Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players For Nuggets 113 Clippers 103, Overtime, in Los Angeles Oct. 31

REAL PLAYER RATINGS (QUALITY) FOR THIS GAME
DENVER QUALITY
Nene, C 1.001
J.R. Smith, SG 0.746
Linas Kleiza, SF 0.655
Anthony Carter, PG 0.643
Allen Iverson, SG 0.576
Chris Andersen, PF 0.572
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.511
Kenyon Martin, PF 0.455
Juwan Howard, PF 0.294

CLIPPERS QUALITY
Al Thornton, SF 0.945
Chris Kaman, C 0.840
Baron Davis, PG 0.765
Mike Taylor, PG 0.688
Paul Davis, C 0.632
Tim Thomas, PF 0.368
Cuttino Mobley, SG 0.290
Jason Hart, PG 0.007
Ricky Davis, SF -0.173

SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Historic Superstar for this game 1.400 and more
Superstar 1.050 to 1.399
Star/Outstanding 0.800 to 1.050
Very Good 0.625 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624
Role Player 0.450 to 0.524
Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349
Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274
Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199

****************************************************
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION (QUANTITY) IN THIS GAME
DENVER QUANTITY
Nene, C 35.05
Allen Iverson, SG 27.05
J.R. Smith, SG 26.10
Anthony Carter, PG 24.45
Linas Kleiza, SF 19.00
Kenyon Martin, PF 17.75
Dahntay Jones, SG 9.70
Chris Andersen, PF 9.15
Juwan Howard, PF 2.35

CLIPPERS QUANTITY
Al Thornton, SF 45.35
Chris Kaman, C 36.95
Tim Thomas, PF 14.70
Cuttino Mobley, SG 11.30
Paul Davis, C 10.75
Baron Davis, PG 9.95
Mike Taylor, PG 8.25
Jason Hart, PG 0.20
Ricky Davis, SF -2.60

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9
Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9
Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9
Big Game 24.0 to 27.9
Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9
Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9
Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9
Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9
Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9
Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more
Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9
Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9
Big Game 18.0 to 21.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9
Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9
Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9
Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9
Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9


THE HIGHEST QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME








CLIPPERS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: Al Thornton
Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: Chris Kaman
Very Good during minutes on the court: Baron Davis
Very Good during minutes on the court: Paul Davis









NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the Court: Nene
Very Good during minutes on the court: J.R. Smith


THE GREATEST POWER PLAYERS OF THIS GAME










CLIPPERS POWER PLAYERS
Off the Charts: Happens only a few times a year in the NBA: Al Thornton
Massive and Memorable Game: Chris Kaman










NUGGETS POWER PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game: Nene
Very Big Game: J.R. Smith
Big Game: Allen Iverson

COMMENTS
How's this for a surprise key to the game: J.R. Smith made 10 rebounds! Also, Linas Kleiza made 8 rebounds, Nene made 11, and Kenyon Martin led the Nuggets with 13. These four insured that the Nuggets won the rebounding battle, which was very important in a game where, once again, there was no major point guard presence. Baron Davis went out early in the 2nd for L.A., while Denver continued with their inefficient and self-defeating "2 point guards in the game at the same time yet no one point guard in charge" offense. Keep in mind that it has been shown beyond any doubt that the Denver coaches do not subscribe to the dominant playmaker philosophy and so that they do not believe that even one true point guard is required to win games.

Although the Clippers made fewer turnovers than the push the pace Nuggets as you would expect, their offense was completely disorganized as the result of the absence of Baron Davis. Whereas the Nuggets were a little better off. They had, in effect, a weak playmaker presence in the form of the Iverson/Anthony Carter combination, although obviously it isn't supposed to take two point guards with a lot of burn to do what most other teams accomplish with one.

As for Nene, the plot has thickened. Although his offense came alive to say the least and although he was the Nuggets most valuable player in this game by a good margin, he was in foul trouble again for much of the night, and he did technically foul out again, in the overtime period.

Some Nuggets observers continue to be confused about how Nene differs from Marcus Camby. They are claiming that Nene for Camby is a defensive upgrade, which as I explained in detail recently is ridiculous, even if Nene eventually stays out of foul trouble on a regular basis. See the Jazz game report for details.

At the same time, ironically, they seem to be shy about emphasizing that Nene is a better offensive power than is Camby, even though Nene has no 3-point shot, and even though he is about the last player you would think of who can make a good play out of a double team or similar jam. But even so, Nene is overall a more powerful offensive player than Camby, while being a definite downgrade defensively.

Nene has better man to man defending than does Camby, though the Nene advantage is overestimated by the Camby haters because, for one thing, the Camby haters don't reduce the Nene advantage for the personal foul differential. Regardless of just what the Nene advantage over Camby in man to man defending is, Camby is without a doubt a bigger asset overall defensively, owing to Nene's inability to get close to Camby on instincts, quickness, hands, and rebounding.

USER GUIDE FOR THE ULTIMATE GAME BREAKDOWNS: PLAYERS (Last updated Oct. 25)
You are viewing RPR2.0! This is a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report.

I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGB:Ps, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such s the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet!

The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a Kegame where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this.

With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be.

The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows:

POSITIVE FACTORS
Points 1.00 (at par)
Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00
Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60
Number of FTs Made 0.00

Assists 1.75

Offensive Rebounds 1.15
Defensive Rebounds 1.25
Blocks 1.60
Steals 2.10

NEGATIVE FACTORS
3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00
2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85
FTs Missed -0.85

Turnovers -2.00
Personal Fouls -0.80

ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT
3-Pointer Made 4.00
2-Pointer Made 2.60
Free Throw Made 1.00
3-Pointer Missed -1.00
2-Pointer Missed -0.85
Free Throw Missed -0.85

ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT
3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200
2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246
1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459

ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT
Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143

QUALITY (RPR) AND QUANTITY (RPP) EXPLANATION
RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (all the good things minus all the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court.

Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did.

Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time.

The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless.

Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender.

Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Coaching: Jazz 98 Nuggets 94 in Utah, Nov. 1

This report will always lead off with “Total Production,” and with “Real Efficiency,” simply because these are probably the long hoped for development of a single measurement that can be used to compare the quality of coaching as shown by a particular game! If your time is limited, read these two sections at the least!

TOTAL PRODUCTION (See any of the Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players reports for how this is calculated)
Nuggets Total Real Player Production: 120.05
Jazz Total Real Player Production: 135.85

IF THE TEAM THAT PRODUCED THE MOST DID NOT WIN THE GAME, THE COACHING IS ALMOST CERTAINLY TO BLAME (EXCEPTING TRIVIAL DIFFERENCES IN PRODUCTION OR FINAL SCORE)
In this game the team that produced more did win the game. This is of course what you would expect for the great majority of games.

When the team whose players produced more loses the game, it is most likely because the coaching for that team is inferior. The combination of the strategies and tactics used by the lesser coaching staff is not as good at producing points as are the strategies and tactics used by the better coaching staff. Or in unusual cases, the players may be out of control and so they may be defying what the coaches have told them to do.
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REAL EFFICIENCY: THE MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE STATISTIC FOR COMPARING COACHES EVER DEVISED
Real Efficiency is points / production. It is telling you how good the team was in translating it’s production into the one and only thing that counts toward winning: scoring.

There are only two possible significant reasons why the real efficiency of one team can be substantially different from the other in a game. Any other reasons, including possible minor problems with factors underlying the production data, are going to be somewhere between very small and trivial.

The much more common reason will be if the coaching for one team is better than the coaching on the other team. How good the coaching is can be judged by not only how much the players produce, but also by how much payoff in points the team got from what the players did (which is points / production or "real efficiency").

