The Massive Rout, Nuggets 138 Supersonics 96, and the Massive Point Guard Blunder

The Nuggets, having dropped back into a course toward the 9th seed in the West following 3 straight losses, took out their frustrations on the tired, kind of banged up, and definitely rebuilding Seattle Supersonics. The final score of this laugher was the Nuggets 138 and the Sonics 96. But the fans, who are generous and intelligent Great Northwest types, never booed their rebuilding Sonics, and you can bet if there is any way to stop the Oklahoma guy from moving their team, the Great Northwest folks will find it and keep their Sonics where they are.

The historic blowout gave the Nuggets the highest point total of any team in any game so far this year. Also, the Nuggets set a new franchise shooting accuracy record. The Nuggets made 59/88 shots, or 67.0%, eclipsing the previous franchise record of 66.7% against New Jersey early in the 1978 season. Denver also bettered the 66.2 percent shooting of the Lakers earlier this season, the previous best in the league. The highest scoring game before Wednesday night came when the Suns scored 137. Guess which team had the 137 points scored against it? It was the Nuggets, of course. Being a fan of the Nuggets means you are going to take a ride on the biggest roller coaster in the NBA.

Anthony did not get the ball anywhere near as much as he usually does, but Anthony’s number one skill, scoring, was not needed very much in a game against a tired and banged up rebuilding team with a very poor defense. And Anthony has an informal tradition of taking it easy in obvious routs, and also of encouraging his teammates to have the kind of big offensive games that they seldom have. This is what he used to do at Syracuse University. Anthony has always been misunderstood by those who did not see him play in Syracuse as having a tendency to be selfish, or being too obsessed about scoring.

Seattle Coach P.J. Carlissimo summed up the game this way: “We didn’t defend at all.” The Nuggets know a team that is not defending when they see one. They can immediately spot one since they themselves occasionally decide to play a game where “they don’t defend at all.”

The Sonics were missing two fairly important players, PG Earl Watson and PG Luke Ridnour, who did nothing in the 1st half due to a hamstring strain and did not return for the 2nd half. The Sonics have only 2 point guards on their team right now, and since 2-2=0, the Sonics didn’t have any point guards with which to play this game.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets are overloaded with point guards, even though many fans are convinced the PG position is going to be the death of the Nuggets in the playoffs, assuming they beat out either the Warriors or the no-Yao Rockets for the 8th and final playoff slot in the West. The reason for the confusion is that, while many fans are locked into the traditional, establishment view that Allen Iverson has never been so he can never be the designated starting point guard, the truth is that Iverson is playing both of the guard positions this season, and the designated point guard, Anthony Carter, simply fades into the background and becomes almost useless whenever Iverson takes charge of much or most of the ball distribution duties.

Despite the fact that there are a large number of Nuggets fans who would rather face the headless horseman than A.I. officially at the point, Iverson has actually been the effective point guard in numerous games already this year. Even George Karl, who of course as usual is on the side opposing my view, has in fact started A.I. at the point several times this season, especially back in November after Atkins was injured and before Carter started playing for the Nuggets. Karl is not opposed to Iverson playing PG; he’s just opposed to admitting that Iverson plays a lot of PG, because then he would have to explain why the heck the Nuggets often have two point guards on the court at the same time. Karl is good at getting into technical team management mistakes as he runs the Nuggets, and he is also good at keeping them hidden and escaping having to explain them. In other words, he is good at living in falsehoods.

In games in which Iverson has made 10 or more assists, the Nuggets are 11-1. The only loss was to the Jazz in overtime on Feb. 6, despite 10 assists by Iverson. In games in which Anthony Carter has made 10 or more assists, the Nuggets are 6-1. Iverson is ahead of Carter in the number of double digit dimes games 12-7.

In games in which Iverson had made 8 or more assists, the Nuggets are 19-7. In games in which Carter had made 8 or more assists, the Nuggets are 12-3. Iverson is ahead of Carter in games of 8 or more assists, 26-15. But the Nuggets have won 80% of games in which Carter has made 8 or more assists, and only 73% of games in which Iverson has made 8 or more assists, which is the reverse of what I expected to find. But Iverson’s winning percentage with 8 or more assists is certainly not grossly lower than Carter’s.

