaches, and managers.
2. How particular basketball games were won and why. You can and we do fine tune our understanding of how and why games are won from breaking down each and every game that we report on.
3. How the NBA teams are doing. The NBA teams are broken down and ranked via the Real Team Ratings. Also, specific teams, currently the Denver Nuggets and the Detroit Pistons, are covered in extensive detail. These teams are sliced and diced to the point where every substantial mistake or problem becomes public knowledge here. They go under the microscope so that we can see in enough detail what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.
4. How well the NBA players are doing, reported in words and by using the Real Player Ratings.
5. Why certain organizations such as the Lakers, the Celtics, and the Spurs are almost continually winning franchises, whereas other organizations, such as the Nuggets, sometimes drop down to become major losing teams. In explaining why and proving the reasons, what we are really doing is giving advice to managers on how to keep their teams on the winning track. This advice is worth at least millions of dollars and could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars in theory.

What is the common denominator of all of these? That is obvious: it's how and why players, coaches, and franchises who win in basketball do so. If you know how they do it than you can do it too. The internet is where secrets are revealed and here we have and will continue to reveal how and why the winners win in basketball.

You are a fool if you think that the best players or managers always win. There is a lot more involved than "how good" the players are or "how hard" the players play. You are a fool if you think the styles or personalities of players are among the important factors. Here, you will find out the honest to goodness, real factors that determine basketball winning and losing.

So to summarize simply, on the main site, which is the site you are on right now, our main objective is to explain how and why basketball games are won and how and why basketball franchises at all levels become and remain winners.

THE RETURN OF NUGGETS 1, AND THE COMING OF THE QUEST FOR THE RING SITE

THE RETURN OF NUGGETS 1
Nuggets 1 ran off the rails as of the 1st of April 2008, due to a massive personal project that had to get priority, and that was made about 10 times more difficult by the economic meltdown. As of mid October 2008, the project was done, so I am bringing Nuggets 1 back to life.

SOME GOOD NEWS:
--The site is coming back to life as of October 14, 2008
--A friend of ours is planning to, wherever possible, stream Nuggets games live on his site, which we link to. His site, which has been redesigned yet again, has links to sources of live games and to sources of completed games via downloads.
--Due to the very serious shortcomings of the Nuggets organization, we are branching out and will be doing about two dozen game reports of close to 10,000 words each, and other goodies, for the Detroit Pistons.
--Sometime in the summer of 2009, this whole operation will migrate over to a new address: WWW.THEQUESTFORTHERING.BLOGSPOT.COM
--Aside from Nuggets and Pistons Game Reports, we are planning to do a few "wild card" game reports involving other leading teams. For example, we might do a game report for Lakers-Celtics. Tentatively, one wild card Game Report every 4 weeks is planned.
--Nuggets 1 has substantially improved it's already great Real Player Ratings reports. Aside from the overall NBA Real Player Ratings, now we will also feature Real Player Ratings reports by team. Do not miss Real Player Ratings 2.0 by team, for all NBA teams, in January-Februay 2009.
--League Real Player Ratings 2.0, for the best 330 players of the NBA, are scheduled for no later than March 2009. The March 2009 NBA Real Player Ratings will give you the low down on the season, and will also preview the 2009 playoffs.

NEUTRAL AND NOT SO GOOD NEWS:
--The Nuggets most likely will not make the playoffs this year, so we are no longer going to even pledge game report sets for every game; our plan is to produce 26 game report sets, with a set consisting of three separate reports, two breakdowns and one article. Keep in mind that game reports are not far from 10,000 words each in length, so 26 report sets is still actually at least as much toral, real content than anywhere else.
--Special Report frequency is being reduced a little to two reports a month. Special Reports are not going to be combined into Game Reports anymore. But Special Reports will still be one of the main features of this site.
--There may be another disruption during the season, due to another unavoidable pain in the neck project that needs doing. Any such disruption will not exceed 1 month. And this time, the disruption will definitely not be at the worst possible time, at the end of the regular season, or during the playoffs.

THE REVIVAL PART ONE
The first step in the resurrection of this site is to post here what I was doing part-time during the April-July 2008 period, which was posting numerous commentaries on two Nuggets forums. I had not planned to do even that, because I really could not afford even that amount of time, but I could not resist doing so. But this created the bizarre circumstance where my site was neglected in favor of these two forums. So now I am placing those commentaries where they belong, on this site here.

The commentaries are arranged by when they appeared on the forums, mostly in 10 day periods, which means each month is divided into three parts: early, middle, and late. Each of the posts have the same title format: "Return of Nuggets 1: [period of time comments went on forums] Comments. For example, the first one is "Return of Nuggets 1: Late March 2008 Comments." August had only a tiny number of contents, so all of the August comments are in one post. The comments are in chronological order, and there are different subjects without any lead-ins.