Although all the specific ways that differences in the quality of coaching produce different efficiency in scoring will in all honesty most likely never be known, it is true except in one exception, described below, that the team with a substantially higher Real Efficiency had higher quality coaching. Specifically, the higher real efficiency team had some combination of better strategies, better defensive tactics, better offensive tactics, more effective planned plays, and more and / or better prepared non-starters for the game.

The exception to the rule is when a starting point guard or the defensive captain is not available. Of all the five starters, it is the point guard who in most cases is most responsible for translating the offensive coaching for the team into actual playing results in the game. Either the center or the power forward is going to be most important for translating the defensive coaching into the real game. If either of these two starters is not available, then the coaching will not be reflected in the real game as much as it usually is. Unless the coaching is really bad, coaching is going to have some amount of positive boosting effect on efficiency. This effect will be sharply reduced if either the point guard, the defensive captain, or both are not available.

If a star player who is neither the designated point guard nor the defensive captain is not available, there will be some reduction in the influence of the coaching, but it will be much less than the reduction caused if the point guard or the defensive captain is missing. For example, if Kobe Bryant is not available, the Lakers are going to be in big trouble. But they will be in trouble mostly because of the loss of what he does; there will be little reduction in the ability of Phil Jackson and company to influence how the game is played by the Lakers. But if Derek Fisher or Pau Gasol is not available, the Lakers lose not only those players but they lose much of the efficiency advantage that their coaching usually gives them.

But won't the backups be able to make sure that the coaching still works it's magic? Backups do not translate the coaching anywhere near as well as starters do, because this process is not easy or automatic, and it requires the players who play a lot of minutes to do it correctly and thoroughly.

The number of shots changed from scores to misses by great defending is NOT among the possible reasons for a difference in real efficiency. Although that can not be calculated for individual players, forced misses are included in the production numbers at the team level. Every time a player defends well and forces a miss, the other team gets a reduction of it’s production count, which is the same statistically as if you knew who forced the misses and gave them the agreed upon reward for each miss they forced.

Moreover, although at this time it is too early to say for certain, it is considered very likely that the Real Efficiency for various coaching staffs will be relatively consistent from game to game. If this proves to be the case, then Real Efficiency will be a huge breakthrough in comparing one set of coaches with another.

REAL EFFICIENCY IN THIS GAME
Nuggets Real Efficiency: Points / Production 0.783
Jazz Real Efficiency: Points / Production: 0.721

Difference: Nuggets were .062 better in converting production to points. This is a very significant advantage and ordinarily would mean that the Nuggets coaching was better than the Jazz coaching. A substantial difference is .020 or more.

But for this game the exception clearly applies. The Jazz were without their starting point guard Deron Williams, who is the most important player on the team for making sure that the Jazz' coaching is translated into real games. It is impossible at this time to even estimate what the reduction in efficiency is going to be due to the unavailability of Willisms or a similar key player. Therefore, it is not possible to know whether the Jazz coaching was better than the Nuggets coaching for this game, or whether they were about the same. The absence of Carmelo Anthony had only a small impact on any boost the Nuggets get from their coaching, since he is neither the point guard nor the defensive captain.

COACHES USE OF RESERVES--NUMBER OF PLAYERS USED
In most cases, the coach who uses more players is the better coach. Reserves would not be professional basketball players at all unless they at least on occasion play as well as starters more often do. So having one or two more reserve players play in a game than the other team has playing gives your team that many more opportunities to discover a reserve player who is “on fire” for the particular game, and who can be a surprise factor toward winning it. Of course, the quality coaches need to and usually do recognize a reserve who is on fire and then leave him in the game more than usual in order to pocket the full amount of the advantage from this.

It has been observed that the coaches with the best overall records and especially the ones with the best playoff records play non-starters for substantially more minutes than the lesser coaches. Yes they have their mega stars, but one way they try to get the extra edge over the other guy is to come up with a great package of non-starter playing times for each game.

And the coaches who consistently play that extra non-starter or two are almost by definition the ones who are better at developing the non-starters and who are better at integrating the non-starters into the offensive and defensive game plans, which are of course built around what the starters can do.

NUMBER OF NON-STARTERS IN THIS GAME
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 10 Jazz 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Jazz 9
Since it is slightly more important to play an extra player 10 minutes or more than it is to play an extra player 6 minutes or more, the Jazz were slightly advantaged by this pattern. But overall, both teams gave themselves about the same opportunity to discover a player who was "on fire" and ready to surprisingly propel the team to victory.

PLAYING TIME OF NON-STARTERS EXPLAINED
Now let’s look at minutes. Since the gap between how good the starters are and how good the non-starters are on average is bigger for some teams than for others, you can not simply say that the more minutes the reserves play, the better the coaching is. However, if during the course of the season you see that a Coach consistently uses reserves for 6-14 minutes less and especially for 15 or more minutes less than most other coaches do, than this would be a likely sign that the Coach is excessively stingy with his reserves, or overly reliant on his starters if you prefer.

If a coach is stingy, this frequently will mean that he is unable or unwilling to one extent or another to develop his non-starters into being better players and possible starters. Also, stingy coaches will be ones who often are unable or unwilling to integrate the non-starters better into the dominant offense and defense of the team. Specifically, for example, the stingy coaches are not going to be very interested in making sure that each non-starter has an offensive play or two called while he is on court, where he is one of the key players on the play.

Whether the non-starters are getting enough playing time is something that you have to be sort of a detective about. You decide whether the reserves are getting enough playing time by considering all of the following:

1. How often does this coach play one or two or even three fewer reserves than the other coach?

2. How often does this coach play his reserves for fewer total minutes than the other coach plays his reserves?

3. How many minutes in total this season (or in prior years, for that matter) have reserves gotten on this team compared with what reserves of other teams have gotten? Although this has apparently never been reported anywhere, look for a special report on this subject by yours truly.

4. Possible Mitigating Factors… How good are the reserves compared with the starters? And just as importantly, how big is the gap compared with the gap for other teams? The bigger the gap to begin with between how good the starters are and how good the non-starters are, and the bigger the differences in the gaps between this team and other teams, the more the coach is justified in violating (1), (2), and (3).

But keep in mind that no matter how great the starters are and how supposedly bad the non-starters are, a Coach never has a total blank check to be as stingy as he wants. A coach who is excessively stingy toward reserves due to his incorrect beliefs or philosophy is cheating not only the reserves but also the team as a whole. The stingiest six head coaches out of the 30 NBA coaches are ones who you can safely assume are cheating not only their reserves but their team as a whole. Since stingy coaches seem to be relatively common, you definitely do not want the coach of your team to be among the most stingy of all.

By the way, these six culprits will be identified in the not too distant future. Other stingy coaches can and will be identified on a case by case basis.

5 How often are the veteran starters being overplayed to the point where they “run out of gas” at the worst possible time, late in games? Beyond a certain point, which varies a little from veteran to veteran, any veteran starter loses some effectiveness after he is out on the court too long.

Is it possible for a coach to be too generous to non-starters? Yes, of course it is possible. But in the real world, it seems from all available evidence that this would be a rare problem.

PLAYING TIME OF NON-STARTERS FOR THIS GAME
Note: starters are considered to be the five players who played the most minutes; whether they actually started is not really important here.

Nuggets Non-Starters Minutes: 71
Jazz Non-Starters Minutes: 70
The 1 more minute that Nuggets non-starters played is not significant.

REAL PRODUCTION OF PLAYERS BROKEN DOWN
Now by looking at what the reserves did while out there, you can get some important evidence about how well the reserves are integrated into the overall offense and defense of the team. What you do is look at the production of the non-starters as a percentage of the production of the starters. The higher the percentage, the better the non-starters are integrated into the team’s overall offense and defense.

