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Friday, March 16, 2007

Kleiza & Company (The Nuggets) Win Big Over Lakers 113-86

You are in your 11th year of an all-Laker basketball all-star career. You are considered by many to be the best guard in basketball, an athlete so skilled, and so much in control of your performance, that you are almost always the most important player on your team and you can sometimes change by yourself the flow and the momentum of a game. You almost never have a truly poor outing, at either end of the court. Last year, you won the scoring title with little problem, with 35.4 ppg versus Allen Iverson at 33.0 ppg. This year, you have only Melo ahead of you in points scored per game, by a trivial amount. Unlike Melo, you are a reliable three point shooter and you can easily pick the best scoring opportunity and get the ball to the right player at the right time. Melo is a forward and forwards pass less than guards. But Melo is more choosy about who he will pass to. Unlike you, Melo worries about an open or cutting player putting up a brick in many a split second, thus missing a few assist opportunities from time to time. You look for the scoring opportunity, whereas Melo looks for the player most likely to make a shot, so Melo's view of the game is a little more complicated than yours, and sometimes a little too difficult to operate well against a great opponent.

Also unlike Melo, you have had many years experience guarding many of the best players in the League, and you have disrupted them enough to help the Lakers set the pace and the tone in countless playoff games. Melo may never win a Championship unless he learns how to explode in a game as you have learned to, unless he learns how to spot likely scores from unlikely players, and unless he can get close to your level of drive and determination to hustle and defend, which won you 9 seasons of many more wins than losses and three NBA Championships. Fans could argue all night whether you or Allen Iverson is the best guard of the past decade, but you would get far more votes, because of all your rings and because of the huge Southern California market you play for.

Great players sometimes do peculiar things, because they operate at a level few ever reach, and sometimes the adrenalin, the exhilaration, and the constant pressure of performing at that level lead you to do things that do not make sense to ordinary mortals or to folks just watching on the boob tube. So the elbow thing is trivial and understandable. Everything awkward, as the Nuggets learned earlier this season by getting the fines and the suspensions that were supposed to end all fines and suspensions, is made more awkward by the bumbling dictators at League Central.

You are, of course, Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers, led by Kobe Bryant, came to Denver battered by injuries and desperately inserting key fowards back into their lineup as soon as possible, which was this game. It may have been too soon for their own good. The Lakers have now lost 7 straight games, a Coach Phil Jackson record, and they have lost 13 of the last 16. Now the Lakers have to play again tomorrow night with their not fully healed up squad, though one can imagine Kobe Bryant getting 40 or more against the Trailblazers, allowing the Lakers to win a close one with a 4th quarter surge.

Luke Walton and Lamar Odom were returned to action for this game against the Nuggets who, the word is out, can be beaten at any time by any decent team if you slow down A.I. and Melo by double covering and by fouling them as a last resort to slow down the tempo, by forcing turnovers, by burying alot of threes with the many open looks you will get, and by charging the hoop if anyone other than Camby is guarding it. SF Lamar Odom, one of the better small forwards, sustained a left shoulder separation injury on March 2 and was cleared to practice 10 days later. Since January 28, Luke Walton, who is supposed to back up Odom at SF, has been dealing with the sprained right ankle from hell.

Odom and Walton are the indispensable Kobe balancers and with those two out, Kobe has become a little unbalanced, especially according to one of the chief assistants of League Dictator David Stern, a guy whose very name sparks hate at the Players Union, Stu Jackson. Jackson has been suspending and fining Kobe over and over again as Kobe has been getting a little too creative with his arm motions.

The Laker centers, Andrew Bynum and Kwame Brown, are both young and have not yet learned how to exactly position themselves and how to hustle for easy second chance clean up scores, as Okur, Duncan, Yao Ming, and Stoudemire have. So when both Odom and Walton were out, the Lakers were practically all Kobe all the time and, of course, as the other greatest guard of the decade, A.I., will tell you, a team can not depend on just one player to get most of the scoring every game. It's just too much to put on one player's shoulders, no matter how great that player is.

Aside from Odom and Walton, much of the rest of the front court roster for the Lakers remains sidelined with serious injuries. FC Chris Mihm, who was supposed to be the wise veteran of the front court, had surgery on his badly damaged right ankle last summer and his recovery was anticipated, but the injury proved to be even worse than was thought. So he had additional surgery in November and is now out for the season. Then Vladimir Radmanovic, who is supposed to start at PF, sufferred a separated shoulder while snowboarding in Utah during the all-star break, a risky non-professional sport that earned Radmanovic a fine for violating his contract. Radmanovic is out until about the end of the regular season. Then on Tuesday of this week, just about the only front court Laker not yet having injury problems, Brian Cook, who is supposed to back up Radmanovic at PF, sprained his ankle in practice and did not make the trip to Denver.

Now you know why the Lakers have been falling; it has nothing to do with Kobe Bryant.

So the Lakers had two small forwards rushed back after injuries, to cover for two power forwards still out injured. Just about everyone has been beating up on these devastated Lakers lately, and even the Nuggets, who haven't really beat up on anyone this season, buried the Lakers in the second half and won the game to become a winning team again, at 32-31, by the score of 113-86. Allen Iverson's shots were not falling, Melo was off a little, Nene didn't get the ball much, Najera was not shooting as usual, Reggie Evans was benched, Yakhouba Diawara was benched, DerMarr Johson was extremely benched, and J.R. Smith was almost benched.

That leaves Camby, Blake, and Kleiza, so the Nuggets lost the game because there is no way all of these three could possibly have nice shooting games on the same night, right? Wrong. All three did have good nights offensively, with Kleiza by far the best. With the Nuggets shooting this season, there is an occasional feast to break the famine. Kleiza had his best career game ever for the second time in 5 days. After scoring 24 points on 8/11 shooting on Sunday at the Kings, he scored 29 points on 10/13 shooting in this one. For the two games combined, Kleiza made 9/13 3-pointers, thus more than making up for the absence of J.R. Smith. Now George "Scrooge" Karl, who gave Kleiza only 16 minutes on Tuesday, has no choice but to make sure Kleiza plays at least 24 minutes per game for at least the next two weeks, or else that will be a reason to fire him at the end of the season.

The Western Conference is "big shot country" and many young players who play in the West go through a three-point shooting trial by fire. Rookie Diawara failed his trial this year and DerMarr Johnson failed early in the season and ended up in Karl's doghouse, from which it is almost impossible to get out. But now Kleiza, the backup who has the least doghouse time this season, has succeeded, and the West has another newly minted three point shooter. Watch out West, if Melo ever learns how to shoot threes, or J.R. comes back to full strength, the Nuggets may finally have enough three point shooting to compete in big shot country.

Aside from Kleiza's individual success, the massive imbalance of the Nuggets between A.I., Melo, and Camby on the one hand and everyone else on the other hand has now been treated by a heavy dose of Kleiza. The Nuggets were two teams separated by a grand canyon but for now there is much more unity, because Kleiza is a member of the greater squad and also of the lessor squad at the same time. Now that A.I., Melo, and Camby have learned that it is possible to get alot of help from somebody else on the roster, the next thing that needs to fall into place is for George Karl to calm down and loosen up enough to give every one of the large crew on the bench adequate opportunities to get off it, because Denver isn't going to be able to beat the top teams of the West with that many players sitting on the bench for the entire 48 minutes.

Najera played for 21 minutes and was 2/2 for 4 points, and he had 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal. Nene played for 23 minutes and was 3/4 and 2/4 from the line for 8 points, and he had 4 rebounds and a steal.

Steve Blake played for 30 minutes and was 5/8, 3/4 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 15 points, and he also had 3 assists, a steal, and a block.

Kleiza played for 36 minutes and was 10/13, 5/6 on 3's, and 4/5 from the line for 29 points, and he also had 6 rebounds, an assist, and a steal. If this keeps up, the Nuggets will have to play the Lithuania national anthem at the home playoff games along with the American anthem. It better be a catchy tune.

Marcus Camby played for 33 minutes and he was 5/10 and 1/3 from the line for 11 points, and he also had 14 rebounds, 3 steals, and an assist. Ok, so our center doesn't score as many points as Yao Ming, but he leads the NBA in blocks, and gets alot more blocks and steals than Yao. So there you go.