I apologize to regular readers of Nuggets 1 (both of you lol). I congratulate anyone who has come back here again despite the dead months because, as I always say, Nuggets 1 will keep getting bigger and better, even if the road is rocky and rough sometimes.

USER GUIDE>>>Yes, We Know the Server Can be Clunky and That This Page is Huge

REGARDING OUR CHOCK LOADED PAGE: The Nuggets 1 Main Page is chock loaded and needs time to load from often clunky servers. You may not be able to scroll properly while the page is loading. Links, including unfortunately the jump link to the latest content, may not work until the page is done or almost done loading. Please be patient and let it load. With a fast broadband connection, generally cable, the page will load in about 30 seconds. It will take 30-90 seconds to load with slower broadband connections, generally dsl. A dial-up connection will take about 3 minutes to load. It's worth the wait, so please let it load. Remember, most good things require at least a little bit of patience.

Every once in a while, parts of the page will not load. You will notice some things missing. If this happens, normally, if you click refresh and reload the page, you will get a complete loading and it will be a quicker loading than the original loading was.

USER GUIDE AREA CONTINUES>>>

QUALIFICATIONS OF PRIMARY WRITER
The basketball expert and maniac who writes most of this site doesn't know how to stop until he has said and proved it all. So we are simply in a League of our own, and much of this unique content is for truly serious basketball people. Nuggets 1 has two college degrees, and both were with high honors and straight A grades. He played basketball in high school but didn't have squat for skills. Nonetheless, he has been very closely following pro basketball for more than a dozen years. He has been extremely closely following the NBA in general and the Denver Nuggets in particular for over 4 years now.

DIRECTORY OF WHAT WE PRODUCE AND WHEN
Nuggets 1 produces by far the World's biggest and best game and team reports for the Denver Nuggets and for the Toronto Raptors. In recent years, the reports grew and grew until they were almost 10,000 words long, and so it was necessary to break them down into parts, which are:

--Game, Team, and League Report
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Players
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Coaching
--Special Reports
--Real Player Rating Reports--in two formats: by team and for the entire NBA showing top 330 players

A full "Total Report Set" consists of these three reports:
--Game, Team, and League Report
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Players
--Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Coaching