Real Player Production of Nuggets Non-Starters: 24.30
Real Player Production of Jazz Non-Starters: 22.25
Real Player Production of Nuggets Starters: 95.75
Real Player Production of Jazz Starters: 113.60

EVALUATION OF REAL PRODUCTION OF NON-STARTERS
In this game the Nuggets' non-starters, led by Chris Andersen, were apparently more integrated into their teams' offense and defense than were the Jazz non-starters.

Be cautioned that evidence from a single game is of limited value because all players have games where they are much above and other games where they are much below normal. So in order to make conclusions about how well a coaching staff has integrated their reserves into the team as a whole, you have to look for persistent patterns across many games, which is of course something we do!

NUGGETS COACHING ERRORS
EXTREME PLAYING TIME DECISIONS CONSTITUTING COACHING ERROR
At any given time, Karl may be doing one or more of the following:

1. He may be imposing a draconian penalty by completely benching a player who should not be benched unless the Nuggets want to shoot themselves in the foot or in the head.
2. He may be severely under playing a player, either due to an excessive penalty for some mistake the player has made, a miscalculation of the benefits and costs of that player, or due to subjective factors up to and including extreme dislike of a player and a desire to make sure that the player is removed from the team in the off-season.
3. He may be over playing and over relying on one or more very experienced and talented veterans. Although a formal study has not been completed, there is plenty of evidence that Karl is one of the stingiest coaches in the League with respect to playing time he gives out to non-starters.

The system we use employs the ranges of playing time minutes that are reasonable for the Nuggets. The ranges take into account all known factors, including not only how good the players are, but also how well they fit into what is strongly believed to be the best possible offensive and defensive strategies that the Nuggets could use. These ranges are plenty large enough to allow for complete coaching discretion, within reason. But the ranges are not large enough for a Coach who is making a clear and basic error regarding how and how much his players should be used.

To be absolutely clear, if the actual playing time is outside of these ranges, it is clearly a coaching error. Playing times lower than the minimum or higher than the maximum are obvious and significant coaching errors.

Certain modifications are needed sometimes. If a player has to leave the game due to an injury, then the minimum rule does not apply for that player. Also, this is subject to appropriate modifications in games in which there is garbage time. How the rule is applied in the case of garbage time games depends substantially on whether the game is a win or a loss. The details on how extreme playing times are calculated in garbage time games will be added to this report in the near future.

CURRENT REASONABLE PLAYING TIME RANGES FOR THE NUGGETS
Carmelo Anthony: 32-42
Allen Iverson: 30-40
Nene: 30-40
Kenyon Martin: 30-40
J.R. Smith: 26-36
Linas Kleiza: 18-28
Chris Andersen 16-26
Anthony Carter: 14-24
Renaldo Balkman 0-16
Dahntay Jones: 0-14
Juwan Howard: 0-8
Chucky Atkins: Unavailable
Steven Hunter: Unavailable
Sunny Weems: Unavailable

EXTREME PLAYING TIMES CONSTITUTING COACHING ERROR FOR THIS GAME:
Anthony Carter: Overplayed, 12 minutes
Total Minutes of Extreme Playing Time Error: 12 minutes
NOTE: The high quality coaches have 0 minutes of error in most games.

SEVERE AND CONTINUING SLUMPS
If there are any players who are obviously performing far below what they are capable of, some part of the blame must lie with the failure of the coaches to establish offensive and/or defensive strategies and tactics that will guarantee that the player does not fall to the level he has fallen to. You never to my knowledge see good players on the teams with the high quality coaches have “major and continuing slumps.” There are two ways a player can be declared to be in a major and continuing slump:

1. His production drops by 1/3 or more for each of 3 straight games or more.
2. His average production drops by 1/4 or more over any stretch of 6 games or more.

NUGGETS IN SEVERE AND CONTINUING SLUMPS PARTLY OR ENTIRELY CAUSED BY BAD COACHING
1. No one yet because we don’t have enough games yet.

UNAVAILABLE PLAYERS
Are coaches as responsible for results when key players can not play as when they can? No they are not; they are less responsible. For how much less, see the impact of the players unavailable on the team’s prospects as shown in the “Manpower Alert Status” system. So the first thing we present in the coaching breakdown is complete information about players who could not play, and about players who might have been playing with minor injuries.

WORLD’S MOST COMPLETE DATA SOURCE FOR NUGGETS PLAYER AVAILABILITY: NUGGETS PLAYERS WHO COULD NOT PLAY IN THE GAME AND WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE TO THE NUGGETS COACHES

NUGGETS PLAYER CARMELO ANTHONY
ALL SOURCES: Suspended
:
NUGGETS PLAYER CHUCKY ATKINS
CBS SPORTSLINE Knee, Questionable for Nov. 5 at Golden State
ESPN Atkins (knee) is doing limited shooting and movement drills on his surgically repaired right knee but hasn't gone through any hard workouts yet, the Denver Post reports
MSNBC Knee, Out 2-3 Weeks
NUGGETS OFFICIAL SITE underwent successful surgery on his right knee on 9/24 and is expected to miss six weeks …


NUGGETS PLAYER SUNNY WEEMS
SPORTSLINE Groin, Questionable for Nov. 5 at Golden State
ESPN
MSNBC Hernia, Day to Day
NUGGETS OFFICIAL SITE did not play in any preseason games and has yet to see
action in the regular season due to a left groin strain. He remains out for tonight’s game …


NUGGETS PLAYER STEVEN HUNTER
SPORTSLINE Knee, Out until at least mid-November
ESPN
MSNBC Knee, Day to Day
NUGGETS OFFICIAL SITE right knee inflammation.

JAZZ PLAYERS WHO COULD NOT PLAY IN THE GAME AND WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE TO THE JAZZ COACHES
Deron Williams
Matt Harpring

PLAYERS WHO MAY HAVE BEEN PLAYING IN THIS GAME WITH MINOR INJURIES
NUGGETS
Nene

JAZZ
None known.

MANPOWER ALERT
As of November 1, 2008

This gives you the total impact on each team due to unavailable players.

To calculate the impact, I start with the ESPN player ratings of the unavailable players. The ESPN player rating, while not as good as the Real Player Ratings, are still a very good player rating system. Since there is no full scale live database yet for tracking Real Player Ratings on a real time basis, I have to use the ESPN ratings right now.

Added to these player ratings is one half of the number of minutes per game that a player has been or is supposed to be playing in excess of 20 minutes per game. This is to reflect the extra importance of the players who the team most heavily relies on. Also added is 8 points for the player who is subjectively considered to be the most important player on the team in terms of leadership, and 4 points for the 2nd most important such player.

As an example of how all of this works, consider what the impact on the Cleveland Cavaliers would be if LeBron James were injured. The impact on the Cavaliers would be his ESPN rating plus one half of the number of minutes per game he plays in excess of 20 plus 8 more points, since he is the team leader.

There are numerous instances where the ESPN rating has to be adjusted to get the player’s real value correct. Until late December, the ESPN numbers are modified slightly as necessary to factor in how good the player was during last season as a whole. In cases where due to coaching error a player’s minutes are grossly less than what they should be, that player’s rating is adjusted upward to reflect what it would be if he was playing the minimum reasonable number of minutes. Rookies and other players who were unable to play more than a small fraction of how much they were expected to play have what their ratings would have been estimated from the ground up.