But here is where it gets really interesting, fasten your seatbelts, please. There have been 14 games in which Carter has made more assists than Iverson, and there have been 41 games in which Iverson has made more assists than Carter. 12 of those 41 games were before Carter was brought on to the Nuggets. So while both Carter and Iverson have been on the team, Iverson has made more assists than Carter 29 times and Carter has made more assists than Iverson 14 times.

Overall so far this season, Iverson is averaging 7.3 assists per game and Carter is averaging 6.1 assists per game. With February drawing to a close, there have now been 3 full months in which both Carter and Iverson have been on the team. Of those months, there has only been one month when Carter averaged more assists per game than Iverson, which was January. In December, it was 7.1 assists per game for Iverson and 5.1 assists per game for Carter. In January, it was 7.6 assists per game for Carter and 6.5 assists per game for Iverson. And now in February, it has been 8.8 assists per game for Iverson to 5.6 assists per game for Carter.

During February, a wide gap has opened up between Iverson and Carter, and this is why I was forced to go the extent I have to explain the situation and the big mistake I have discovered that has been made by Karl and by a substantial number of fans. I used to think that the whether Iverson should start at the point debate was just one of those typical sports arguments, but then I realized I had stumbled on to a big blunder that has emerged from this situation.

Now let’s take a look at the winning and losing:

14 Games in which Carter made more assists than Iverson: Nuggets are 8-6 or 57%;
29 Games in which Iverson has made more assists than Carter: 16-13 or 55%.

Once again, I have been prevented from making a really slam dunk argument, which I would have been able to do had the Iverson winning percentage been greater than the Carter percentage. However, I have at least shown once again that it is irrational to think that Iverson can not win as many games for the Nuggets when he is the main point guard as Carter can. And just as importantly, I have exposed for the entire world to see that the Nuggets are living the George Karl lie regarding their point guard situation, because Iverson has been more of a point guard than Carter has been for two of the three months when both were starting, with the gap in February opening up wide in favor of Iverson.

When you live a lie, you usually suffer damages. For the Nuggets, during February, the damage has been that Carter has become dangerously useless on the court, at least while playing alongside Iverson, as Iverson has wisely decided to concentrate on distributing more than at almost any time in his career. Carter’s recent slump is no accident; it was a direct result of his point guard duties being partly taken over by Iverson.

So a wide gap has opened up in February, where Iverson has averaged 8.8 assists per game and Carter has averaged 5.6 assists per game. The bad news, as I already mentioned, is that Carter has become of little value out there when Iverson is also out there. The good news is only a potential, but it could be huge if the potential became reality. We can only hope that the reason Iverson is looking for more assists than ever is that he remembers the number one reason why the Nuggets lost 4 straight games to the Spurs in the playoffs last year, which was that Iverson was dribbling and shooting too much and distributing too little. In fairness to both Iverson and Karl regarding the Spurs disaster, it should be noted that the Carter role last year was being played by Steve Blake, who was a much more experienced NBA point guard than Carter is this year, so the chance that Iverson would take over actual point guard duties from Blake was never as likely as the chance that Iverson would take over actual point guard duties from Carter this year. If Iverson does continue to take over a large part of the passing for scores, the Nuggets could theoretically be setting themselves up for a first round shocker, where they would take the series to 7 games.

Before we leave this extremely important subject, let’s take a close look at last year:

2007-08 Nuggets: Iverson 7.3 assists per game; Carter 6.1 assists per game.
2006-07 Nuggets: Iverson 7.2 assists per game; Blake 6.6 assists per game.

Here we see that Iverson had almost the exact same number of assists last year as this year, while last year’s designated starting point guard made half an assist more per game than this year’s designated point guard. Now let’s take a look at the Spurs series:

IVERSON AND BLAKE ASSISTS IN THE NUGGETS/SPURS PLAYOFF SERIES
Game 1 Iverson 5 Blake 3; Nuggets 95 Spurs 89
Game 2 Iverson 5 Blake 7; Spurs 97 Nuggets 88
Game 3 Iverson 4 Blake 7; Spurs 96 Nuggets 91
Game 4 Iverson 7 Blake 4; Spurs 96 Nuggets 89
Game 5 Iverson 8 Blake 2; Spurs 93 Nuggets 78

Here we see that Iverson made more assists than did Blake in the one and only game that the Nuggets won. Overall, the Nuggets were 1-2 in games in which Iverson made more assists than Blake, and they were 0-2 in games in which Blake made more assists than Iverson. But game 5 was a rout in San Antonio after the Nuggets’ spirit was broken, and after a key player, J.R. Smith, was benched. Quite frankly, the Nuggets most likely knew in advance that they were almost certainly going to lose that game. And there was no way that the Spurs were going to lose that game at home and have to return to Denver for a game 6. So if you don’t count that hopeless game, in games in which Iverson made more assists than Blake, the Nuggets were 1-1, and they were 0-2 in games in which Blake made more assists than Iverson. Therefore, there is some evidence from the Nuggets-Spurs series in support of my theory that Iverson playing point guard and being responsible for getting the most assists of all Nuggets is better for the Nuggets then if Iverson is not playing point guard and is not responsible in that way.