Game, Team, and League Reports: The real story of what happened in the game and why; the state of the team and why it is in that state; fact-based looks at players, positions, coaching; key developments on other key teams; key NBA developments. These articles are produced after the Ultimate Game Breakdowns, so they are not available until betwen 36 and, on occasion, as many as 88 hours after a game.
Ultimate Game Breakdowns-The Players: How the players did in accurate, total detail, as shown by the Real Player Ratings. Look for at least 40 of these reports for Nuggets games and at least 40 for Raptors games for the 2008-09 season. These reports are available by afternoon of the day after the game.
Ultimate Game Breakdowns-Coaching: How and why the coaching succeeded or failed, in groundbreaking detail and focus. Look for 26 of these reports for Nuggets games and 26 for Raptors games for the 2008-09 season. These reports should be available by the afternoon of the 2nd day after the game (within about 40 hours after a game.)
How Many Total Report Sets, consisting of the three reports each, are produced, and when are they planned for? The 2008-09 plan for Nuggets 1 is that 26 extensive Nuggets Sets (78 reports in total) will be produced during the 2008-09 regular season, and then 8 more Nuggets sets (actually 24 reports) will be done during the 2009 off season. With any luck, the same number of reports (78 reports during the season and 24 reports in the off season) and with the same timing will be done for the Toronto Raptors. The games that will be covered in total detail, with 3 reports each, are all carefully chosen games between the Nuggets or the Raptors and the best teams of the NBA. None of the full coverage games will be where one of the teams is at a disadvantage because it is playing on back to back nights, whereas the other team is not. (Nor will we waste time doing extensive coverage of any game where both teams are playing on back to back nights.)
What about Total Report Sets during the playoffs?
Look for 18 sets (54 reports) during the playoff season. As long as the Nuggets and/or the Raptors are in the playoffs, we will cover as many of their playoff games as possible. If the combined total of Nuggets and Raptors playoff games is less than 18, which is likely to be the case, we will choose what we think are the best playoff games between other teams for the full coverage. We will of course do full coverage of at least some of the NBA Championship games.
Wild Card Total Report Sets During the regular season, there will be 4 "Wild Card" Total Report Sets. These will total 12 reports. We will choose four of the most interesting and important games of the NBA not involving the Nuggets or the Raptors for these. Expect these to appear approximately December 10, January 20, March 1, and April 15.
Additional Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players Reports During the regular season, 14 Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players Reports, in addition to the 26 described already, will be produced for the Nuggets and the same will be true for the Raptors. So in total, there will be 40 Nuggets and 40 Raptors Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players Reports.
Special Reports: Special Reports are, as the name implies, about subjects that go beyond the usual. These are creative and controversial magazine style stories usually divided into parts. 9 such reports per year are planned. Look for one report every month except that their will be no special reports during the playoff months of April, May, and June. All special reports in full are on both Nuggets 1 and on Nuggets 1 Special Reports.
Real Player Ratings-All NBA Reports: A very important Special Report that tells you how well and how much each player is really doing. The main report, showing how well each player has been playing, or in other words the quality of that player, will be accompanied by a "Real Player Production Report" for NBA players, which as the name implies, tells you how much a player did, or the quantity. Quality and quantity are approximately equally important if you want to get the best possible view of the value of the NBA players. These NBA wide reports, consisting of the two sub reports of quality and quantity, are scheduled for the middle of March and for the middle of July of each year.
Real Player Ratings by NBA Team Reports Real Player Ratings are now also going to appear in a great new team format. The team reports will come out at the pace of 1 every 2-3 days during two periods during the year: from early January until late March, and then from early August until late October. Additional Real Player Ratings by team, for the 8 best teams in the NBA, as the playoffs get underway, will be issued in late April.
Real Player Ratings-Supplemental for the Nuggets and for the Raptors: Two extra Real Player Ratings by Team reports are planned for the Nuggets and for the Raptors, to be issued in late December and in late June. So for these two teams, four Real Player Ratings Reports by Team are scheduled, for late December, early March, late June, and late October..
Real Team Ratings-for the 30 NBA Teams These are more accurate and more sophisticated versions of various team ranking lists that you see on the big corporation internet sites. Our system was dead on accurate this past spring in predicting that it would be a Celtics-Lakers Championship and that the Celtics would win. Look for these very valuable reports to come out 3 times per year: on about December 25, Februay 20, and April 15.
Forum Discussions: Nuggets 1 keeps tuned in to the fan base by actively participating in forum discussions. The content you will find in a posting of such discussions will often be a sneak preview of some of the topics and points that will appear in later, full game reports. Discussions are sometimes rude, sometimes funny, lightly edited or even completely unedited, and generally a lot of fun. Forum discussions will go on Nuggets 1, which will have every word of original content on it. But forum discussions will be featured prominently on Nuggets 1 Fast Break as well.
Historical Note: The old organization, in the early days of Nuggts 1, was that everything above except for the new forum discussions was combined together into reports that grew to be almost 10,000 words long! Change was needed!

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE HOW MUCH MORE THERE IS HERE

OTHER CONTENT GIVEN A NUGGETS 1 EDIT AND TOUCH:
There is way to much to cover all of it, but we can summarize. Start your investigation of this content with the Main Menu, which is not far from the top of this page in the right column. Here you will find pages designed by Nuggets 1 that get you the basketball, sports, and even other information you need and want quickly and easily. For example, there is a page for every Nuggets player. There is a relatively popular rumors page. And there are many others. Further down the right column, you will see links to the very best sources of basketball information and data. And there will also be links to photo sets, Colorado news and information, and even the Nuggets 1 formatted radio stations!

In what has been an unexpected but pleasant surprise, among the Nuggets 1 main menu pages, the Nuggets 1 Basketball School has been the big hit on the internet traffic wise. As a result, we are pouring more resources into developing this site during 2008. You see, there are a lot of players out there who know that being able to win is not enough; you have to know how to win! You might want to pay a visit:

NUGGETS 1 BASKETBALL SCHOOL

Whether in season or off season, there will always be something great appearing at Nuggets 1. Something that you can use to learn how to win. So visit year round y'all!

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>

POSTING SCHEDULE
NUGGETS 1 ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWN REPORTS can be and are produced much more quickly than GAME AND TEAM REPORTS are. ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWNS WILL BE POSTED BY THE FOLLOWING DEADLINES:
US/CAN Pacific Time: Day after game by 12 noon
US/CAN Mountain Time: Day after game by 1 pm
US/CAN Central Time: Day after game by 2 pm
US/CAN Eastern Time: Day after game by 3 pm
Brazil Time: Day after game by 5 pm
UK Time: Day after game by 8 pm
Western Europe Time: Day after game by 9 pm
Eastern Europe & Baltics Time: Day after game by 10 pm
Moscow/West Russia Time: Day after game by 11 pm
Australia Time: 2nd Day after game by 6 am

GAME AND TEAM REPORTS will be posted within 72 hours after the deadlines above. In most cases, they will be posted within 48 hours after the deadlines above.

