Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Carmelo: You WERE our guy

Just to start off here is the image off of a shirt that I spent 28 bucks on a little over a year ago that I will no longer be wearing. While yes this was only a T-Shirt it embodied what Melo meant to the people of Colorado and Denver Nuggets fans. As Hayden noted in an earlier post we let all those "lack of character" issues slide a little bit because of the excitement and hope you brought to a once perennial cellar dweller. For one time we were being mentioned with the likes of the Lakers and Spurs and other potential western conference foes. This is why in the last few weeks Carmelo has gone from being our guy to just another default NBA personality who does not want to be trapped in our so-called "small market". Since he was drafted Carmelo was given the freedom to do anything he wanted, on and off the court, not only by the front office of the Nuggets but by us the fans as well. This where we get into the who is accountable for this whole situation.

Suspect number one has to be Carmelo Anthony. Denver was nothing but outstanding to Melo point blank. The biggest issue in my book was that even though Melo basically ran the Nuggets and the city of Denver it was never enough. Melo never could handle what the city asked of him, and that was to LEAD the Nuggets, not necessarily to a championship, but to be a competitive team on a nightly basis. I understand the season is long but you only play the Lakers three times a year and only getting up for those types of games gets you a seven seed in the playoffs because you lose to the likes of the Sixers and Bucks with decent regularity. So after the front office realized you and A.I. couldn't get the team going every night they managed one of the great steals in NBA trade history and brought someone in who actually wants to be here in Chauncey Billups. Though Chauncey's career was and is on the decline he was still able to come in immediately and make a difference from a team standpoint. He got us playing defense and slowing everything down towards the end of games when Carmelo was not able to handle that on his own. I appreciate that Melo didn't "take his talents to New York City" Lebron James style and allowed the Nuggets to work a little bit, but this decision shows that Denver and the fans never really meant that much to Melo and never really where he wanted to be which is disappointing. Hopefully Melo enjoys apologizing to Chauncey Billups for dragging him all over the league for his last few years, when he could have signed the extension and Chauncey could have retired down the road in his hometown.

The second place to point the finger is at the Nuggets front office. While Melo thought he was never treated like a franchise player(which is debatable), the owners and managers needed to cater to Melo and get his input on players that he would want to play with and surround him with guys that he was comfortable playing with that were also proven winners in the league. The front office succeeded in that ONE TIME. And that was with Chauncey who was near the end of his career when he came in. Why are we paying Kenyon Martin close to the max when he is known for playing strong defense, getting more technicals than can be counted and taking bad shots along with creating locker room tension? There were plenty of shots to go around to have Billups and Melo, but when you bring in a sixth man who chucks threes from anywhere at bad times and have a big man in Kenyon who takes his fair share of ill advised shots you have a problem. The Nuggets, from a player to player standpoint with the exception of a few guys(Afflalo) have to be the most self centered group of individuals around in the entire league. And I know the George Karl topic is a little sore because of what he has been through, and I have nothing but respect for that, but he is a problem in my book as well. While Karl is known around the league for being a "player's coach" sometimes that has to go out the window. Guys like JR Smith and Kenyon are the last guys that need a coach catering to their ridiculous behavior. The biggest problem is that our guys never learned how to win even when they were winning. They were always more concerned about themselves and were in nonstop spats with coaches and management. When Phil Jackson calls out Kobe on what seems to be a weekly basis, you never see Kobe go out and fire shots back. He either goes out and drops 45 or takes fewer shots and facilitates for his team, but either way it almost always betters the TEAM. Moving away from the negative aspects of losing Melo I do have to say the front office saved themselves towards the end of this whole thing. I was convinced that he was going to walk away for nothing in 4 months. While I do blame them for the way they procrastinated on this whole thing and in some ways they handled the extension talk, credit is due for pitting the Nets and Knicks against one another as the clock began to tick down. While there is no realm in which the Nuggets are better out of this the whole thing, they got the Knicks to overpay, they did get three starters out of the deal and three guys who have been mentioned through this whole thing and kept one thing high, their character level.

It is going to be exciting to see some new faces while at the same time I feel terrible for Chauncey. But to wrap up lets be serious about the best thing that happened to the Nuggets throughout this whole thing. Anthony Carter in no longer in a baby blue jersey. My level of frustration watching this guy play was at an all time high last year until Ty Lawson started coming off the bench instead of him. It was to the point I found myself yelling at the TV if I saw AC talk to or touch any of our good players for fear that his lack of talent or brain power would somehow rub off on Melo or Chauncey. Somehow those things did rub off on George Karl because for some reason he was consistently on the floor at critical moments of games, especially playoff games. For those of you who are unfamiliar with AC or "The Doctor" let me put it this way, if your NBA team needs someone to turn the ball over, give up career games to opposing point guards and to absolutely destroy the side of the backboard with attempted jumpshots, he is your guy.

While I am trying to keep my head up for the rest of this basketball season I'd be lying if I said baseball wasn't on my mind. While this is my first blog I'm going to try and keep it a little more lighthearted from now on, but I came until the blog game at a bad time for Nuggets fans. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

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