The minimum alert points for any unavailable player are 5. In practice all little used reserves, which generally are the ones who do not play in the majority of games, will be rated 5 points. This minimum is set regardless of player ratings for these low minute players, since the unavailability of even players who have seldom played in recent times reduces crucial flexibility for the coaches, reduces opportunities for wild card “on fire” games, and increases the need for the best players to play even when they should not be playing, such as during garbage time and during when they have certain minor injuries.

NUGGETS INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND PERSONAL LEAVES
1. Carmelo Anthony 47 points
2. Chucky Atkins 24 points
3. Steven Hunter 5 points
4. Sunny Weems 5 points
Nuggets Unavailable Players Total Alert Points: 81

JAZZ INJURIES, ILLNESSES, SUSPENSIONS, AND PERSONAL LEAVES
1. Deron Williams 48 points
2. Matt Harpring 32 points
Jazz Unavailable Players total alert points: 80

HOW TO INTERPRET THE MANPOWER ALERT POINT TOTAL
NOTICE: The following interpretation chart assumes that the coach is fully competent and that he makes an appropriate rearranging of his lineups and playing times. If a coach makes seriously incorrect adjustments to lineups and playing times when one or more players become unavailable, the impact on the team will of course be much more severe than what is described here. A totally incompetent coach could in effect increase the true Manpower Alert against his team by as much as 100%,. In other words, he could as much as double the negative impact on his team if when he loses one or more players he makes bad decisions on how to change his lineups and playing times.

0 to 12 No problem at all in either the regular season or in the playoffs
13 to 24 Virtually always, this level is no problem in either the regular season or in the playoffs.
25 to 36 Generally, an extremely small problem in either the regular season or in the playoffs.
37 to 48 Should be a very small problem. This level can affect winning and losing in the regular season or in the playoffs only if the other team is completely healthy or almost completely healthy.
49 to 60 A small problem in the regular season unless it lasts for more than about 6 weeks; in which case the season as a whole is under some threat. For the playoffs, it will often be a major problem, but exactly how much of a problem it is will depend largely on the alert level of the other team.
61 to 72 A substantial problem in the regular season that will definitely cost the team a win here and there. If this level lasts more than 6 weeks, the season as a whole becomes threatened to one extent or another. The impact on marginal playoff teams is more severe, because this level can cost such teams a playoff berth. In the playoffs, this level will generally mean a quick elimination, except of course if the other team has substantial availability problems as well.
73 to 84 A serious problem; the entire season is under a serious threat. Games are lost that would have been won on a regular basis. If the team makes the playoffs regardless of this problem, it will generally be immediately eliminated.
85 to 96 A very serious problem; the entire season is under a very serious threat. Many games that would have been won are now lost. If the team somehow makes the playoffs regardless of this huge problem, it will almost always be immediately eliminated.
97 to 108 An extremely serious problem; season is most likely lost unless the alert level is much improved within a 2-4 weeks. If the team at this alert level somehow makes the playoffs, it will be eliminated immediately.
109 to 120 In many cases, the season is lost if this level is reached for more than a week or two. Making the playoffs is out of the question if a team remains at this level for more than 6 weeks or so. If a team is suddenly at this level while in the playoffs, it will be immediately eliminated.
121 and more: It’s over; come back next season.

MANPOWER ALERTS FOR THIS GAME
As a rough but useful estimate, to determine the theoretical impact on a game due to unavailability of players, start with the difference in alert points, and subtract 20 from it since the first 20 points should be completely offset by correct substitutions, and then divide the remainder by 10. The result is a rough but useful estimate of the advantage a team had in points due to the difference in unavailable players.

Nuggets Unavailable Players Total Alert Points: 81
Jazz Unavailable Players Total Alert Points: 80
Result: The two teams were almost exactly equal so there was no net effect on the game.
Current Estimate of the Current Average Manpower Alert for the 30 NBA Teams: 60

SUMMARY OF OUTSIDE FACTORS THAT THE COACHES HAD NO CONTROL OVER
Home Court Advantage: Jazz 4 Points
Extra Rest Advantage, if any: None
Manpower Advantage: None
Net of all Outside Factors: The Jazz had an advantage of 4 points. So the game would have been an extremely close finish, an overtime game, or both if there were no outside factors at all.

Ultimate Game Breakdown: Players For Jazz 98 Nuggets 94 in Utah

REAL PLAYER RATINGS (QUALITY) FOR THIS GAME
DENVER QUALITY
Renaldo Balkman, SF 1.088
Kenyon Martin, PF 0.785
Allen Iverson, SG 0.646
Anthony Carter, PG 0.631
Chris Andersen, PF 0.498
J.R. Smith, SG 0.447
Dahntay Jones, SG 0.314
Nene, C 0.267
Juwan Howard, PF 0.179
Linas Kleiza, SF -0.024

UTAH QUALITY
Carlos Boozer, PF 1.096
Andrei Kirilenko, SF 0.764
Mehmet Okur, C 0.733
Ronnie Brewer, SG 0.519
Kyle Korver, SG 0.463
C.J. Miles, SF 0.415
Paul Millsap, PF 0.228
Ronnie Price, PG 0.187
Brevin Knight, PG 0.092

SCALE FOR RPR (QUALITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
Historic Superstar for this game 1.400 and more
Superstar 1.050 to 1.399
Star/Outstanding 0.800 to 1.050
Very Good 0.625 to 0.799
Major Role Player 0.525 to 0.624
Role Player 0.450 to 0.524
Minor Role Player 0.400 to 0.449
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Poor Game or Extremely Importand Defender 0.275 to 0.349
Very Poor Game Regardless of Defending 0.200 to 0.274
Disaster Game Regardless of Defending minus infinity to 0.199

****************************************************
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION (QUANTITY) IN THIS GAME
DENVER QUANTITY
Kenyon Martin, PF 25.90
Allen Iverson, SG 24.55
Anthony Carter, PG 22.70
J.R. Smith, SG 15.65
Chris Andersen, PF 10.45
Renaldo Balkman, SF 8.70
Nene, C 6.95
Dahntay Jones, SG 4.40
Juwan Howard, PF 1.25
Linas Kleiza, SF -0.50

UTAH QUANTITY
Carlos Boozer, PF 39.45
Mehmet Okur, C 28.60
Andrei Kirilenko, SF 26.75
Ronnie Brewer, SG 12.45
Kyle Korver, SG 11.10
Ronnie Price, PG 6.35
C.J. Miles, SF 5.40
Paul Millsap, PF 4.55
Brevin Knight, PG 1.20

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR STARTING PLAYERS
Happens only a few times a year in the NBA 40.0 and more
Massive and Memorable Game 36.0 to 39.9
Huge Game 32.0 to 35.9
Very Big Game 28.0 to 31.9
Big Game 24.0 to 27.9
Typical Average Game 20.0 to 23.9
Somewhat Below Average Game 16.0 to 19.9
Way Below Average Game 12.0 to 15.9
Bad Game 9.0 to 11.9
Really Bad Game 5.0 to 8.9
Total Disaster minus infinity to 4.9

SCALE FOR RPP (QUANTITY) RATINGS FOR A SINGLE GAME
FOR NON-STARTING PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game 30.0 and more
Huge Game 26.0 to 29.9
Very Big Game 22.0 to 25.9
Big Game 18.0 to 21.9
Typical Non-Starter Game 12.0 to 17.9
Below Average Even For a Non-Starter 9.0 to 11.9
Way Below Average Even For a Non-Starter or Limited Minutes 6.0 to 8.9
Bad Game Even for a Non-Starter or Very Limited Minutes 3.0 to 5.9
Disaster: Nothing Much to Report minus infinity to 1.9


THE HIGHEST QUALITY PLAYERS IN THIS GAME











JAZZ OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the court: Carlos Boozer
Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: Andrei Kirilenko
Very Good during minutes on the court: Mehmet Okur









NUGGETS OUTSTANDING QUALITY GAMES
Superstar during minutes on the Court: Renaldo Balkman
Star/Outstanding during minutes on the court: Kenyon Martin
Very Good during minutes on the court: Allen Iverson

THE GREATEST POWER PLAYERS OF THIS GAME










JAZZ POWER PLAYERS
Massive and Memorable Game: Carlos Boozer
Huge Game: Andrei Kirilenko
Very Big Game: Mehmet Okur









NUGGETS POWER PLAYERS
Big Game: Kenyon Martin
Big Game: Allen Iverson

COMMENTS
Already made. I will insert a reminder here that anyone and everyone who has stated that the Nuggets offense is going to be just as good or better now that Camby is gone is in for a series of rude awakenings.