NUGGETS 1
ALL ORIGINAL ALL THE TIME AND IN A LEAGUE OF IT'S OWN, WITH BY FAR THE MOST, THE MOST CREATIVE, AND WE THINK THE BEST ORIGINAL NUGGETS AND NBA BASKETBALL CONTENT

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>

A SUMMARY OF WHY NUGGETS 1 IS DIFFERENT AND WHY YOU SHOULD BE HERE

NUGGETS 1: Knew that the Martin benching in 2006, the tormenting and benching of J.R. Smith in 2007, and the point guard fiasco in 2008, all the fault of George Karl, would go a long way to dooming the Nuggets in the playoffs in those respective years. We knew that J.R. Smith was going to be a great guard all along.

OTHER WRITERS: Most during 2006, 2007, and even into 2008 thought that J.R. Smith would always be a loser, and the specifics of the 2008 PG disaster generally blew right by them

NUGGETS 1: Only who deserves the blame gets the blame; we don't rip players for a small number of poor games, or if the responsibility for how they are playing lies elsewhere. We are more pro player and more anti-basketball establishment than are other writers. We tell you about how basketball should be and about how games are won and about how franchises stay on the winning track.
OTHER WRITERS: They do rip players for a few poor games, and they frequently don't put responsibility where it really belongs. They rarely or at best just once in a while go after anyone other than the players themselves. They like to think that if the players just "tried harder" the results would be more wins, which is not true, not only because it assumes incorrectly that the players are not doing about the best they can in the context they are in, but also because winning and losing is determined by many, many other factors than "how hard" players are "trying". There is virtually no such thing as a pro NBA player who doesn't "try hard"!
NUGGETS 1: Knew that George Karl was never going to succeed with the Nuggets from day 1 and we won't forget it.
OTHER WRITERS: It took them a long time to come around to agreeing that George Karl is a failure at coaching the Nuggets, and many of them will more or less forget about their discovery next season.
NUGGETS 1: Opinions that are really facts that very few know; everything we write is fact based, nothing is said just to start an argument and get ratings. If you don't like facts, statistics, and logical proofs, you won't like Nuggets 1.
OTHER WRITERS: Loaded with light and fluffy opinions, and also "false flag" emotional, extreme opinions that the writer may not believe, but that are so provocative that they boost traffic to the site, because fans feel the need to comment on the site after they read the extreme opinions. Sports radio broadcasters do the same thing; they don't really believe some of the things they say; they are out for ratings.
NUGGETS 1: We don't waste our time on speculations about trades that never happen. Potential trades are covered only if they reveal things about team managment.
OTHER WRITERS: They do waste their time on speculations about trades that never happen.
NUGGETS 1: Always loaded with facts, stats, and insights about how and why basketball games are won that you can't find anywhere else.
OTHER WRITERS: Depending on the writer, the facts, stats, and original insights about how and why basketball games are won are kind of hard to find or impossible to find.
NUGGETS 1: All original content; we hardly ever put links to big Corporation and other sites in our content; we are not ever going to simply read other stuff and report on and link to it here.
OTHER WRITERS: Some of them often do this, and it's kind of insulting to both the reader and the writer when you think about it.
If you have a brain and you are tired of the ordinary fluff and emotional baiting of other writers, you will like Nuggets 1. If you do like the Nuggets 1 serious but entertaining approach to basketball, and you are smart instead of emotional and fluffy, please consider teaming up; we can set you up with a blog like this for your team at no cost.

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>> OFFICIAL WELCOME

Welcome to the brand new home built especially for Denver Nuggets, basketball, and Colorado sports fans in general. We come locked and loaded. Everything you could need to follow The Nuggets can be found here. You will find that you can use Nuggets 1 as your ultimate Nuggets internet reference. This is the most complete multimedia directory to all content on the Internet that involves the Denver Nuggets. Anyone who uses the Nuggets 1 main menu will get to the content he or she wants in less time than any other way. Keep watching Nuggets 1 and the Nuggets as they both get bigger and better. Peace.

Only about 1 in 200 basketball fans are fans of the Denver Nuggets. It is a longshot that this small market franchise will ever win a Championship in our lifetimes. If you are among the few, the proud, the Nuggets fans, this is your site. You can find out what the Nuggets would have to do to be able to have a real chance of winning a Championship. If you want light and fluffy opinions, go elsewhere. Although we always keep it very entertaining, and although we add jokes wherever possible, our reports are the hard truth, the real truth, the ugly truth sometimes, and the factual truth, with smoking gun evidence always provided to prove the case. So if you want and can handle the truth, this site is for you. We are eventually going to have more writers on here, and they will without a doubt be hard hitting and smart also.