A.I. played for 40 minutes and was 4/15 and 6/6 from the line for 14 points, and he had the 13 assists and a steal.

Melo played for 36 minutes and was 10/20, 0/2 on 3's, and 6/8 from the line for 26 points, and he added 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal.

The next game is Saturday, March 17 in Denver to play the Suns at 8 pm mountain time.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Karl's Tight Ship Sails Past Blazers 107-99

They say every dog has it's day, meaning even the wrong strategy works on occasion. Captain George "Scrooge" Karl has been running a tighter and tighter ship over the past few weeks, as the turnovers and losses to winning teams have piled up and the Nuggets have looked more and more hopeless while losing almost all their games against the good teams. He now usually plays just 7 or 8 players in a game, with everyone Karl thinks might do more harm than good gathering rust on the bench. Although such a strategy will and has generally failed against the top teams of the West, who can simply ramp up the pressure with their great shooters and their defensive skills, and wear out the overworked small group of Nuggets carrying the load for the team, in a home game against a young and rebuilding team such as the Trailblazers, such a conservative, limited strategy might work.

In this particular game, the strategy did work, as the Nuggets lead the whole way and played to not lose more than to win against a team where such a basic and limited approach was possible. The Nuggets hustled on defense a little and controlled the extremely poor shooting Blazers in the first half, and had a commanding 55-37 lead at the half. After the Blazers regrouped at the intermission and came out ready to hit some shots, they went to work to try to get themselves back in the game. Zach Randolph, a 25 year old PF who plays like a SF and who has a decent jump shot, came alive after a miserable first half, and he was assisted by a large number of other Blazers. When SF Ime Udoka buried a 3 with 15 seconds left in the 3rd quarter, the Nuggets large half time lead had been reduced to 4, and fans and George Karl himself wondered if the playing to not blow it strategy might itself result in a loss.

However, as in the win over the Kings on Sunday, and as in other recent wins against losing teams, the Nuggets bent in the second half but they did not break. A.I. drove to the hoop and drew a foul with 1 second left in the 3rd. After he made the first free throw, he missed the second, but Nene grabbed the ball and instantly hoisted a turnaround jumper that went in. The officials had to check whether the shot had left Nene's hands in time before time ran out, and luckily it had by a fraction of a second. So it was 78-71 Nuggets after 3 quarters.

Iverson's jumper to start the 4th quarter made it 80-71 Nuggets, and the playing not to lose strategy was back in business. Iverson took command of preserving the win, which he understood to be a must win given the Nugget's tough schedule the rest of the way. The shrewd veteran Iverson has correctly concluded that he can handle making sure wins against losing teams are preserved if he hustles, but he is still waiting for something big to break, such as Melo to explode for 40 or more points, or George Karl finally having enough courage to put in, and enough coaching skill to motivate, players who are now rusting on the bench, when the Nuggets play a really good team and have to have more bodies. The Suns are coming to town this Saturday, so maybe something big will break then. One can always hope.

With Iverson, who had 10 assists, running things, Randolph and the Blazers were unable to get any closer than 6 points behind in the 4th, and the Nuggets won the game 107-99 and evened their win-loss record at 31-31 with 20 games left in the season. The Nuggets held their turnovers to 15, which is not bad for them, and they had just 17 personal fouls while the Blazers had 24. Each team had 12 steals.

Now Denver can become a winning team again, barely, if they can defeat the injury battered Lakers on Thursday. If they do, both the Nuggets and the Lakers will be one game over .500.

PF LaMarcus Aldridge had a career high 17 rebounds for the Blazers, as well as 24 points on 11/17 shooting. Aldridge also had 4 of the 8 blocks that Portland had. Zach Randolph finished with 26 points on 10/27 shooting.

Marcus Camby had 7 blocks and has now made rebounding look almost as fun as scoring to the other Nuggets. Every Nugget who played had at least 4 rebounds; Camby led with 10 and Melo had 8.

The Nuggets, apparently, have been down that rough "lose your poise and the game slips away" road so many times, that they knew enough to get off that road this time before they actually lost. A.I. is an expert on this subject, since he has played his whole career on teams with no depth and questionable coaching, which are teams that don't have enough fuel to play four solid quarters and are always in danger of losing even when leading in the second half. A.I.'s aggressive drives to the hoop, his ability to draw fouls and make all his free throws, and recently his key rebounding during those times when the other team is chipping and chipping away at the lead, have not only preserved wins for the Nuggets, but have taught other Nuggets including Melo how you preserve a lead, or at least how to preserve a game if you lose most of your lead. Iverson is showing that can bend without breaking; you don't have to lose when you run low on gas. A.I. is now George Karl's unofficial coaching assistant; he picks up where the limitations of the coaching staff leave off.

In this game there was no Reggie Evans around to turn the ball over several times to various Blazers, leading to fast break Blazer scores. There was no Diawara to miss a bunch of 3-point shots, and perhaps also to get too many shooting fouls. And there was no desperate DerMarr Johnson to hoist up a jumper at every opportunity, to try to earn more playing time. Tonight, the Nuggets didn't need the offensive rebounding of Evans, the defense of Diawara, or the potential 3-point shooting of Johnson, so they didn't need to risk their mistakes, either. Johnson was not needed in this one because the Blazers, like the Nuggets, are not a good 3-point shooting team, and they made only 4/10 of them.

The Blazers squad, a work in progress, was unable to put enough pressure on the overworked Nuggets, at either end of the court, to either wear them out completely or to force them to lose their poise and concentration. If a team can wear out or apply alot of pressure in a 4th quarter on the Nuggets, the Nuggets have a tendency to go into a free fall, where the turnovers pile up quickly, the top scorers are out of gas or unable to shake double coverage, and so the worst shooters on the team end up taking and missing way too many of the shots. You might think of these free falls as "everything falls apart time". This is one way the Nuggets have been losing their games against winning teams. Earlier in the season, these everything falls apart times were how they lost more than 10 games, most of them in Denver, despite 4th quarter leads.

So Coach George "Scrooge" Karl has become more and more defensive and conservative in how he manages these hard to manage Nuggets, which makes it very unlikely that the Nuggets will lose to a losing team, such as the Trailblazers, but also very unlikely that they will beat a winning team that has what it takes to wear out and disrupt the Nugget's players who are are playing too many minutes. I guess you can't be completely negative about such a strategy, because I myself realized a few days ago that the Nugget's turnovers and unbalanced offense were getting so bad that the team might completely collapse and start losing to the losing teams as well as to the winning teams.

With Karl's current strategy, you have a kind of triage for a wounded team. At least we can say that the blood is no longer gushing out and the patient is stabilised. So now Nuggets fans are waiting to find out if Karl and the other coaches can come up with a way, when the Nuggets are playing a winning team, and especially one of the top teams in the West, to make full use of and get top performance out of players such as J.R. Smith, who returned a little quicker than expected from the knee injury and the surgery, rebounding specialist Reggie Evans, and potential open shot makers DerMarr Johnson and Yakhouba Diawara. We are wondering whether Mr. Karl, who deserves some sympathy given how complicated all the suspensions, trades, injuries, and player inconsistencies have made managing the Nuggets this season, will be able to come out of his defensive crouch, and finally pull a strategy out of his sleeve that has at least one chance in hell of producing some wins against teams like the Jazz, the Spurs, the Suns, and the Mavericks. Because a duck and cover strategy will take you only so far.

Despite his career game two days ago, Kleiza had his minutes cut back to 16, and was 2/3 and 0/1 on 3's for 4 points, and he had 6 rebounds. Najera played 27 minutes and was 3/4 and 0/1 on 3's for 6 points, and he had 4 rebounds, 3 steals, and an assist.

Steve Blake played 29 minutes and was 3/7, 0/2 on 3's, and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he had 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

J.R. Smith returned from a knee injury and surgery and played for 14 minutes. He was 1/6 and 1/3 on 3's for 3 points, and he had a rebound and a steal.