USER GUIDE FOR THIS TYPE OF REPORT (Last updated Oct. 25)
This is much of what an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players (UGB:P) is going to look like for the new season. It's a "just the important facts please, and give them to me quick" type of report.

I will in many cases do a little commentary at the bottom of the UGB:Ps, but most of the game and team commentary will be in the separate "Game and Team Reports." Game and Team articles are, with any luck, going to be produced for 26 Nuggets and for 26 Raptors games this season. Ultimate Game Breakdowns: Players, such s the one here, will be done for the 26 key games, and for other games as well, but not necessarily for all 82 games. I don't really know how all this new editing is going to play out time wise yet!

The games that get the full treatment have been very carefully chosen to be the most important games, which are generally the games against the best teams. Full treatment including the kitchen sink report games have been chosen from among only games where neither team is at a disadvantage due to playing on back to back nights. Other internet basketball "experts" are really wasting their time to some extent when they report on a Kegame where one team was playing on back to back nights and the other team was not, because the great majority of those games are almost automatically won by the team that has more rest. I used to do those stupid games, but I'm not doing them anymore, because I keep trying to get better and better at understanding and teaching basketball, so I make changes such as this.

With an Ultimate Game Breakdown-Players report, you can see very rapidly who was most responsible for the winning or the losing of the game. Then someone like me can easily write a separate game report which explains how things might have worked out better for a team, or why things worked out just about as well as possible, as the case may be.

The Real Player Ratings formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is currently as follows:

POSITIVE FACTORS
Points 1.00 (at par)
Number of 3-Pt FGs Made 1.00
Number of 2-Pt FGs Made 0.60
Number of FTs Made 0.00

Assists 1.75

Offensive Rebounds 1.15
Defensive Rebounds 1.25
Blocks 1.60
Steals 2.10

NEGATIVE FACTORS
3-Pt FGs Missed -1.00
2-Pt FGs Missed -0.85
FTs Missed -0.85

Turnovers -2.00
Personal Fouls -0.80

ACTUAL COMBINED AWARD OR PENALTY BY TYPE OF SHOT
3-Pointer Made 4.00
2-Pointer Made 2.60
Free Throw Made 1.00
3-Pointer Missed -1.00
2-Pointer Missed -0.85
Free Throw Missed -0.85

ZERO POINTS: PERCENTAGES BELOW WHICH THERE IS A NEGATIVE NET RESULT
3-Pointer 0 score % 0.200
2-Pointer 0 score % 0.246
1-Pointer 0 score % 0.459

ASSISTS VERSUS TURNOVERS ZERO POINT
Assist/Turnover Ratio That Yields 0 Net Points: 1.143

QUALITY (RPR) AND QUANTITY (RPP) EXPLANATION
RPR game reports show for each player the RPR (Real Player Rating) which tells you how good a player did (all the good things minus all the bad things) out on the court per unit of time. The RPP (Real Player Production) report tells you how much in total (the sum of the of the good things minus the sum of the bad things) a player did out on the court.

Many and maybe most sports watchers and an unknown but probably disturbingly large number of sports managers make the mistakes of exaggerating the importance of quantity and overlooking to some extent quality. These reports allow you to expand your horizons. These reports put quantity and quality side by side, which is extremely valuable, because both are roughly equally important in explaining accurately why and how the game turned out the way it did.

Players who over many games consistently have higher RPR (quality) but lower RPP (quantity) results are in many cases not getting enough playing time. Players that over many games consistently have lower RPR (quality) but higher RPP (quantity) results are in many cases getting too much playing time.

The exceptional cases are very often going to be players who are either truly outstanding defenders or truly bad defenders. This is because the one and only thing that is not counted, because it is impossible to calculate it, is the number of shots that a player prevents from being scores. Investigation has to date revealed that, apparently, no one has even attempted, for the NBA, rough estimates of the actual value of each player's defending, in terms of number or percentage of scores prevented, or in terms of number or percentage of possessions made worthless.

Over the coming year, I am going to be working to see if it is possible to use some combination of advanced statistics that are tracked on certain internet sites as an accurate proxy for the number of shots and/or for the number of possessions ruined by a defender.

Another exception. where it is really alright when it looks like a player is playing too much, will be if a team has a point guard who has many more turnovers than the average point guard has. Because the point guard is so important, a good coach has to play his best guard who can make plays at the position for a full set of minutes every game, pretty much regardless of how many turnovers that player makes. If you take out your designated point guard due to "too many turnovers," it's most often going to be sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!

Full Report-Jazz Predictably Beat the Denver Nuggets in Utah 98-94, Why George Karl is a Renegade, and Why the Nuggets are Doomed Without Marcus Camby

It’s going to be a long, ugly, frustrating season for both the fans and the players of the Denver Nuggets. But please don’t get grumpy with me, your friendly messenger who only wants to help you play, coach, or manage basketball.

The Nuggets lost to the Utah Jazz 98-94 in Salt Lake City in the 2008-09 regular season starting game. The seemingly inevitable Jazz win was a closer game than I expected, particularly when you consider the Jazz very rarely lose at home. It’s almost like a law: no one wins in Utah while Sheriff Sloan is around. But the Jazz were playing without one of the best point guards in the world, Deron Williams.

True, the Nuggets were playing without one of the best small forwards in the world, Carmelo Anthony, who is suspended for the first two games of the season because he was out all night relieving stress after the Nuggets squeaked into the playoffs last April and was caught half drunk lane weaving while driving down the interstate during a predawn hour. You see, Anthony is one of the best players in the world, but his team is so badly managed that it was by the slimmest of margins that it even made the playoffs at all last year. So the big discrepancy between those two facts (world class player but chump class team) created some stress for Carmelo Anthony and he had a little too much to drink and… You get the picture.

Since a point guard in general and one of the best point guards in the world in particular has a greater strategic value to a team than a small forward who plays for a team without an offensive blueprint to make sure his offensive potential is consistently maintained, it is obvious that the Jazz were at a greater disadvantage without Williams than the Nuggets were without Carmelo Anthony.

Generally and in theory, the two most important positions in basketball are center and point guard. And the Nuggets are hosed up, personnel-wise, with respect to both of those positions. In fact, thanks to George Karl and, as far as I know, no one else in the Nuggets organization, the Nuggets are probably about the only team in the NBA which does not subscribe to the theory that you need someone to “run” the offense, to at least some extent. That someone is the designated point guard, who in turn is supposed to be the best guard on the team who can run the offense, to an extent chosen by that point guard and by the coach of the team.