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>WE DO NOT LIKE GEORGE KARL'S COACHING TO SAY THE LEAST, AND NEVER HAVE

Want to know why the Nuggets are in great danger of not making the playoffs even though they are one of the most talented teams in pro basketball, and even though some top commentators forecasted them to at least reach the West finals in 2008? Most and probably all of the reasons are here. And Nuggets 1 was calling for George Karl to be replaced as soon as he was hired. As Aristotle said many, many years ago, "He who can not be a good follower can not be a good leader." Karl is not a good follower, he sees only his way and is unable to come up with ways to manage the Nuggets that follow the skills and playing styles of individual players, warts and all. You have to follow before you can lead, in other words you have to adjust your ways to reflect what you are working with, and GK can not or will not do that.

USER GUIDE CONTINUES>>>DON'T LOSE OUT

IF YOU FORGET TO BOOKMARK NUGGETS 1 AND YOU DON'T COME BACK, THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL MISS:
Simply the Biggest and Best Game and Team Reports on the Nuggets on the Planet, Including Real Player Ratings, Available Here Only, for the Nuggets and the Whole NBA

SPECIAL REPORTS--2007-08 SPECIAL REPORTS:
The J.R. Smith Fiasco
The George Karl Fiasco
Allen Iverson: What Could Have Been
DON'T LOSE OUT: BOOKMARK NUGGETS 1 NOW--CLICK HERE

THE NUGGETS GAME REPORTS AND GAME BREAKDOWNS INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
The Famous Real Player Ratings
Why and how the Nuggets are winning or losing
Projections of the Nuggets win-loss record, playoff seed, playoff fate, roster changes, and coaching staff changes
Complete and up to date injury and sickness reports
The Alert System-Check on the Real Status of the Nuggets
The Reserve Watch Report, the Plus-Minus Report & the Nuggets Made What? Report
LINKS FOR:
TV Videos of played Nuggets games available 24/7
TV Videos of the best recent NBA games
Nuggets games live
Radio broadcasts of the most recent Nuggets game available 24/7
AND MUCH MORE:
Videos, More Videos, Photos, & More Photos
Nuggets News, NBA News, Nuggets Rumors, & Other Takes
Live Scores, Stats, Standings, and Results
The Nuggets 1 Basketball School
The Nuggets 1 Basketball Magazine, Sports Articles, & Nuggets 1 Extra
Hundreds of Nuggets Items for Sale at Nuggets 1 Buy and Sell
Colorado Sports, Colorado College Sports, Colorado News, & Colorado Weather
Coming Soon: Real Team Ratings-Find out how the 30 NBA teams stack up

DON'T LOSE OUT: BOOKMARK NUGGETS 1 NOW--CLICK HERE

Sunday, December 16, 2007

The Nuggets Can't Deal With a 1-Game Kenyon Martin Suspension and Get Blown Out at San Antonio 102-91

The San Antonio Spurs defeated the Denver Nuggets 102-91, but the game was essentially over after 3 quarters, when the score was 92-68. Starting power forward Kenyon Martin’s 1 game flagrant foul suspension, along with an off rebounding night from Marcus Camby, who had way too much to handle from C Fabricio Oberto, who was huge, and PF Tim Duncan, destroyed the Nuggets rebounding and made a Spurs victory all but certain. Kenyon Martin was removed from the squad at exactly the worst possible time, right after Camby and company had started to trust K-Mart to be a big factor on the boards. Just when Camby was accustomed to finally getting some real help on rebounding, that help was taken away by David Stern who, after waiting until the cows came home, finally announced Kenyon’s 1 game suspension on the day of the Spurs game, Saturday, even though the game in which the flagrant foul happened was Wednesday evening.

Martin was assessed a flagrant foul against Melvin Ely of the Hornets, for striking Ely in the head with an elbow in the 2nd quarter of the Nuggets' 105-99 win. Ely has a fractured left eye socket and missed the Hornets' 89-80 loss at Dallas on Friday night. In a written statement released by the Nuggets, Martin said he was disappointed to miss the game against the Spurs. "What happened with Melvin in Wednesday's game was inadvertent. I apologized to him on the court and again after the game. He told me he knew it was an accident."