Nene played 30 minutes and was 5/10 and 2/3 from the line for 12 points, and he had 6 rebounds, a block, and a steal. Among his shots, Nene hit 2 out of 4 jumpers.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 6/12 and 2/2 from the line for 14 points, and he added 10 rebounds, 7 blocks, 2 assists, and a steal. Camby hit 3 of 8 attempted jump shots.

Melo played for 39 minutes and was 10/22 and 9/12 from the line for 29 points, and he also had 8 rebounds, 3 assists, and a steal. In this game Melo went to the hoop often, and took only 6 midrange jumpers. He missed 5 of those.

A.I. played virtually the whole game and was 8/20, 1/1 on 3's, and 14/16 from the line for 31 points, and he also had 10 assists, 5 steals, 6 rebounds, and a block.

The next game will be Thursday, March 15 in Denver to play the Lakers at 8:30 pm mountain time. This is a late start cable television game.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

A.I., Melo, Camby, & Kleiza Lead Nuggets Over Kings 113-101

Balance is one of the most important concepts in basketball. Unlike in baseball, where the pitcher or else someone who has alot of hits (especially home runs) is frequently the most important player in a particular game, and unlike in football, where the quarterback, a great running back, or a great receiver is usually the most important player in a particular game, in basketball there isn't usually really just one most important player. You need a Dennis Rodman and a Scottie Pippen to go along with a Michael Jordan, and other Bulls to handle the rebounding when Rodman is on the bench or when Jordan is double covered. You needed a Dwyane Wade to go along with Shaquille O'Neal, and other Heat to help out on defense and other duties, and, before that, you needed a Kobe Bryant to go along with a Shaquille O'Neal, and other Lakers to bury threes, get a few steals, and so forth.

And you need more balance: you have to have someone able to hit shots besides the every day scorers that everyone, including the defenders of the opposite team, know about. You need someone to surprise the other team by making a bunch of shots, which will disrupt the flow of it's game and cause them to turn it over more. You need more than two rebounders, and you need more than two passers who know who is in position to score and can make the correct split second decision on where to pass the ball. To be a great team, you need at least a pair of all-stars who balance each other and then you also need the two of them to be balanced out in any game with at least two other players who are just as important to winning, even though they are not all stars and even though they don't usually have a large number of points, rebounds, or assists.

And you need more balance: you need to play defense as well as offense, and here it's not the number of players or points which is important, but the hustle, the intensity, and the intelligence to know what the player with the ball is going to do that determine whether you will get the necessary defense. If you have good scoring, you can get away with less defense than if you have less than good scoring. If you have 4-5 players shooting close to or over 50%, you can cheap out on defense and still win, and the Nuggets were able to do this a few times back in November and December.

But "cheaping out" on defense obviously is a luxury you do not usually have, and when you do it, it's a leading indicator that you are going to lose a whole lot of games down the road. No team is smart enough to know what their shooting production is going to look like at the end of a game while they are playing it, so cheaping out on defense is never an acceptable strategy, because you can't know in advance whether you can get away with it, and because you will become lazy and unskilled defensively, and therefore unable to play good defense when you have to play good defense to have a chance in a future game. The Nuggets have been guilty over and over again of trying to get by on the cheap on defense. I hope the Nuggets have finally learned this lesson the hard way, but it is too early to say. At least they have been playing some decent defense on ocassion over the last month, including in this game, but even some recent games have been, well, total cheap-outs.

Over the last two months, the Nuggets have been one of the most unbalanced teams in the NBA, with games being hopelessly out of reach when no one other than A.I., Melo, and Nene at the hoop were able to hit the broad side of a barn. Najera by nature, and Diawara and Evans, due to miserable results, have in certain games been almost unwilling even to get open so that they might get the ball to take a shot, particularly since Coach George "Scrooge" Karl commonly benches any non-starter for 1 to 3 games if they miss 6 shots or more and/or shoot under 25%. Karl ramps up the pressure with his "you miss a bunch buddy and you don't get anouther try for awhile" approach, to the point where certain players decide to mostly stand around in games rather than get open for their favorite shot.

For the Nuggets to win, it doesn't have to be the same two stepping up in every game; it can be any two other than A.I., Melo, and Nene. But seemingly loaded up with a large crew of rim clangers, the Nuggets have been getting only one, or even no scorers to go along with the three reliable scorers, and have been losing right and left as a result. George Karl's seemingly insane roster moves can be partly, though not completely, explained by his trying to find someone, anyone, who can somehow get the ball in the hoop more than once or twice during a game. So the Nuggets have been a hurting puppy, needing only two scorers to go along with Melo, A.I., and Nene, but getting only one or none.

The motivation thing that George Karl and others discussed this past week works as well in one direction as the other. Everyone usually focus on how the best players on a team can or should motivate the other players to play better. But it works the other way, too. If Kleiza plays close to this good, than A.I., Melo, and Camby can become more motivated to make the extra shot, the extra rebound, the extra pick, the extra block, and so forth to allow the Nuggets to have a shot against teams like the Mavs or the Suns. But if there is no Kleiza, nor anyone else playing almost as or as well as Kleiza played today, then the Nuggets offense becomes so unbalanced and limited that there is no possible way the Nuggets can compete with teams like the Suns and the Mavericks, as we have seen.

And before we leave the Kleiza explosion, I want to say that I will be looking around the internet to see if those who have agreed with George "Scrooge" Karl that Melo has not done enough to raise the performance of his teammates give Melo his due credit for how well Kleiza shot the ball in today's game. If I don't see these folks giving Melo credit for Kleiza's shots, then what happened to their point about Melo? Did they know what they were talking about?

Although the Nuggets played their trademark riverboat gambling, high risk and high turnover style of play, which is the only style they can play, apparently, they nontheless earned a solid win against the Kings, 113-101. For the game, the Nuggets doubled up the Kings in the paint, 52-26. The Kings, who were led by PG Mike Bibby's 34 points on 12/20 shooting, had their sites on the Nugget's playoff ticket. The Nuggets won at Arco Arena no less, marking the first win for the Nuggets in Sacramento since Moses parted the waters. Well, actually it was not that long; it was the first win there since January 1997.

Linas Kleiza, Camby, and A.I. led the Nuggets to a 59-45 lead at the half. But this being the Nuggets, the Kings believed that they had the Nuggets right where they wanted them, and they knew the game was theirs as long as they came out strong after the intermission and caused the Nuggets to completely lose their composure and to start playing like a high school team again. But it didn't work this time. The Nuggets bent under the onslaught of three Bibby 3-pointers in one minute early in the 3rd quarter, but key rebounding from Iverson and Camby, and drives to the hoop by Iverson and Melo, prevented the Nuggets from breaking as they have so often earlier this season with that kind of a lead. For once, having the lead was not a disadvantage for the Nuggets.

The Kings reduced the Nuggets lead to 5, at 71-66 with 4:43 left in the third, but a full team effort by the Nuggets on the boards and even on defense ended the uprising, so that the Nuggets led 83-73 at the end of the 3rd. The balanced and oh so rare Denver team effort continued in the 4th, and the Nuggets built up a 20 point lead by half way through the 4th. Kleiza did some more damage, and then Melo came alive to get 10 points in the quarter, so that he finished with 29 points, just enough to hold off, for now, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and Gilbert Arenas in the race for top scorer.

How did the Nuggets pull this magic trick off? They did it by playing some defense, by forcing some turnovers of their own to compensate for all of theirs, and by having balance magically appear out of a hat. All of a sudden, Marcus Camby, who has been trying to improve his jump shot all season, with mostly mediocre results, made 3 of 5 of them, and finished with 16 points on 8/13 shooting overall. But the real magic trick of the night, the one that left basketball observers and especially Nuggets and Kings fans in shock, was the explosion of Linas Kleiza, who, it has been said, has been hitting 3's like crazy in practice but clanging the rim so much on midrange jumpers during real games that he has been afraid to take many 3-point shots during real games.

Linas Kleiza looks older, but is actually only 21 years old. He is a 6'8", 245 lb power forward, who was born in Lithuania, USSR, and he came to the U.S. in 2002 to play a season of high school basketball in Maryland and then two years of college basketball at Missouri. Kleiza was taken with the 27th overall pick of the 2005 NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers and traded to Denver on draft day.