I wish there had also been regular season evidence to go with this limited evidence. You can bet that I will be continuing to watch this closely in the final weeks of this season, looking for more evidence.

I am sure the truth is that the Nuggets are better off to the extent that Iverson does take over the actual point guard duties from Carter, unless Karl stubbornly continues to refuse to reduce Carter’s playing time, in which case it is probably a wash. I have proved that Iverson is at least as good as Carter with respect to basic point guard duties. Since Iverson scores at practically double the rate that Carter scores, and since he would still score a lot more than Carter does if he were the designated point guard, and since Iverson’s turnovers would be only very slightly more than now if he was the designated point guard, because he would be handling the ball hardly any more than he already does, to me it is a now a no-brainer that Iverson should be the starting point guard.

Iverson, I am starting to hope based on the February games, is smart enough to know that (1) He can’t do what he did last year in the Spurs series and expect to win and that (2) No matter what Karl and a substantial number of fans think, he can and should take over many of the point guard duties from Carter who ironically, almost everyone, including those afraid of Iverson at the point, believes will be close to a disaster in the playoffs.

In a word, it seems to me that Iverson has started to coach himself.

PROJECTIONS

The current odds of the Nuggets making the playoffs, according to Hollinger at ESPN’s excellent team analysis system, are 65%. The Nuggets are projected to be the 8th seed in the Western Conference. The Hollinger odds don’t take into account that, most likely, neither Nene nor Atkins are going to be available to and in top form for the Nuggets for the stretch run, so the real odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs are probably around 50-55% now.

The Lakers, the Hornets, the Spurs, the Mavericks, the Jazz, the Suns, and the Rockets are currently considered virtual locks to make the playoffs.

The Warriors are projected to have a good winning record, but miss the postseason. The odds that the Warriors will make the playoffs are currently 51%, substantially less than the Nuggets’ 65%.

Meanwhile, the Rockets have just lost their best player, and one of the best players in the NBA, Yao Ming, for the rest of the season. Therefore, they may drop far below their current projection, since the projections do not take injuries into account. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Rockets will finish with the 9th seed, in which case both the Nuggets and the Warriors will make the playoffs.

For the Nuggets, winning the Northwest Division is very unlikely at this point; the odds on that are at 17%, The Nuggets would most likely have to beat the Jazz in both of their remaining games against them, both of which are in Salt Lake City, in order to have a shot at winning the Northwest.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (sports hernia) on Jan. 9 and underwent successful surgery on Jan. 11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least March 10. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by late March.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on Jan. 14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least the first week of March, but could easily be out for the entire rest of the season.
Eduardo Najera: did not travel with the team to Seattle on 2/27 (personal reasons)

SUPERSONICS PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE
Earl Watson: Sat out this game due to an unknown illness. He may miss the Sonics game vs. Miami on February 29. He is considered day to day.
Robert Swift: An MRI on the injured right knee revealed a torn meniscus. He is out for the season.
Luke Ridnour: Did not play in the second half of this game after he experienced some tightness in his right hamstring. He is considered day to day.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of February 28, 2008

The Nuggets are under a YELLOW ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND LEAVES
1. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
2. Nene illness 14 points
3. Eduardo Najera 12 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 0 points.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 0-12 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, with too many fouls, and so forth. 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 2 points.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, 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 games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

On defense a system is much less important than on offense. On defense, the main strategic decision is whether you are playing zone or man to man defense. The choice varies during each game, and usually depends on a gut feeling of the coach and/or the defensive floor leader, as to which is better at a particular point in the game, and with a particular opposing lineup on the court. More important than whether a zone or man to man defense is in effect is the quality of the actual defending.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and patterns: 7 Points

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

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 53, 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 has become in between a good team and a mid-level team when it is under this alert.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
A rough estimate of the Sonics’ alert status is that they were in high GREY or low YELLOW alert status while, as you can see, the NUGGETS were in high YELLOW alert. So the Sonics had approximately a one level advantage as far as the alert status is concerned. Obviously, that advantage was not all that much help.