Nuggets Coach George Karl said the timing of the suspension was disappointing. "We had a couple days of practice, if they (the league) would have made the edict two days ago, we'd have been able to say 'OK, We probably now have to double Duncan more,"' Karl said. "It seemed to be a lot of space there. I think Kenyon talked to the league office two or three days ago. And it seemed like we were out of the woods.”

Way to go, Mr. Karl, nice criticism. After this, no one had better claim that I never ever report anything good about him. Don’t forget that I quickly commended him a few weeks ago when for a short time he had decent player rotations during the Nuggets series of routs at home. Then I was made to look kind of silly for commending him, though, when he went back to the same old scrooge policies for the reserves.

Unfortunately for Coach Karl, I am now using a very effective tool from the internet to monitor who has played, for how long, and when during the game each player played. It is a bar graph diagram that clearly shows exactly when and for how long each player played. This is especially useful when there is garbage time, as there was in this game. I can look at the diagram to determine whether the Nuggets starters had enough potential help from the reserves or not during the game time before the garbage time.

When I did that for this game, it was revealed that George Karl once again half surrendered to the Spurs before the start of the game tip-off. Karl played only 7 players for 6 minutes or more during the first 3 quarters, whereas Coach Greg Popovich has developed his bench, his offense, and his defense to where he could profit from playing 10 players during the first 3 quarters. Bobby Jones played two 2 minute stints for the Nuggets, but even if you count him, the Spurs still had 10 players ready to contribute toward their win, whereas the Nuggets put out only 8. I contend that Jones’ minutes were too small for him to get anything going at all, so that the real players used margin should be 10 to 7 in favor of the Spurs. A compromise view would be 10 to 7 ½. Anyway you slice it, the Nugget’s Coach simply didn’t provide the Nuggets with enough opportunities for a surprise big game from somebody off the bench.

The fact that Bobby Jones, a forward, played only two 2-minute stints is actually absurd, given the fact that Kenyon Martin was out and the Nuggets were getting destroyed on the boards. Jones and/or Yakhouba Diawara were desperately needed for defending and rebounding, but neither one of them played a substantial amount of time. Meanwhile, Coach Greg Popovich of the Spurs was managing his team like the expert he is. He employed 5 players other than the starters, with each one of those 5 having a well defined role, and each one of them being given minutes in proportion to their potential contributions. When Coaches like Popovich and Lakers Coach Phil Jackson coach, it is like a work of art. When George Karl coaches, the resulting who played when flow chart looks like the team simply doesn’t have enough players on the roster. The more you analyze who was on the court and when for the Nuggets, the more you realize it made little if any sense.

In a rare development caused by the suspension, Carmelo Anthony led the Nuggets in rebounding with 9, while Camby made 6 rebounds, Linas Kleiza made just 4 in 32 minutes, and five other Nuggets made 3 rebounds or less.

Although Camby didn’t get his usual rebounds, he made more than his usual number of blocks, as he made 5 of those. In fact, the Nuggets defeated the Spurs in blocks 8-2 and in steals 11-4. Despite Manu Ginobili flops resulting in Denver offensive fouls, and despite both Carmelo Anthony and especially Allen Iverson committing more turnovers than usual, the Nuggets amazingly ended up with fewer total turnovers than the Spurs, 17 versus 20. Not only was it the first time in anyone’s memory that the Nuggets had fewer turnovers than the Spurs did in a head to head, but it came while the Nuggets are cruising the very bottom of the NBA barrel in the turnover category. The Supersonics are, for the moment, very slightly worse than the Nuggets in blowing possessions without getting a shot off.

The huge rebounding advantage was not enough for the Spurs, who made their win even more certain by going on a massive three point rampage that they seem to save up for the upstart Nuggets. The Spurs buried an almost incredible 11 of 22 of the long rangers, with the usual suspects, SG Michael Finley, who made 4/5 threes, and SF Brent Barry, who made 3/6 of them, leading the way. It often seems that Finley, Barry, and defensive specialist Bruce Bowen, who aside from his good defending made 2/3 threes himself, have been put on Earth, sent from hell itself, for just one reason: to make absolutely certain that the Denver Nuggets never win the Western Conference. Combined, Finley, Barry, and Bowen were 9/14 from downtown. As a Nuggets fan, I would like to ask if these three are not the three faces of the apocalypse, than what else could they possibly be?

Aside from the almost bizarre onslaught of threes, Manu Ginobili, who has a knack for getting more respect from referees than almost anyone, engineered a bunch of offensive foul calls against the Nuggets by flopping on the ground after small amounts of forward motion contact. All told, the Nuggets, who seemingly have never finished with fewer fouls than the Spurs in a head to head game with them in all of history, were called for 20 fouls, while the Spurs were called for just 15. At one point, in the 1st quarter, George Karl got a rare technical foul because the fouls being called against the Nuggets were too much for even him to stomach sitting down.