Notice I said “the best guard on the team who can run the offense.” I did NOT say “the best point guard”, because it is theoretically possible (and it is a reality with the Nuggets as we speak) that a guard who is considered primarily a 2-guard is the best guard on the team who is qualified to make some plays without sacrificing Kobe Bryant type potential at the 2-guard. Does anyone honestly believe that Allen Iverson at 2-guard is really comparable to Kobe Bryant or Manu Ginobili at 2-guard? Unless you are a renegade and you have rejected the point guard framework entirely, if you are the Coach of the Nuggets, you have no choice but to slide Iverson over to point guard, whether you like his style or not. You might have to call it "making the best of a bad situation", but that's what you do.

The point guard keeps the offense running by motivating his teammates to keep moving, cutting, screening, getting into well chosen scoring positions, and then making the scores. One playmaker and four movers, cutters, screeners, position establishers, and scorers is what the almost universally accepted basic framework for a basketball offense is.

But the problem is, and it is one hell of a problem, that George Karl does not accept the universal framework for an offense! He was miked up during the Lakers four games to zero dismantling of the Nuggets and he was caught red handed on national television pleading with his team to pass the ball more and to try more to get the ball to the open man. Let me repeat that: he was pleading with his whole team to do that. Whereas more sensible and realistic coaches, if they ever plead for that at all, are going to plead with the specialist responsible for that kind of thing, their point guard.

And I recently saw a video of him that was posted on the internet. In this video, he is instructing his players to do something quickly with the ball other than dribbling or holding it. This sounds good so far, but I must pause and point out that he has either never told Iverson this or else allows Iverson to defy him and everyone else on this, because everyone knows Iverson does not feel any need to quickly pass, shoot, or penetrate, as opposed to holding and especially dribbling. Iverson is dribbling and getting caught in traps and double teams and so forth as often as he always did in Philadelphia. So Mr. Karl has not insisted that Iverson follow the thou shall not dribble around and make our team easy to defend command. And if he hasn’t made sure that Iverson doesn’t do it, what’s the point of getting worked up too much if others do it? Because let’s face it: your offense is already messed up from just Iverson alone doing it.

Who would have known that by outward appearances a man who seems the ultimate establishment basketball figure, George Karl, is actually a renegade on this and certain other tenets of basketball, tenets that range from widely accepted to almost universally accepted. In this world, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing and in basketball, apparently there are basketball renegades posing as traditional, boring establishment figures.

Mr. Karl simply doesn’t think a point guard should be primarily responsible for making plays or for keeping the passing game alive. Because he thinks all players should be responsible for that. And I and most other basketball folks don’t see how his way of thinking can be the better way in most real game situations. Ever since cave man days, human society has been moving in the direction of more and more specialization. Because more specialization is almost always more efficient and is generally more effective than less specialization

Even if the minority of coaches who agree with Karl and disagree with me is a bigger group than I think, it doesn’t change the fact that they are wrong. If they think, for example, that the faster pace and the greater “surprise the defense” advantages that might come with a basically “no real point guard offense” are greater than the advantages you get with a designated, responsible point guard, I feel sorry for them. All the other team needs is a few smart and quick defenders and they will largely offset the extra speed and ability to surprise that you get from having no real point guard. And then the remaining advantage you have left will be small compared with the advantages you get with the designated point guard concept behind the offense.

A position in basketball is at the most only about 2/3 as fixed (or important if you prefer) as one is in football with respect to figuring out how to coach the team and games. But to think that you can start distributing around all five positions what a point guard alone does for most teams, or what a center does for most teams, or what any other position does, you have gone way, way too far. You are a sports and basketball renegade in fact.

So don’t forget it: George Karl may be as establishment as you can get resume wise and officially speaking. But when you look at the philosophy and the beliefs that determine his chosen strategies and tactics for his team, he is more than a little bit of a renegade and more than a little bit of a, dare I say it, 1960’s hippie. Could it be that Mr. Karl never outgrew the Beetles, the Doors, and even the Greatful Dead? Maybe not.

Aside from being wobbly with respect to using positions to structure a team and games, Mr. Karl is also more hell bent than ever now to attempt to belittle the concept and the importance of the three point shot. It’s starting to look like it has reached the point of total lunacy now. The Nuggets on three straight occasions in the final minute of the game were behind by 3 points and elected to make a two point shot and then intentionally foul, hoping for a foul shot to be missed followed by another two and overtime. Each time, the Jazz were of course concentrating on defending the three, and so were surprised each time when the Nuggets chose to slip through the perimeter defense and settle for the lay-up.

Then with 8 seconds left, on the 4th time being behind by three, Kenyon Martin, who does not have a good 3-point shot, is the one who finally took a 3-point shot. The Nuggets have only two full scale 3-point shooters: J.R. Smith and Linas Kleiza. But it did not occur to anyone in charge that maybe one of those two should take a three that might allow the Nuggets to send the game into overtime. So as I say, the inability to understand the importance of attempting and making some threes has seemingly reached the point of total insanity at this point.

But of all the powerhouse teams in the West, the Jazz are the only one that is not a good or a great 3-point shooting team (which is more proof of how good a coach Jerry Sloan is, by the way). This is, besides the absence of Deron Williams, the other main reason why the game was surprisingly close at the end. The Jazz were only a very lame 2/8 from long range, whereas the Nuggets, who in the great majority of games against Western Conference powerhouses are on the short end of the stick on threes, were 4/13.

The Nuggets “We don’t really know who the point guard is and neither do we care” offense produced a soft 17 assists, which equaled the Jazz’ 17 assists without their ace point guard. Roughly but accurately speaking it was a game without point guards, which incidentally most game watchers do not enjoy as much as a game with them.

Nene fouled out. The Nuggets are almost totally dependent on Nene at center and he fouled out in the first game of the season. Some people have fiercely complained about the stylings of Marcus Camby, both offensive and defensive. They have complained that Camby is not an aggressive and totally reliable man to man defender on defense, nor a post-up or throw down specialist on offense. That’s the style they want in a center, partly, I’m sure, because traditionally the most dominant and powerful centers of all have had these traits. And even the damn Jazz television announcer piled on Camby’s style by informing the viewing audience that “the Nuggets’ brass told him that the Nuggets believe they can win 50 games again this season despite the giveaway of Marcus Camby, because Camby was not all that great at man to man defending, whereas Nene and Chris Andersen are much more so.

To which I say: “good luck if you think the sum total of Camby’s defensive traits is something that you can replace with a player or two or three who are aggressive and persistent man to man defenders. You are going to need a whole heck of a lot of science fiction if your prediction that you can replace Camby with Nene or Chris Andersen or both of them together is going to come true. Because Camby may not have been a great man to man defender, but he has some of the best hands in basketball along with some of the best quick instincts for where the play is going. Those hands and quick instincts gave him the ability to disrupt the best laid plans of countless players with intentions of driving to the rim. Marcus Camby had (and still has, for the Clippers now) the kinds of hands, instincts, and athletic coordination to avoid committing fouls time and time and time again. The man has one of the lowest personal foul rates among centers in the NBA, which validates him having one of the highest blocks per possession ratios in the history of the NBA.

Did it ever occur to those who hate Camby’s style, or to those who now confidently predict that the Nuggets defense will not be any worse without Camby than with him, that Camby simply did not have to be all that great of a lock-down type man to man defender, because he had some skills much more unusual than the more common ability to aggressively defend, and that those skills meant that Camby did not need to put all his eggs in the man to man defending basket in order to provide a very good defense for the Nuggets? No, it never occurred to them apparently.

You see, when you are struggling to win a basketball game, you are not only battling the other team. You are also in a side battle with the referees. If the refs are in a no nonsense kind of mood they will call a game tighter rather than looser. And when that happens if one of your big strategies to win the game is to have your aggressive and bruising man to man defenders do their thing with abandon, you are going to be cruising for a bruising from those referees. So your wonderful man to man defenders end up in foul trouble and, in serious cases, they foul out and your game strategy is left in ruins.