Now in just his second season in the League, Kleiza has seen his overall shot accuracy fall apart this year, because he didn't even attempt 3-pointers last year for some unknown reason. But aside from having his accuracy average automatically fall due to adding the 3-point shot to his arsenal, his accuracy on shots other than 3-pointers has gone down from last year to this, from 47% to 41%, which, inside the arc, has put him at the rim-clanging level that so many Nuggets players have been at this year. But on three-point shooting, which is the new Kleiza game, he is at .345, which means he is making 8 or 9 threes for every 10 made by the best 3-point shooters, such as Kyle Korver, Steve Nash, Luther Head, and Leandro Barbosa. He's getting there.

So that is some information regarding that strange man who pulled what was by far the best game of his career out of a hat and gave the Nuggets what they needed to win this game against the Kings and thwart, at least for now their scheme to steal the Nugget's playoff berth. This was Kleiza's second great game in the last couple of weeks; he had another great game on February 28 in Denver against the Magic. Although 2 games is hardly anything for a Nugget's fan to get very juiced up about, at least poor Coach George "Scrooge" Karl knows who to start at power forward for awhile. At least I hope he knows.

Najera played for 27 minutes and was 3/10 for 6 points, and he also had 9 rebounds, 6 of them offensive, and a steal. Blake played 33 minutes and was 1/6, and 0/2 on 3's for 2 points, and he had 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

Nene played for 30 minutes and was 4/7 and 1/1 from the line for 9 points, and he had 6 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 2 assists.

Kleiza played 33 minutes and was 8/11, 4/7 on 3's, and 4/4 from the line for 24 points, and he had 8 rebounds and an assist.

Camby played 33 minutes and was 8/13 for 16 points, and he added 10 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 blocks.

A.I. played 36 minutes and was 8/17, 1/3 on 3's, and 7/9 from the line for 24 points, and he also had 7 assists, 6 rebounds, and 4 steals. It was unusual but very telling to see A.I. get a whole bunch of rebounds. A.I. has been on this "lose this game and you are likely to miss the playoffs" bus before, and he knows a must win when he sees one.

Melo played 38 minutes and was 11/24, 0/1 on 3's, and 7/8 from the line for 29 points, and he added 6 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 steals. After a rough 1st quarter, he gradually steadied himself to avoid a second straight bad game in a row, so we can say that Kiyan has cost the Nuggets, at the most, one game so far, and probably none because Kleiza was only 4/13 in that game. Watch it though, Kiyan, the Nugget's fans are keeping close tabs on your antics.

The next game will be Tuesday, March 13 in Denver against the Trailblazers, at 7 pm mountain time.

Post your response to anything on Quest HERE

GIVE US THE JUICE TO PRODUCE REPORTS MORE QUICKLY

Although there is a guaranteed minimum rate of Report production regardless of traffic, IT IS IN YOUR POWER to help double or triple the number of and frequency of Reports. Simply take two or three minutes as often as you can to recommend Quest and post links to Quest on your favorite sports and other sites. The resulting automatic increase of traffic will in turn increase the resources that go in to producing Quest, which in turn speeds up reporting. If you want, e-mail how you helped (include the url of where you posted a link to Quest) and we will throw some Internet love back to where you tell us on the Internet. Thank you.

Here are some quick links that you can use to find a place where you might post a link to Quest and/or to Quest content.

Share/Bookmark


HOLD MOUSE HERE TO EXPAND THIS MENU OF PLACES ON WHICH YOU CAN POST A LINK TO QUEST:


BASKETBALL SITES THAT ARE OPEN FOR CONTENT FROM ANYONE
Note: Beware of "layered" sites. None of the following are layered sites, which are sites that allow contributions from the public only in hard to find, low traffic areas, while the main areas are off limits for public input and are only for a chosen few. All of the following have at least some notable traffic, and all of them allow relatively equal and open participation. The order is from most recommended to least recommended, based on about half a dozen factors.

Bleacher Report Open Posting Site
Inside Hoops NBA Forum
Real GM NBA and Team Forums
Pro Sports Daily NBA Forum
Basketball Forum NBA Forum
Sporting News NBA Forum
Hoops Hype NBA Forum
Armchair GM Open Posting Site
SportsTwo NBA Forum
NBA Dimensions NBA Forum
OTR Basketball Forums NBA Forum
NBA Boards NBA Forum
NBA Wire NBA Forum
KFFL NBA Forum

Note: there are other forums, but they are all very low traffic and activity compared to the ones above.

MESSAGE BOARDS AT HUGE COROPORATIONS
The Fox NBA board is very low traffic, and the MSNBC NBA board doesn't exist anymore. The CBS Sports NBA Message Board is a layered site; you can NOT post topics nor expect to be considered seriously there until you have spent a few years posting there. We do not recommend CBS Sports. So the only real, fully open NBA forum hosted by a big corporation is the ESPN message board. Be forewarned though that the ESPN board is dominated by very young fans who make very short comments. On the other hand, it is a high traffic site, so we won't stop you from posting a Quest link at ESPN if you want to.

ESPN NBA Message Board

LAKERS SIGN IN HOLLYWOOD

LAKERS SIGN IN HOLLYWOOD
The Nuggets are scary, but Lakers fans can breathe a sigh of relief when they think of who coaches them!

>>>I WANT TO STICK WITH THE WAY OTHER SITES PRESENT POSTS
Due to the number of, uniqueness of, and importance of the many other home page features we have, only one Report loads at a time, currently the one just above. To see the next Report (which would be the one that came out just before the one above) on this home page, click "Older Posts" that is at the very bottom of the Report showing above, just above the section header "Your Ball: Take Your Best Shot".

>>ALTERNATIVE HOME PAGES
There are three home pages, all of which have all of the Reports but which have completely different features appearing on the sidebar and below the one Report that is shown at a time. These pages have been designed so that they fully load in about 10 seconds (no more super long load times we used to be known for.)

HOME PAGE A: ALL REPORTS, READERS CONTAINING REPORTS 1-100, AND UNIQUE FEATURES
HOME PAGE B: ALL REPORTS, READERS CONTAINING REPORTS 1-100, AND UNIQUE FEATURES
HOME PAGE C: ALL REPORTS, READERS CONTAINING REPORTS 1-100, AND UNIQUE FEATURES

>>REPORT READERS: Complete freedom to rapidly choose and read what you need or want to read. The latest 40 Reports are found near the top of all three of the primary home pages (linked to just above) while Reports #41-#100 are found in three separate readers placed at various points down the page on all three primary home pages.

>>EXPRESS VERSION: Every Single Report but no Features: a Fast Loading Page: Click Here

>>FAST BREAK VERSION: The Latest 100 Reports via Report Readers Only; no Features, a Fast Loading Page: Click Here

>>QUEST ARCHIVE HOME PAGES--REPORT ARCHIVES AND A SMALL NUMBER OF CLASSIC FEATURES THAT WON'T FIT ON OTHER HOME PAGES
QUEST 4: REPORTS 101-200
QUEST 5: REPORTS 201-300
QUEST 6: REPORTS 301-400
QUEST 7: REPORTS 401-500
QUEST 8: REPORTS 501-600
QUEST 9: REPORTS 601-700
QUEST 10: REPORTS 701-800

>>FEATURES ONLY HOME PAGES: NO REPORTS, JUST FEATURES THAT WE CAN'T FIT ANYWHERE ELSE
QUEST OVERTIME
QUEST CLASSIC

>>COMPLETE TITLE INDEX: : A Complete Report Title Index, with Express Version Links to all Reports

>>LATEST 25 Reports: Direct links to the latest 25 Reports (with no truncated titles as you find with the poorly designed Google archive). This is located near the very bottom of this page.

>>GOOGLE ARCHIVE you will find this, with Reports shown by week not very far below.

>>I'M NEW AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE I WANT TO GO: Welcome to the Real Zone. Simply browse the page and see for yourself what is here. You will not be disappointed.