In a game against a tired team with little defense available, the Nuggets’ offensive deficiencies were meaningless. J.R. Smith got to play as many minutes as he should be playing in ordinary games, thanks to garbage time, where he was sort of the leader of the pack of rarely seen Nuggets players.

Both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many more days and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for most or all of the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs.

The mid January losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks in January, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT and especially RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 10 Supersonics 12
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 7 Supersonics 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 44
Supersonics Non-Starters Points: 39

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 13
Supersonics Non-Starters Rebounds: 22

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 8
Supersonics Non-Starters Assists: 8

OBSERVATIONS ON HOW THE RESERVES WERE USED AND PLAYED
Coach P.J. Carlissimo played all but one player he had available between the regular game and the garbage time. Coach George Karl of the Nuggets played every single Nugget who was available; there are only 10 Nuggets available these days.

Amazingly, the Supersonics non-starters were very close to the Nuggets in points, 39-44, and they were much better in rebounding, 22-13. Each group of non-starters made 8 assists.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also 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)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player 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. While some are biased in favor of offensive players, such as the efficiency measure at the NBA site, 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, which I think is a very good balance between offense and defense:

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 5 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-SUPERSONICS PLAYER RATINGS
NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 51.4 Season 41.1
Marcus Camby: Game 43.5 Season 33.2
Kenyon Martin: Game 41.2 Season 22.8
Anthony Carter: Game 40.6 Season 20.9
Carmelo Anthony: Game 28.8 Season 39.0
Linas Kleiza: Game 25.2 Season 19.1
J.R. Smith: Game 23.1 Season 15.7
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 14.4 Season 5.3
Taurean Green: Game 9.1 Season 3.8
Steven Hunter: Game 8.8 Season 4.7

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Eduardo Najera: Did Not Play-Personal Leave

SUPERSONICS PLAYER RATINGS
Johan Petro: Game 28.9 Season 10.3
Mickael Gelabale: Game 26.4 Season 7.1
Kevin Durant: Game 20.5 Season 26.6
Jeff Green: Game 15.6 Season 15.3
Damien Wilkins: Game 14.4 Season 15.4
Chris Wilcox: Game 12.3 Season 22.4
Nick Collison: Game 11.9 Season 21.7
Donyell Marshall: Game 8.6 Season 6.8
Francisco Elson: Game 4.2 Season 7.2
Luke Ridnour: Game 3.6 Season 12.7
Adrian Griffin: Game 1.2 Season 4.7
Ira Newble: Game 0.6 Season 7.9

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 THE PLAYER RATINGS:
Every single Nugget except one stepped up in this monumental rout. Ironically, only Anthony was below his seasonal average..

Martin was a monster on both offense and defense in this game. Neither Iverson nor Camby had any mercy for the Sonics either, as both of them were about 1/4 more productive than they usually are.

Anthony Carter took full advantage of the opportunity to come out of his slump and have a huge game. It was his 1st above normal game since the Celtics game. He was well below normal in the 3 games in between. Carter tends to do poorly when the Nuggets are going to lose, and he tends to do well when the Nuggets are going to win a game.

Kleiza and Smith were both well above normal, Smith more so than Kleiza.

Every one of the garbage time players, Diawara, Green, and Hunter, were playing as if their life depended on it. And their basketball life certainly depended on it, since they are playing for George Karl after all, who is one of the stingiest coaches in the NBA regarding playing time for reserves.

The startling thing about the Sonics is that the highest seasonal average player they had on the court in this game was G-F Kevin Durant, whose average is well under 30, at 26.6. AI and Melo are half again as much as that, and Camby is much higher as well. The Nuggets have paid a huge price to assemble this team with it’s 3 mega stars, and it is a shame that fans are sweating whether they will make the playoffs or not.

C Johan Petro and SF Mickael Gelabale came out of nowhere to lead the Sonics. Petro was almost 3 times and Gelabale was almost 4 times as productive as usual. Durant played relatively poorly, while SF Green and G-F Wilkins were dead center on their seasonal norms.