Nene fouled out. Marcus Camby almost never fouled out. No Nuggets, you can’t replace Marcus Camby with Nene and/or Chris Andersen and/or any other new player on your team and expect to still win 50 games. Camby’s hands and athleticism just don’t get replaced that easily, sorry.

And another thing on the subject of style: all truly great basketball players, including the ones who go to the Hall of Fame and win various awards, need to make sure that their style matches their skills and capabilities. Within the range of possible styles prescribed by which of the five positions you are playing, you have to choose the style that is the closest fit with your exact athletic capabilities.

Which is exactly what Marcus Camby did. Some people act as if Camby argued with himself or with his coaches about what style to choose and then chose the wrong one. No, that’s not how it works with the best players. They don’t have to think about “what style to choose,” because they know the style they have to use is dictated by their athletic and physical skills, characteristics and, yes, limitations. There is no choice for them if they want to reach their full potential. And the best athletes are going to be smart enough to instinctively know how to play in such a way that maximizes their potential.

Did you ever wonder why the Nike marketing slogan “Just do it” became popular? One big reason was because it is a reference to the reality that great athletes don’t think about and make decisions about styles to use: they know instinctively because they know their capabilities instinctively, and they know they have to match them up.

If a player thinks “Ok, I’m going to become a better player by changing my style. I’m going to start doing more of this and less of this, and then my basketball career prospects will get better." Wrong. Players get better, or stay the way they are, as the case may be, only by making sure that their playing style tightly matches their athletic and physical skills, characteristics, and limitations.

Some less experienced players may not fully be able to do this, and that’s where a good coach can be of immense help, more so at the high school and college levels of course than in pro. But a good pro coach has to on occasion steer a (usually younger) player toward the style that is the closest match for his characteristics.

So the Camby style haters can continue to think that he was “overrated on defense” but unfortunately for the Nuggets, they are in general overestimating the importance of style and they are specifically underestimating the total defensive value that Camby’s skills and style brought to the Nuggets. So do not get it twisted fans: unique style and all, Camby was crucial for the Nuggets defense, and if all you have to replace him with is tough and relentless man to man defenders, you are in for a long, tough, and frustrating season.

And that season just started with Nene fouling out.

J.R. Smith 2008 Ultimate Mix-Only at Nuggets 1

Much respect is due JR Smith, who allowed the Nuggets to squeak into the 2008 playoffs and in general prevented them from disintegrating.

On second thought, damn JR Smith; if he had not been so good, the Nuggets might have been forced to make real changes in the off season, leading to a real chance of winning a playoff series.

Oh well, its not his fault that the Nuggets organization has proved that it is not ready for prime time.

Whereas, JR Smith is now ready for prime time...

J.R. Smith 2008 Ultimate Mix Large Screen

Allen Iverson Was Punked by the Nuggets

(This is commentary I did on a forum a few months ago; for editorial explanation, see below the break.)

The Nuggets did not change how Allen Iverson is used in games in the slightest bit from how Larry Brown set things up in Philadelphia many years ago. So the names were changed from the Iverson 76'ers days, but the game was the same, and so the results were almost exactly the same. The results being that Iverson dribbles and shoots too much and passes often but not enough, creating an offense that is unnecessarily easy to defend and therefore reducing offensive efficiency from what it should be.

Iverson thought that he would get a "fresh start" by coming to Denver after leaving the 76'ers, but the Nuggets made no effort whatsoever to give him a true fresh start. It was the same old same old, with just the names and numbers on the jerseys changed. And it didn't have to be that way.

So in fact what actually happened was that Allen Iverson was punked by the Nuggets, and I am truly sorry. The Nuggets were all about using Iverson to increase attendance and merchandise sales, and not at all about getting serious about designing an offense that could really win in the playoffs.

(Commentary was made July 18, 2008)
_________________________________________________
EDITORIAL EXPLANATION
The imports from forums related to the Marcus Camby giveaway have been posted one by one, due to the franchise-changing nature of that development. (And Google says you can get more visitors to your site if you make a bunch of shorter postings!)

For many other forum comments, made previous to the Camby giveaway, including ones regarding the Nuggets-Lakers playoff series in late April, 2008, see the series of posts that all begin with "Return of Nuggets 1..."

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, is being posted in October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years. So learn from their mistakes.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. Some of this is more like everyday conversation than like top quality sports writing. On the other hand, some of the comments do include some detailed reasoning and proof that I pride myself on in the full reports.

The Nuggets Threw in the Towel Too Soon and Cheated Themselves and Their Fans

(This is commentary I did on a forum a few months ago; for editorial explanation, see below the break.)

A claim was made that the Camby giveaway was reasonable, because the Nuggets reached a "logical dead end" regarding their big name, big name payroll. However, the Nuggets are not allowed to conclude that they reached a logical end, for the following reasons:

1. From a what we officially know perspective, there hasn't been one word, nor one hint of a word, in public, about the Nuggets reaching an end to their big payroll roster adventure. Quite to the contrary, Nuggets management has been consistent in saying that they are still on course to being a contender. Is this a stealth rebuilding or something?
2. From a basketball strategy perspective, the Nuggets could not possibly be at a logical end unless they actually, really, fully deployed Allen Iverson at the PG position, instead of just inserting him in that slot for the playoffs, for grins only.
3. From a performance measure perspective, you can't possibly say that one of the very most talented teams in the NBA has reached a logical end and has to begin rebuilding. Would Boston, Los Angeles, or at least a dozen top NBA franchises be caught dead doing such a thing?
4. From the actual basketball results strategy, the Nuggets won 50 out of 82 games in 2007-08, one of their highest total number of wins ever. Moreover, the gap betwen their offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency in 2007-08 was substantially up from the year prior, and was one of their most positive gaps ever. You are not at the logical dead end when you have just completed your best season in many, many years.

In short, you have to wait until you are actually at the logical dead end until you take drastic action as a result of being at the logical dead end. The Nuggets are acting as if they are paranoid about finding out whether they were about to reach the logical dead end, which is ridiculous.

This is about like a man, suspecting that he is going to die soon, going to the funeral home, jumping in a casket, and telling the funeral director to bury him now!

Laugh out loud!
(Commentary was made July 17, 2008)
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EDITORIAL EXPLANATION
The imports from forums related to the Marcus Camby giveaway have been posted one by one, due to the franchise-changing nature of that development. (And Google says you can get more visitors to your site if you make a bunch of shorter postings!)

For many other forum comments, made previous to the Camby giveaway, including ones regarding the Nuggets-Lakers playoff series in late April, 2008, see the series of posts that all begin with "Return of Nuggets 1..."

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, is being posted in October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years. So learn from their mistakes.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. Some of this is more like everyday conversation than like top quality sports writing. On the other hand, some of the comments do include some detailed reasoning and proof that I pride myself on in the full reports.

The Nuggets Needed More For Camby Than Nothing; the Center Position is Now Hosed

(This is commentary I did on a forum a few months ago; for editorial explanation, see below the break.)

No one is going to begrudge Mr. Kroenke's right to stop paying the luxury tax, but everyone is eligible, to say the least, to criticize dumping a player of Marcus Camby's caliber.

It is ridiculous to say that the Nuggets could not have gotten more for Camby. They could have traded their 2008 pick (#20 in the draft I think) and Camby for a higher draft pick center, as any one of several dozen possible better scenarios. That way, you get a decent center prospect and substantial cap relief at the same time, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater as the Nuggets are actually doing.