>>OR YOU CAN DO A CUSTOM GOOGLE SEARCH OF THE 13 BOOKS AND COUNTING CONTAINED ON THIS SITE>>>>>

SEARCH THE QUEST FOR THE RING--THE EQUIVALENT OF MORE THAN 15 BOOKS ABOUT BASKETBALL

Custom Search
SEARCH THE 15 BOOKS / 1.5 MILLION WORDS

TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT HOW LONG QUEST FOR THE RING HAS BEEN KEEPING IT REAL

The above shows you in two different ways the exact amount of time since The Quest for the Ring began to completely explain how the Quest is won, while having as much fun as possible at the expense of basketball pretenders and player haters. The first panel shows how long it has been in each of seven units. The second panel shows how long it has been in the more usual "remainder" way.

QUEST FOR THE RING SOMETIMES GOES INTO HIATUS
Regardless of any temporary unavoidable absences, the Quest is in this project to explain in detail for the very long term--indefinitely, for many, many, many years ahead. At this writing we have the equivalent of 15 basketball books under our belt and we plan on doing dozens more. Count on us being right where basketball is at, which is here, actually.

Blog Archive


QUEST REPORTS #41 TO #60, GOING BACK IN TIME


QUEST IS FREE BUT ABOUT 3 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME CAN GET YOU MORE OF IT

Although there is a guaranteed minimum rate of Report production regardless of traffic, it is in your power to help increase the number of and frequency of Quest Reports. All Quest sites are developed and produced according to both superseding criteria and site traffic. Like all sites started in recent years, Quest receives very little help from Google and other search engines. The search engines mostly serve to keep the older, popular sites popular; they preserve the same old, same old status quo.

The amount of reporting and the frequency of Quest Reports could easily be double what it is were site traffic higher. If Quest obtained the traffic we know it deserves, than production would go from the equivalent of roughly three books about basketball a year to at least five and to as many as six books a year!

WE NEED A GRAND TOTAL OF ABOUT 3 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME
Please take three or four minutes every now and then to recommend Quest and post links to Quest on your favorite sports and other sites. In other words, wherever possible use us to back up what you are posting and writing. The resulting automatic increase of traffic will in turn increase the resources that go in to producing Quest home page Reports. After helping us, feel free to e-mail how you helped and we will throw some Internet love back to your Internet hangout. The email address is thequestforthering1. This is a gmail address, so you use @gmail.com after that address.

QUEST FOR THE RING USER GUIDE

QUEST FOR THE RING USER GUIDE: YOU CAN QUICKLY LOCATE AND GET THE SITE INFORMATION YOU NEED OR WANT RIGHT HERE

LATEST 25 REPORTS THREE AT A TIME -- TO LOAD THE NEXT THREE, CLICK ">" AT THE TOP ON THE RIGHT



QUEST REPORTS #61 TO #80, GOING BACK IN TIME


WORD IS BOND

WELCOME TO THE QUEST--THINGS ARE VERY DIFFERENT HERE

WELCOME TO THE QUEST FOR THE RING, ALSO KNOWN AS THE REAL ZONE
This is one of the most serious basketball sites on the internet, focusing on how and why playoff games and NBA Championships are won. We also love to take comedy and music breaks, but not every day.

WELCOME TO THE QUEST FOR THE RING. YOU HAVE LEFT THE HYPE ZONE AND HAVE ARRIVED IN THE REAL ZONE. Please check any rose colored glasses at the door. The Hype Zone is where you can find out about the personalities and the styles and how popular they are and what they are up to lately. The Real Zone is where we DO NOT think personalities and styles and how popular or unpopular they are things to waste time on just for ratings or traffic.

Instead of hype, here we post as much truth about how NBA playoff games and Championships are won as we can 365 days a year and at at any hour of the day or night. Please have a productive visit, and a nice trip back to the Hype Zone when your visit is over.


A SMALL SAMPLE OF CURRENT AND SOON TO COME QUEST FOR THE RING REAL ZONE TOPICS
--How and Why the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers, the 2010 Cleveland Cavaliers, and the 2010 Boston Celtics Win or Lose in the 2010 Playoffs
--The right "amount of" LeBron James
--How players we know deserve to win a first or second Ring can get one, highly talented players such as Chris Paul, Chris Bosh, Rajon Rondo, and Dwyane Wade.
--How and why the Denver Nuggets Franchise has repeatedly fooled the public, and possibly themselves for that matter. (No, we still have not completely finished with the Nuggets, thanks to how successful they were in 2008-09, albeit there was no chance of a Championship; Continuing, much done already)
--How and why much of what you may think you know about Allen Iverson is dead wrong (Continuing, much done already)
--How and why the playoffs are something completely different from the regular season, and why your team may be simply not prepared for them despite a lot of regular season wins

A SMALL SAMPLE OF ALREADY COMPLETED QUEST FOR THE RING REAL ZONE TOPICS
--How and why Carmelo Anthony has been downsized due to a quest for "well-roundedness," and why this is really bad
--How and why the owner of the Nuggets shortchanged and cheated his team out of a possible Championship
--How and why being physical alone can not win you a Championship
--How and why the Nuggets' high fouling defense will take them only so far
--How and why George Karl is doing more harm than good with respect to J.R. Smith
--How and why George Karl's obsession with personalities is wrong and bad for any team
--How and why George Karl and the Nuggets can not win in the playoffs (2007, 2008) or a West final (2009). If Quest commits a foul, we own up to it, as we do right here: we thought the Nuggets could not win in the playoffs in 2009. They did win 10 games before being eliminated by the Lakers in the West final, so in response we corrected our evaluation of what you can do with the Nuggets' unique 2009 approach to basketball without, however, going overboard.
--How and why George Karl cheats the fans and the franchise out of performance and development of "reserve" players
--How and why playmaking is so important, probably more than you think, and how you manage playmakers correctly.
--How and why you have probably been fooled regarding the Nuggets' 2008 off-season and their 2008-09 defense

UNIQUE SITE DESIGN
The Quest is organized in a completely different way from what you are used to on the internet. We have combined the best features of the blog and the conventional web site formats, the latter being the norm for large organizations. However, since we do not like the idea of using flash to "wow" visitors, we do not use flash except within video and other discrete components. So we are state of the art in terms of expanding the power of visitors to get exactly what they want very quickly, but we do not have the latest flash gadgetry just to "keep up with the Joneses". More broadly, you will find that Quest for the Ring never seeks to keep up with the Joneses, simply because the Joneses never had the nerve and the intelligence to do what we do.

2009: A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION COMES TO QUEST
Just before the 2009-10 season tipped, the very large number of features and links to important resources were strategically reorganized and placed within an easy to use and clearly labelled section system. So ended the era of the rapidly developed, sprawling and slightly disorganized Quest, and so began the era of the big but under careful control and extremely well organized and professional Quest for the Ring.

The Quest Home Page consists of numerous types of content, organized carefully into the new sections as of November 2009. Features can be any educational and / or entertaining thing you can think of, including everything from music players to videos to photos to breaking NBA news readers to top teams performance breakdown pages.

Quest for the Ring has a world class link system for those who know what they are looking for and wish to find and engage the appropriate link, But the Quest visitor does not HAVE to hunt for links to have an intelligent and entertaining experience. The Quest home page is big enough and chock loaded enough that link hunting is not absolutely necessary the way it normally is at many other basketball sites.

THERE MUST BE TEN WAYS TO READ REPORTS [PAUL SIMON LOL]
There are close to ten ways to find out about, select, and read Quest Reports! The standard, traditional blog presentation is available as one of the many ways to choose, access, and read reports. On the Home Page, only one report loads in the traditional format in order to keep this page as quick loading as possible.
See the "Total Freedom of Navigation" section for complete details about how to find, choose, and read reports.

One key place to find Older Reports is on sequentially numbered url's thequestforthering2.blogspot.com, thequestforthering3.blogspot.com, and so forth.

THE QUEST USER GUIDE VERSUS an about page
Other sites most often have undeveloped and limited in scope "about pages" which is usually all they have for what we call a "User Guide". Our User Guide material is a vast improvement, quantitatively and qualitatively, over a mere "about page" While many other sites don't help their visitors to make the best use of the content, we do. Also, the User Guide is chock loaded with invitations to visitors to participate in all kinds of ways, including for example advertising for free, link exchange, and getting a team site supported by Quest.