So far this season, there is only 1 team that gets called for fewer personal fouls per game than the Spurs, the Phoenix Suns, interestingly enough. The Spurs average 19 personal fouls per game, while the Nuggets, who are about in the middle of the 30 team pack, are averaging about 22 personal fouls per game. But whenever the Nuggets play the Spurs head to head, it seems that whatever normal advantage in personal fouls the Spurs have is always increased, to the point where Nuggets fans are certain that favoritism is being shown by the referees toward the Spurs. Carmelo Anthony, in particular, was the victim of at least a couple of bad calls. Melo ended up with 4 fouls in total, and narrowly avoided having his playing time substantially reduced by all of the extracurricular activity of the refs.

The Spurs had no trouble routing the Nuggets even though PF Tim Duncan played just 20 minutes and PG Tony Parker didn't play at all due to a sprain. This would just about offset the unavailablity of PF Kenyon Martin, PF Nene, and PG Chucky Atkins for the Nuggets. So the only thing you can logically conclude is that the Nuggets have no chance if they meet the Spurs again in the playoffs, unless the way the Nuggets are managed radically changes. I guess we'll have to hope that the Suns knock off the Spurs before the Nuggets ever have to play them. How's that for optimism in the face of disaster?

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of December 16, 2007

The Nuggets are under an unusually dangerous and damaging alert status, so the following update is provided.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Nene injury 9 Points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 7 Points
3. Steven Hunter injury 3 Points
4. Kenyon Martin suspension 15 Points

UNEXPECTED STAR PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
1. Carmelo Anthony’s jump shooting is a little off from recent years and he is still inconsistent in rebounding. Making matters worse, George Karl and Allen Iverson have decided that it is acceptable that Melo be removed from the heart of the Nugget’s offense, and that he frequently be little more than a decoy, so that the rest of the Nuggets on the court can run a 4 on 3 offense and hope that Iverson can keep them in the game. The combination of Melo’s accuracy drop off from last year, together with his partial marginalization, makes for a very substantial and worsening star player performance problem. 8 Points.

2. Inability of Melo to give Camby enough rebounding and defending support inside: 3 Points

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 5-20 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers. Karl will normally be in the 5-13 range, but it could spike to as much as 20 in the event of the benching of a major player such as Kenyon Martin. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here. The bad use of reserves score for this game is 12 points.

2. Lack of adequate offensive schemes: 8 Points. This would be up to 18 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. Another way of describing this is that the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in the game. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy.

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart is lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near bad as some fans who are panicking think it is. This is a relatively small problem.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 50, which constitutes YELLOW ALERT.

YELLOW ALERT (40-54): Minor damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under medium threat. Beating quality teams is much more difficult and will be pretty rare. About 1/2 of all wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is a little more difficult. About 1/4 of games that would be wins against mid-level teams will now be losses. Beating low level teams is still relatively easy, but no longer almost a sure bet. A good team like the Nuggets has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

Note: The Kenyon Martin suspension was a 1 game suspension, so the problem points for that are not included in the current alert point count. During the Spurs game, the problem point count spiked up to about 65, constituting an ORANGE ALERT. With an orange alert status, it is extremely unlikely that the Nuggets will win over an outstanding team such as the Spurs. Sure enough, they had little if any chance in the game. (The alert system seems to have worked very nicely here.)

RESERVE WATCH
It’s under development. The complications involved explain why (a) there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams and (b) why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
2.0 He’s making a run for the exits.

ESPN PLAYER RATINGS FOR THIS GAME:
You can tell how well they played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 6 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS
Allen Iverson: Game 39.7 Season 40.3
Carmelo Anthony: Game 29.6 Season 36.6
Linas Kleiza: Game 28.8 Season 17.0
Marcus Camby: Game 22.4 Season 32.3
Anthony Carter: Game 16.5 Season 20.7
Eduardo Najera: Game 14.6 Season 14.1
J.R. Smith: Game 12.7 Season 15.4
Bobby Jones: Game 8.7 Season 6.0
Yakhouba Diawara: Game -0.8 Season 7.0

Jelani McCoy: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach's Decision

Kenyon Martin: Did Not Play-Suspension
Nene: Did Not Play-Injury
Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Injury

SPURS
Fabricio Oberto: Game 51.1 Season 17.7
Michael Finley: Game 36.7 Season 14.5
Brent Barry: Game 22.8 Season 14.7
Manu Ginobili: Game 22.7 Season 33.2
Jacque Vaughn: Game 20.5 Season 7.2
Tim Duncan: Game 13.9 Season 32.9
Bruce Bowen: Game 12.5 Season 12.5
Francisco Elson: Game 9.8 Season 10.0
Darius Washington: Game 4.8 Season 4.9
Ime Udoka: Game 0.9 Season 5.0
Robert Horry: Game -2.4 Season 5.7

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON RATINGS:
The starting Spurs center, Fabriciao Oberto, more than made up for the partial absence of Tim Duncan, the starting power forward. .