F-C Wilcox and F-C Collison were major disappointments for Seattle, which left their front court devastated.
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REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. 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, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.80 Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Star Plus-Spectacular Performance
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Extremely Poor-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-SUPERSONICS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 1.600…Diawara played only 9 minutes.
2. Taurean Green, Den 1.517…Green played only 6 minutes.
3. Allen Iverson, Den 1.469
4. Steven Hunter, Den 1.467…Hunter played only 6 minutes.
5. Kenyon Martin, Den 1.329
6. Marcus Camby, Den 1.176
7. Anthony Carter, Den 1.068
8. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.050
9. J.R. Smith, Den 1.004
10. Carmelo Anthony, Den 0.960
11. Donyell Marshall, Sea 0.956…Marshall played only 9 minutes.
12. Mickael Gelabale, Sea 0.943
13. Johan Petro, Sea 0.903
14. Nick Collison, Sea 0.700
15. Francisco Elson, Sea 0.700…Elson played only 6 minutes.
16. Damien Wilkins, Sea 0.686
17. Kevin Durant, Sea 0.603
18. Jeff Green, Sea 0.473
19. Chris Wilcox, Sea 0.373
20. Luke Ridnour, Sea 0.212
21. Adrian Griffin, Sea 0.200…Griffin played only 6 minutes
22. Ira Newble, Sea 0.100…Newble played only 6 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Can you be a star or a superstar in garbage time? Of course, I am always on the lookout for superstar performances, even in garbage time. All 3 of the Nuggets’ garbage time only players were huge, but their minutes were very limited. Diawara was a superstar plus, while Green and Hunter were superstars.

Iverson was a superstar in the regular part of the game. Martin was a star-plus, and Camby, Carter, and Kleiza were all stars. In a game so extremely lopsided that you might not see one like it anywhere in the NBA for years to come, all 8 of the stars and up players were Nuggets.

There were 5 outstanding players, C Petro, SF Gelabale, and SF Marshall in limited minutes for the Sonics, and Smith and Anthony for the Nuggets. So the Nuggets had 10 of the 13 players who were outstanding or better.

This was total, perfect domination for the Nuggets over the Sonics, because the best Sonics’ player, which was SF Marshall, or else SF Gelabale if you don’t count the small minute players, was not as good as the worst Nugget, which was Carmelo Anthony. In other words, every single Nugget was better than every single Sonic. This is something that you will very seldom, if ever, see again in your lifetime.

G-F Durant and G-F Wilkins were only mediocre. SF Green was very poor and F-C Wilcox was extremely poor. PG Ridnour was a total disaster because he had a major hamstring problem.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

J.R. Smith: +33
Anthony Carter: +32
Allen Iverson: +29
Marcus Camby: +27
Linas Kleiza: +26
Kenyon Martin: +25
Carmelo Anthony: +18

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
The Nuggets won by 42 points, so you are almost never going to see numbers this big on the plus-minus. Only Anthony had a little mercy on the Sonics.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Turnovers: Total 17, Team 0, Anthony 5, Camby 1, Carter 1, Diawara 0, Green 0, Hunter 0, Iverson 6, Kleiza 1, Martin 1, Smith 2

Personal Fouls: Total 16, Anthony 3, Camby 4, Carter 0, Diawara 1, Green 1, Hunter 0, Iverson 2, Kleiza 1, Martin 3, Smith 1

Carmelo Anthony played 30 minutes and was 7/13, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 16 points, and he made 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.

J.R. Smith played 23 minutes and was 6/9 and 3/5 on 3’s for 15 points, and he made 2 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 24 minutes and was 6/12, 2/4 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 15 points, and he made 3 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals.

Anthony Carter played 38 minutes and was 4/4, 1/1 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 12 points, and he made 12 assists, 4 steals, and 4 rebounds.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 6/9 for 12 points, and he made 14 rebounds, 5 blocks, 4 assists, and 2 steals.

Kenyon Martin played 31 minutes and was 11/14 and 1/2 from the line for 23 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Steven Hunter played 6 minutes and was 2/3 and 0/1 from the line for 4 points, and he made 3 rebounds and 1 block.

Allen Iverson played 35 minutes and was 13/18, 3/5 on 3’s, and 2/3 from the line for 31 points, and he made 6 assists, 5 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Taurean Green played 6 minutes and was 1/2 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 3 rebounds and 1 assist.

Yakhouba Diawara played 9 minutes and was 3/4 and 0/1 on 3’s for 6 points, and he made 3 assists and 2 rebounds.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Friday, February 29 in Denver to play the Clippers at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Clippers will be playing on back to back nights.