SEARCH THE QUEST FOR THE RING, THE EQUIVALENT OF MORE THAN 15 BOOKS ABOUT BASKETBALL

Custom Search
SEARCH THE 15 BOOKS / 1.5 MILLION WORDS

QUEST REPORTS #81 TO #100 GOING BACK IN TIME

RECOMMENDED SCHOOL--CLICK FOR DETAILS


VIDEOS

QUEST FOR THE RING VIDEOS--The primary Quest video page with video juke boxes for all 30 teams

QUEST FOR THE RING VIDEOS #2--Specially chosen video juke boxes and individual videos

QUEST FOR THE RING PRIMARY HOME PAGE B--A few key video players are here

LATEST NBA.COM NBA VIDEOS
LATEST YAHOO SPORTS NBA / BASKETBALL VIDEOS
LATEST CBS SPORTSLINE NBA VIDEOS

MOST RECENT LEAGUE WIDE REAL PLAYER RATINGS

Note: This is generally a once a year, end of season Report. For many teams and players, more recent ratings are often available.

NBA REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2009-10 REGULAR SEASON

POSITION AND TEAM CODES
In the Real Player and related ratings shown for the League, two codes follow each players' name (and before his rating). The first code tells you the players' team and the second one tells you his position.

TEAM CODES
ATLA Atlanta Hawks
BOST Boston Celtics
CHAR Charlotte Bobcats
CHIC Chicago Bulls
CLEV Cleveland Cavaliers
DALL Dallas Mavericks
DENV Denver Nuggets
DETR Detroit Pistons
GOLS Golden State Warriors
HOUS Houston Rockets
INDI Indiana Pacers
LACL Los Angeles Clippers
LALK Los Angeles Lakers
MEMP Memphis Grizzlies
MIAM Miami Heat
MILW Milwaukee Bucks
MINN Minnesota Timberwolves
NJRS New Jersey Nets
NORL New Orleans Hornets
NWYR New York Knicks
OKLA Oklahoma Thunder
ORLA Orlando Magic
PHIL Philadelphia 76'ers
PHNX Phoenix Suns
PORT Portland Trailblazers
SACR Sacramento Kings
SANA San Antonio Spurs
TORO Toronto Raptors
UTAH Utah Jazz
WASH Washington Wizards

POSITION CODES
PG Point Guard
SG Shooting Guard
SF Small Forward
PF Power Forward
C Center

SCALE FOR REGULAR SEASON REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.820 0.899
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.760 0.819
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.759
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Preferably should not start 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player / Generally should not start 0.520 0.579
Poor Player / Should never start 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player .399 and less

NBA REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2009-10 REGULAR SEASON

--Shows the real quality of players
--Includes all tracked actions and also includes untracked or hidden defending
--The average Real Player Rating for all players who play 300 minutes or more is about .700.
--All players who have played at least 300 minutes are included here and in all other ratings to follow in coming days

MAJOR HISTORIC SUPERSTARS
1 LeBron James CLEV SF 1.382
2 Tim Duncan SANA PF 1.254
3 Chris Paul NORL PG 1.202
4 Dwight Howard ORLA C 1.121
5 Andrew Bogut MILW C 1.112

HISTORIC SUPERSTARS
6 Steve Nash PHNX PG 1.095
7 Jason Kidd DALL PG 1.092
8 Rajon Rondo BOST PG 1.084
9 Deron Williams UTAH PG 1.076
10 Dwyane Wade MIAM SG 1.075
11 Marcus Camby LACL C 1.071
12 Pau Gasol LALK PF 1.065
13 Greg Oden PORT C 1.060
14 Kevin Durant OKLA SF 1.051
15 Dirk Nowitzki DALL PF 1.034
16 Josh Smith ATLA SF 1.033
17 Kevin Garnett BOST PF 1.033
18 Manu Ginobili SANA SG 1.023
19 Kobe Bryant LALK SG 1.005

SUPERSTARS
20 Carlos Boozer UTAH PF 0.994
21 Lamar Odom LALK PF 0.982
22 Andrei Kirilenko UTAH SF 0.976
23 Chris Bosh TORO PF 0.972
24 David Lee NWYR C 0.971
25 Al Horford ATLA C 0.970
26 Marcus Camby PORT C 0.967
27 Jameer Nelson ORLA PG 0.959
28 Joakim Noah CHIC C 0.955
29 John Salmons MILW SF 0.937
30 Andrew Bynum LALK C 0.936
31 Troy Murphy INDI PF 0.934
32 Kevin Love MINN PF 0.934
33 Anderson Varejao CLEV C 0.933
34 Brendan Haywood DALL C 0.929
35 Vince Carter ORLA SG 0.928
36 Gerald Wallace CHAR SF 0.918
37 Sergio Rodriguez SACR PG 0.908
38 Tyrus Thomas CHIC PF 0.904
39 Derrick Rose CHIC PG 0.903

STARS
40 Baron Davis LACL PG 0.899
41 Russell Westbrook OKLA PG 0.897
42 Zach Randolph MEMP PF 0.885
43 Danny Granger INDI SF 0.885
44 Marc Gasol MEMP C 0.885
45 Joe Johnson ATLA SG 0.883
46 Chauncey Billups DENV PG 0.883
47 Roy Hibbert INDI C 0.880
48 Ben Wallace DETR C 0.877
49 Andre Miller PORT PG 0.874
50 Carmelo Anthony DENV SF 0.874
51 Brandon Jennings MILW PG 0.870
52 Tyrus Thomas CHAR PF 0.870
53 A.J. Price INDI PG 0.868
54 Paul Millsap UTAH PF 0.866
55 Craig Smith LACL PF 0.865
56 Samuel Dalembert PHIL C 0.864
57 Andre Iguodala PHIL SG 0.858
58 Raymond Felton CHAR PG 0.857
59 Delonte West CLEV SG 0.856
60 Al Jefferson MINN C 0.856
61 Eric Maynor OKLA PG 0.856
62 Serge Ibaka OKLA PF 0.855
63 Nene Hilario DENV C 0.852
64 Chris Andersen DENV PF 0.849
65 Shaquille O'Neal CLEV C 0.842
66 Brandon Roy PORT SG 0.842
67 Ryan Anderson ORLA PF 0.840
68 Antonio McDyess SANA PF 0.839
69 Tony Parker SANA PG 0.837
70 Paul Pierce BOST SF 0.836
71 Mo Williams CLEV PG 0.835
72 Kyle Lowry HOUS PG 0.835
73 Ersan Ilyasova MILW SF 0.828
74 Amare Stoudemire PHNX PF 0.828
75 Luke Ridnour MILW PG 0.827
76 Erick Dampier DALL C 0.826
77 Tyreke Evans SACR PG 0.825
78 Andris Biedrins GOLS C 0.825
79 Kyle Korver UTAH SG 0.824
80 Anthony Randolph GOLS PF 0.820