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS--EXPLANATION
A Great New Feature From Nuggets 1
The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, you can not rely on George Karl to award playing time in just about the best way possible. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and very important statistic that Nuggets 1 will call the Real Per Minute Player Rating which, as the name implies, is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes.

This statistic allows everyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. At the same time, it will allow everyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross ranking shows. This is another big improvement in the Nuggets 1 never ending quest to give readers total information about the Nuggets. This statistic allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time. So it gives you pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS—SPURS GAME
All players who played 3 minutes or more are included.

J.R. Smith 977
Allen Iverson 902
Linas Kleiza 900
Carmelo Anthony 822
Marcus Camby 772
Bobby Jones 544
Eduardo Najera 521
Anthony Carter 516
Yakhouba Diawara -114

OBSERVATIONS ON THE NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
This new Nuggets 1 report is the best thing that could have happened for J.R. Smith, and any other player cheated for playing time by George Karl, here at Nuggets 1. Smith often, but not always, crams a lot of performance into his small minutes. Everyone knows that J.R. Smith has too many turnovers. But keep in mind that the rating includes the turnovers as a negative factor. The bottom line is that this statistic does not in any way cheat or favor any player, since all aspects of the game are included in it, and all of the aspects are combined and then shown adjusted for playing time by dividing by the minutes played.

If you wondered who really and truly played better against the Spurs, Melo or A.I., you now have your answer: it was The Answer. Notice too that although Kleiza finished slightly behind Melo in the gross rating, he actually played a little better than Melo on a per minute basis. I would sum up this first Nuggets Real Player Ratings report by saying that J.R. Smith, Allen Iverson, and Linas Kleiza played very well against the Spurs, while Carmelo Anthony and Marcus Camby played well. Jones, Najera, and Carter were mediocre at best, while Diawara didn’t do much of anything during his 6 1/2 minutes, all of which was in garbage time.

Of course, Nuggets 1 will be able to evaluate these numbers better and better as more and more games are reported out.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown.

Yakhouba Diawara: +7
Linas Kleiza: +5
J.R. Smith: +4
Bobby Jones: +2
Carmelo Anthony: -11
Anthony Carter: -12
Marcus Camby: -15
Allen Iverson: -13
Eduardo Najera: -20

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
The + numbers you see for Diawara, Kleiza, Smith, and Jones are from the 4th quarter, which was essentially all garbage time. But these numbers are not totally meaningless. They are more evidence that Karl should have given Diawara and Jones some burn before the game was decided in the Spurs favor, which he did not. During the 1st 3 quarters, while the game was being decided, Diawara did not appear at all, and Bobby Jones made 2 token appearances lasting less than 4 minutes in total.

The theory that Najera’s hustle, defending, and occasional 3-point shooting offsets his weak overall scoring and weak rebounding obviously takes a hit when you see his -20 number here. Najera seems to be particularly ineffective against the best teams, just when it is most important that he be effective.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 6 minutes are shown.

Bobby Jones played 16 minutes and was 1/3 and 1/2 on 3’s for 3 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, and 1 block.

Yakhouba Diawara played 7 minutes and was 0/1 for 0 points.

Eduardo Najera played 28 minutes and was 3/5 and 0/2 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and a steal.

Linas Kleiza played 32 minutes and was 7/12 and 2/3 on 3’s for 16 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

J.R. Smith played 13 minutes and was 2/5, 1/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 7 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Anthony Carter played 32 minutes and was 4/8 and 2/2 from the line for 10 points, and he made 4 assists and 1 rebound.

Marcus Camby played 29 minutes and was 2/2 for 4 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 5 blocks, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

Carmelo Anthony played 36 minutes and was 7/15 and 1/2 on 3’s for 15 points, and he made 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 44 minutes, and was 10/22, ½ on 3’s, and 9/11 from the line for 30 points, and he made 5 assists, 3 steals, and 3 rebounds.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Sunday, December 16 in Denver to play the Trailblazers at 6 pm mountain time. The Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights, while the Trailblazers will not be. The Trailblazer’s rest advantage will roughly offset the Nugget’s home court advantage.