Very simply, if you are all of a sudden running away from the luxury tax like a scared rabbit, you had no business piling up a fat luxury tax in the first place. If you are afraid of fire, stay out of the kitchen.

Is one of the main secrets behind which franchises are run well and which are not in the NBA whether there is consistency over many years relative to how much luxury tax, if any, an owner is comfortable with? Apparently so.

Although Nene is 6-11, he is rated a PF; he doesn't have the hands and polished finishing skills to be a true center and may never have them. But nor does he have any kind of outside shot that a good PF is supposed to have.

The Nuggets never really "experimented" with AI, not only because they had one of the least organized offenses in the League, but also because they didn't deviate in the slightest from the way the 76'ers deployed Allen Iverson. In other words, the 76'ers already ran the experiment, and it failed. If you run the same experiment again, it will fail again.

(Commentary was made July 17, 2008)
_________________________________________________
EDITORIAL EXPLANATION
The imports from forums related to the Marcus Camby giveaway have been posted one by one, due to the franchise-changing nature of that development. (And Google says you can get more visitors to your site if you make a bunch of shorter postings!)

For many other forum comments, made previous to the Camby giveaway, including ones regarding the Nuggets-Lakers playoff series in late April, 2008, see the series of posts that all begin with "Return of Nuggets 1..."

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, is being posted in October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years. So learn from their mistakes.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. Some of this is more like everyday conversation than like top quality sports writing. On the other hand, some of the comments do include some detailed reasoning and proof that I pride myself on in the full reports.

2008 Off Season Was a Disaster for the Nuggets

(This is commentary I did on a forum a few months ago; for editorial explanation, see below the break.)

The owner of the Nuggets is apparently going from one extreme to the other in his funding of the Nuggets, from being well over the payroll cap to being under it. It may be a full crash and burn of the payroll, which automatically puts the team into rebuilding mode, whether rebuilding is intended or not.

If cutting the money itself is the objective and the plan, and the rebuilding is an accident, then this is about the worst thing any basketball franchise could possibly do: a sudden, unplanned, out of the blue rebuilding, with much of the public unaware that a rebuilding is underway, and possibly parts of the front office and coaching staffs unaware that a rebuilding is underway by default.

But how could a team possibly do a rebuilding correctly if some, most, or all of the management is not aware that this is a full rebuilding situation? They couldn't. You can't do any project correctly if you don't even know that you are involved in that project. At least Oklahoma City knows they are in rebuilding!

A rebuilding that has not been anticipated and planned is a rebuilding that has a much highly likelihood of failing than a planned rebuilding. Success of any Nuggets rebuilding is even more unlikely given that Karl is well known for being stingy toward and biased against younger players, who are obviously crucial in any rebuilding.

If my description of the situation here is even half right, then this 2008 off season is an unmitigated disaster for the Nuggets franchise and will lay them low for an unknown number of years.

(Commentary was made July 17, 2008)
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EDITORIAL EXPLANATION
The imports from forums related to the Marcus Camby giveaway have been posted one by one, due to the franchise-changing nature of that development. (And Google says you can get more visitors to your site if you make a bunch of shorter postings!)

For many other forum comments, made previous to the Camby giveaway, including ones regarding the Nuggets-Lakers playoff series in late April, 2008, see the series of posts that all begin with "Return of Nuggets 1..."

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, is being posted in October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. Some of this is more like everyday conversation than like top quality sports writing. On the other hand, some of the comments do include some detailed reasoning and proof that I pride myself on in the full reports.

Nuggets Forecast in the Wake of the Giveaway of Marcus Camby

(This is commentary I did on a forum a few months ago; for editorial explanation, see below the break.)

If I was forced to predict the exact record, I'd say it will be 37-45 if JR does not start during most or all of the season, and 44-38 if he does start most of the year.

With the kind of defense the Nuggets are going to have now (I don't even want to think about it) even starting JR Smith will not be enough for the Nuggets to ensure a playoff spot, let alone win a playoff.

If Nene doesn't play and Smith does not start, you could be looking at a 30-33 win team.
(Comment Made July 15, 2008)
_________________________________________________
EDITORIAL EXPLANATION
The imports from forums related to the Marcus Camby giveaway have been posted one by one, due to the franchise-changing nature of that development.

For many other forum comments, made previous to the Camby giveaway, including ones regarding the Nuggets-Lakers playoff series in late April, 2008, see the series of posts that all begin with "Return of Nuggets 1..."

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, is being posted in October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. Some of this is more like everyday conversation than like top quality sports writing. On the other hand, some of the comments do include some detailed reasoning and proof that I pride myself on in the full reports.

Consolation Prize for the Camby Giveaway: J.R. Smith But, as Always with the Nuggets, There is a Catch

Even writers and bloggers who wouldn't have been caught dead not so long ago saying it should be AI at 1-guard and JR at 2-guard are now saying it. But if wouldn't matter if every single fan and every single writer insisted that AI and JR should be the backcourt starters. George Karl's vote is the only vote that matters, and his style and manners manual says no way to that combo.

So I personally don't think that the Nuggets will even get the consolation prize of an extremely dynamic and successful starting backcourt, because I think it's going to be Carter at 1-guard and AI at 2-guard. So Smith can be the best young SG since time begain, but he ain't gonna start.

So the Nuggets are going to be a total joke, and they have completely self destructed at this point. It is a suicide, and once the grim reaper arrives on the scene, the party is definitely over.

Editorial Note: Please be aware that a "Fast Break" is a short and quick preview of some of the topics that will be explored and proved in more detail in upcoming regular reports. Fast Breaks will often reappear in full reports with only minor reediting, but there will be more important details, more evidence, and more implications and explanations in the full reports. Moreover, there will be topics that never appear in any Fast Break in a full Report.

Fast Breaks are especially useful for the first few days after major news breaks. They are also very useful for people who will seldom or never have enough time to read a full Game/Team/League Report. Fast Breaks are the type of article that more typical web logs feature almost all or all of the time.

Denver Front Office: "We Don't Know How to Win a Championship, and We Got Carried Away With the Payroll and All..."

(This is commentary I did on a forum a few months ago; see editorial explanation at the bottom.)

To me the most important positions are center and point guard. Now the Nuggets are going to have both of those completely hosed up.

What a freaking joke this is. The Denver front office is saying, "Ok, we know we are a relatively small market, and for mainly that reason, it's not meant to be in anyone's life time that we win a Championship, or get close to it really, and we got carried away with the payroll and all..."

Right now it seems they are idiots, pure and simple.

(Comment Made July 15, 2008)
_________________________________________________
EDITORIAL EXPLANATION
The imports from forums related to the Marcus Camby giveaway have been posted one by one, due to the franchise-changing nature of that development.

For many other forum comments, made previous to the Camby giveaway, including ones regarding the Nuggets-Lakers playoff series in late April, 2008, see the series of posts that all begin with "Return of Nuggets 1..."

Forum commentary I did from March 2008 through July 2008, when I didn't have time to do the detailed and extensive reports that I like to do, is being posted in October, 2008. The primary themes are how the Nuggets are blowing a great (and expensive!) opportunity to play the game of basketball in such a way that respects the sport and that takes as much advantage as possible of who they have on the roster. The 2006-09 Nuggets have turned out to be an excellent case study of how not to run a basketball team; many things you should not do if you are a basketball manager or coach can be identified from what the Nuggets actually did during these years.

In these comments, do not look for the usual huge amount of detail and proof that you see in the ordinary releases here at Nuggets 1. Some of this is more like everyday conversation than like top quality sports writing. On the other hand, some of the comments do include some detailed reasoning and proof that I pride myself on in the full reports.