VERY GOOD PLAYERS / SOLID STARTERS
81 Eric Maynor UTAH PG 0.819
82 Carlos Arroyo MIAM PG 0.819
83 Antawn Jamison CLEV PF 0.819
84 Nazr Mohammed CHAR C 0.818
85 Luol Deng CHIC SF 0.817
86 Dorell Wright MIAM SG 0.817
87 LaMarcus Aldridge PORT PF 0.817
88 Carl Landry HOUS PF 0.816
89 Luis Scola HOUS PF 0.816
90 Nick Collison OKLA PF 0.812
91 Carlos Delfino MILW SG 0.809
92 Kendrick Perkins BOST C 0.807
93 Jermaine O'Neal MIAM C 0.805
94 Nate Robinson NWYR PG 0.804
95 Goran Dragic PHNX PG 0.803
96 Mike Bibby ATLA PG 0.803
97 Stephen Curry GOLS PG 0.803
98 Mehmet Okur UTAH C 0.800
99 Jose Calderon TORO PG 0.797
100 Jason Terry DALL SG 0.791
101 Ronnie Price UTAH PG 0.784
102 DeJuan Blair SANA PF 0.784
103 Chris Kaman LACL C 0.783
104 Shaun Livingston WASH PG 0.783
105 Joel Przybilla PORT C 0.782
106 David West NORL PF 0.781
107 John Salmons CHIC SF 0.776
108 Matt Barnes ORLA SF 0.775
109 Darren Collison NORL PG 0.775
110 Ronny Turiaf GOLS C 0.774
111 Udonis Haslem MIAM PF 0.774
112 Shawn Marion DALL SF 0.772
113 Jason Williams ORLA PG 0.771
114 Keyon Dooling NJRS PG 0.771
115 Andray Blatche WASH C 0.770
116 James Harden OKLA SG 0.770
117 Brook Lopez NJRS C 0.770
118 Ray Allen BOST SG 0.770
119 Amir Johnson TORO SF 0.769
120 Ty Lawson DENV PG 0.768
121 Beno Udrih SACR PG 0.768
122 Chuck Hayes HOUS PF 0.765
123 Matt Bonner SANA PF 0.763
124 Reggie Evans TORO PF 0.763
125 Gilbert Arenas WASH PG 0.760

MAJOR ROLE PLAYERS / GOOD ENOUGH TO START
126 Zydrunas Ilgauskas CLEV C 0.758
127 Rasheed Wallace BOST PF 0.757
128 Lou Williams PHIL SG 0.756
129 Stephen Jackson CHAR SF 0.754
130 Dan Gadzuric MILW C 0.754
131 Jamario Moon CLEV SF 0.754
132 Ron Artest LALK SF 0.752
133 Rodney Stuckey DETR PG 0.749
134 Shelden Williams BOST PF 0.748
135 Oleksiy Pecherov MINN C 0.748
136 Aaron Brooks HOUS PG 0.747
137 Boris Diaw CHAR PF 0.746
138 C.J. Watson GOLS PG 0.746
139 Brendan Haywood WASH C 0.744
140 Emeka Okafor NORL C 0.742
141 Taj Gibson CHIC PF 0.741
142 J.R. Smith DENV SG 0.738
143 Mike Miller WASH SF 0.732
144 Channing Frye PHNX C 0.731
145 Louis Amundson PHNX PF 0.731
146 Elton Brand PHIL PF 0.726
147 D.J. Mbenga LALK C 0.725
148 Tayshaun Prince DETR SF 0.724
149 Francisco Garcia SACR SG 0.724
150 Tyler Hansbrough INDI PF 0.724
151 Trevor Ariza HOUS SG 0.723
152 Allen Iverson PHIL SG 0.722
153 Rashard Lewis ORLA PF 0.721
154 Richard Jefferson SANA SF 0.721
155 Luc Richard Mbah a Moute MILW SF 0.721
156 Jamal Crawford ATLA SG 0.721
157 Brad Miller CHIC C 0.720
158 Josh Boone NJRS C 0.718
159 Jason Richardson PHNX SG 0.718
160 Sebastian Telfair LACL PG 0.717
161 Marvin Williams ATLA PF 0.716
162 David Andersen HOUS C 0.715
163 Caron Butler DALL SF 0.715
164 Michael Beasley MIAM PF 0.714
165 George Hill SANA PG 0.713
166 Ronnie Brewer UTAH SG 0.712
167 D.J. Augustin CHAR PG 0.712
168 Monta Ellis GOLS PG 0.711
169 Sean May SACR PF 0.710
170 Anthony Tolliver GOLS PF 0.709
171 Kenyon Martin DENV PF 0.709
172 Tyson Chandler CHAR C 0.709
173 Rodrigue Beaubois DALL PG 0.707
174 Stephen Jackson GOLS SF 0.704
175 Shane Battier HOUS SF 0.703
176 Stephen Graham CHAR SF 0.702
177 Mike Conley MEMP PG 0.702
178 Earl Watson INDI PG 0.701
179 T.J. Ford INDI PG 0.700

GOOD ROLE PLAYERS / OFTEN GOOD 6TH MAN PLAYERS
180 Ramon Sessions MINN PG 0.699
181 Corey Maggette GOLS SF 0.699
182 Marcin Gortat ORLA PF 0.698
183 Terrence Williams NJRS SG 0.698
184 Jarrett Jack TORO PG 0.698
185 James Singleton WASH SF 0.696
186 JaVale McGee WASH C 0.694
187 Jose Juan Barea DALL PG 0.694
188 Marcus Thornton NORL SG 0.693
189 Daequan Cook MIAM SG 0.691
190 Jordan Farmar LALK PG 0.689
191 Kirk Hinrich CHIC PG 0.689
192 Carl Landry SACR PF 0.689
193 Shannon Brown LALK PG 0.687
194 Anthony Carter DENV PG 0.686
195 Jason Thompson SACR PF 0.686
196 Mike Dunleavy INDI SF 0.686
197 Robin Lopez PHNX C 0.684
198 Spencer Hawes SACR C 0.680
199 Rudy Fernandez PORT SG 0.678
200 Drew Gooden LACL PF 0.678
201 Steve Blake LACL PG 0.677
202 Bobby Simmons NJRS SF 0.676
203 Larry Hughes NWYR SG 0.675
204 Jerry Stackhouse MILW SF 0.675
205 Quentin Richardson MIAM SG 0.675
206 Rudy Gay MEMP SF 0.675
207 Darko Milicic MINN C 0.674
208 Drew Gooden DALL PF 0.674
209 Reggie Williams GOLS SF 0.673
210 Ronald Murray CHAR SG 0.671
211 Grant Hill PHNX SF 0.669
212 Nate Robinson BOST PG 0.668
213 Travis Outlaw LACL SF 0.668
214 Steve Blake PORT PG 0.667
215 Devin Harris NJRS PG 0.665
216 Antawn Jamison WASH PF 0.665
217 Danilo Gallinari NWYR SF 0.664
218 Wilson Chandler NWYR SF 0.664
219 Gerald Henderson CHAR SG 0.664
220 Tony Allen BOST SG 0.663
221 Kyrylo Fesenko UTAH C 0.662
222 Anthony Morrow GOLS SG 0.661
223 Jordan Hill HOUS PF 0.661
224 Jared Dudley PHNX SF 0.660
225 Daniel Gibson CLEV PG 0.660
226 Jeff Green OKLA PF 0.659
227 Josh McRoberts INDI PF 0.659
228 Anthony Johnson ORLA PG 0.658
229 J.J. Redick ORLA SG 0.658
230 Al Harrington NWYR PF 0.655
231 Luther Head INDI PG 0.654
232 Nicolas Batum PORT SF 0.653
233 Theo Ratliff CHAR C 0.650
234 Mario Chalmers MIAM PG 0.648
235 Brandon Bass ORLA PF 0.648
236 Kris Humphries NJRS PF 0.646
237 Chris Duhon NWYR PG 0.643
238 Nenad Krstic OKLA C 0.642
239 Kris Humphries DALL PF 0.642

SATISFACTORY ROLE PLAYERS / USUALLY DO NOT START
240 Rasho Nesterovic TORO C 0.637
241 Hedo Turkoglu TORO SF 0.635
242 Johan Petro DENV C 0.635
243 Randy Foye WASH PG 0.634
244 Jrue Holiday PHIL PG 0.633
245 Mickael Pietrus ORLA SG 0.631
246 Jared Jeffries NWYR PF 0.627
247 Leandro Barbosa PHNX SG 0.626
248 Joel Anthony MIAM C 0.624
249 O.J. Mayo MEMP SG 0.622
250 Chase Budinger HOUS SF 0.621
251 Roger Mason SANA SG 0.619
252 Caron Butler WASH SF 0.617
253 Peja Stojakovic NORL SF 0.615
254 Marreese Speights PHIL PF 0.613
255 Jamaal Tinsley MEMP PG 0.613
256 Bobby Brown NORL PG 0.611
257 Jonas Jerebko DETR SF 0.610
258 Omri Casspi SACR SF 0.609
259 Kurt Thomas MILW PF 0.608
260 Thaddeus Young PHIL SF 0.607
261 Brandon Rush INDI SG 0.606
262 Hasheem Thabeet MEMP C 0.605
263 Damien Wilkins MINN SG 0.601
264 Rodney Carney PHIL SF 0.601
265 Earl Boykins WASH PG 0.599
266 J.J. Hickson CLEV PF 0.599
267 Willie Green PHIL SG 0.598
268 Anthony Parker CLEV SG 0.596
269 Jamaal Magloire MIAM C 0.594
270 Wesley Matthews UTAH SG 0.592
271 Devean George GOLS SG 0.592
272 Richard Hamilton DETR SG 0.592
273 Kevin Martin SACR SG 0.591
274 Andrea Bargnani TORO C 0.591
275 Ryan Gomes MINN SF 0.589
276 Thabo Sefolosha OKLA SF 0.589
277 Rafer Alston NJRS PG 0.589
278 Tracy McGrady NWYR SG 0.588
279 Marco Belinelli TORO SG 0.587
280 Michael Finley BOST SF 0.585
281 Marcus Williams MEMP PG 0.583
282 Martell Webster PORT SG 0.583
283 Charlie Villanueva DETR PF 0.582

MARGINAL ROLE PLAYERS / RARELY START
284 Derek Fisher LALK PG 0.578
285 Jannero Pargo CHIC PG 0.577
286 Toney Douglas NWYR PG 0.577
287 Chris Hunter GOLS PF 0.576
288 Derrick Brown CHAR SF 0.575
289 Yi Jianlian NJRS PF 0.575
290 Nathan Jawai MINN PF 0.575
291 Ime Udoka SACR SG 0.574
292 Sergio Rodriguez NWYR PG 0.574
293 Arron Afflalo DENV SG 0.573
294 Kevin Martin HOUS SG 0.572
295 Hakim Warrick MILW PF 0.571
296 Al Thornton WASH SF 0.569
297 Will Bynum DETR PG 0.568
298 Jonny Flynn MINN PG 0.568
299 James Posey NORL SF 0.564
300 Mikki Moore GOLS C 0.561
301 Darius Songaila NORL PF 0.561
302 Jerryd Bayless PORT PG 0.556
303 Jon Brockman SACR PF 0.554
304 Sasha Vujacic LALK SG 0.554
305 Dante Cunningham PORT SF 0.551
306 Michael Redd MILW SG 0.551
307 Eric Gordon LACL SG 0.550
308 C.J. Miles UTAH SF 0.549
309 Al Thornton LACL SF 0.547
310 Julian Wright NORL SF 0.545
311 Jeff Teague ATLA PG 0.544
312 Marquis Daniels BOST SG 0.543
313 Dahntay Jones INDI SG 0.542
314 Chris Douglas-Roberts NJRS SG 0.541
315 Zaza Pachulia ATLA C 0.538
316 Etan Thomas OKLA C 0.538
317 Sonny Weems TORO SG 0.537
318 Devin Brown NORL SG 0.533
319 Jason Maxiell DETR PF 0.532
320 Bill Walker NWYR SG 0.532
321 Courtney Lee NJRS SG 0.528
322 James Jones MIAM SF 0.525
323 Donte Greene SACR SF 0.524
324 Kenny Thomas SACR PF 0.523
325 Wayne Ellington MINN SG 0.521
326 Juwan Howard PORT PF 0.520

POOR PLAYERS / SHOULD NEVER START
327 Charlie Bell MILW SG 0.518
328 Corey Brewer MINN SF 0.518
329 Hakim Warrick CHIC PF 0.514
330 DeAndre Jordan LACL C 0.512
331 Rasual Butler LACL SG 0.509
332 Glen Davis BOST PF 0.508
333 Sam Young MEMP SF 0.508
334 Austin Daye DETR SF 0.507
335 Ronald Murray CHIC SG 0.504
336 Vladimir Radmanovic GOLS SF 0.494
337 Solomon Jones INDI PF 0.493
338 Ben Gordon DETR SG 0.491
339 James Johnson CHIC PF 0.487
340 Rafer Alston MIAM PG 0.482
341 Eduardo Najera DALL PF 0.482
342 Chucky Atkins DETR PG 0.477
343 Earl Clark PHNX SF 0.474
344 Joey Graham DENV SF 0.473
345 Fabricio Oberto WASH C 0.468
346 Jason Smith PHIL PF 0.466
347 Andres Nocioni SACR SF 0.464
348 Jared Jeffries HOUS PF 0.462
349 Nick Young WASH SG 0.462
350 Maurice Evans ATLA SF 0.462
351 Keith Bogans SANA SG 0.462
352 Josh Howard DALL SF 0.460

VERY POOR PLAYERS
353 Eddie House NWYR SG 0.454
354 Joe Smith ATLA PF 0.453
355 Kwame Brown DETR C 0.452
356 Antoine Wright TORO SF 0.451
357 Darrell Arthur MEMP PF 0.443
358 Jarvis Hayes NJRS SF 0.438
359 Ricky Davis LACL SF 0.437
360 Mardy Collins LACL PG 0.436
361 Malik Hairston SANA SG 0.433
362 Jeff Pendergraph PORT PF 0.432
363 Jermaine Taylor HOUS SG 0.428
364 Chris Wilcox DETR C 0.417
365 DeMar DeRozan TORO SG 0.414
366 Jodie Meeks MILW SG 0.413
367 Quinton Ross DALL SF 0.406

EXTREMELY POOR PLAYERS
368 Morris Peterson NORL SG 0.394
369 Josh Powell LALK PF 0.386
370 Jason Kapono PHIL SG 0.383
371 Jawad Williams CLEV SF 0.369
372 DeMarre Carroll MEMP SF 0.357
373 Ryan Hollins MINN C 0.351
374 Steve Novak LACL SF 0.345
375 Trenton Hassell NJRS SF 0.342
376 Brian Scalabrine BOST C 0.329
377 Michael Finley SANA SF 0.321
378 Sasha Pavlovic MINN SG 0.314
379 DeShawn Stevenson WASH SG 0.287
380 Malik Allen DENV PF 0.282
381 DaJuan Summers DETR SF 0.266

SCALE FOR REGULAR SEASON REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A well above normal starter 0.820 0.899
Very Good Player / A solid starter 0.760 0.819
Major Role Player / Good enough to start 0.700 0.759
Good Role Player / Often a good 6th man 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player / Usually do not start 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player / Rarely start 0.520 0.579
Poor Player / Should never start 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player .399 and less

AVERAGE RATINGS BY POSITION
Not all positions are created equal. These are the average ratings by position among all NBA players who play 300 minutes or more. There are very few small forwards and shooting guards who are superstars. Most (but definitely not all) superstars are players who can play point guard, power forward, or center.

Point Guard .750
Shooting Guard .640
Small Forward .640
Power Forward .720
Center .750
All Positions / All Players (NBA Overall Average) .700

PLAYOFF GRADE PLAYERS
Playoff Grade Players have ratings of .560 and higher. Players with ratings below .560 should not play in the playoffs unless the team is forced to play them so that they have two players at a position and/or so that the team has at least eight players playing in the playoffs and/or because the coach is absolutely certain the low rating player will play better in the playoffs than he did in the regular season.

REGULAR SEASON STARTING PLAYERS
All starters on all teams should have ratings of .575 and higher. If a team has no player at a postion with at least a .575 rating, then it is extremely deficient at that position due to injuries or due to management incompetence.

THE ALL IMPORTANT, AWARD WINNING REAL PLAYER RATINGS USER GUIDE
The above are a few hightlights from the User Guide for Real Player Ratings. For complete details regarding how the Real Player Ratings are designed, how and why they work, and how exactly you can use them, see the User Guide. The User Guide for Real Player Ratings is a necessary reference for anyone who wants to truly understand the value of, the validity of, and the ways you can use the Real Player Rating performance measures.

Also, you should become a regular visitor to Quest for the Ring if you want to get the full advantage of reading and using Real Player Ratings Series performance measures. The more you visit and check out ratings, the more quickly and easily you will be able to evaluate what you are seeing.

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