You Don't Win Cheap Against the Pistons, and the Nuggets Get Beat by Their Own Player!

There was no Rip Hamilton and no Rasheed Wallace for the Pistons, and no Melo Anthony for the Nuggets, and the Nuggets were home, so the set-up was more than fair for the Nuggets and the "smart money" was on another cheap Nuggets win.

But the Pistons crushed the Nuggets with offensive rebounding and nerves of steel free throw shooting of Arron Afflalo. Denver finally lost a game despite, yet again, it's opponent missing an abnormal number of free throws. But Afflalo made 8 straight free throws in the final 2:53 to prevent Denver from winning cheap for a change.

The final score was Pistons 93 Nuggets 90 for this game in Denver on Jan. 9, 2009. This game will be forever remembered here at Quest as "The Turning of the Tide Game".

We saw great games from Tayshaun, Allen Iverson, Dice, Jason Maxiell, and from Coach Michael Curry at the Lexus controls with 9 players for 9 minutes or more; an absolutely fantastic game for the whole Detroit City crew, Coach and General Manager included. Congrats all around to all Pistons crews.

Offensive Rebounding of the Detroit City Crew:
Maxiell 4
McDyess 3
Afflalo 2
Brown 2
Prince 1
Johnson 1
Bynum 1
Pistons Combined: 14

All Nuggets Combined: 7

So Denver, I think you were missing someone who had you had him rebounding like hell you would have easily won this game:





















Laugh out loud at the Demver announcer claiming that Denver "gave this game away" Yeah, how true; they gave it away last July when they gave Camby away.

Well Denver, since you hated Camby and thought his style was weak, and so you gave him away for nothing, and so Camby wasn't around to win this one for you, who was the rebounding leader of this game?






















Antonio McDyess! Damn, Denver, that's supposed to be your player!

You were beaten by your own player!

Denver, I think you need to turn over a new leaf and be a little more loyal to, strategic with, and consistent with your expensive, important players.

Pistons fans: keep keeping the faith; we are going to power into the playoffs with everything set up nicely.

I love this game.

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Why Anyone Who Claims Marcus Camby Was a Poor Defender for the Nuggets is Wrong and Why Camby, McDyess, & Iverson Became Hated by Many Nuggets Fans

There is so much hype and untruth and confusion out there regarding the Nuggets' defense in general and regarding Marcus Camby in particular that I am making yet another post on these subjects. First I will review, summarize, restate a little, and add some things to what has just been discussed and proven in the previous two posts. Then I will add a few more salient facts about a defender such as Marcus Camby that somehow seem to escape most people. Finally, I will have an explanation for all the hatred that has come out of the Nuggets' fan base regarding Camby, Allen Iverson, and Antonio McDyess.

For those who have read the previous two posts, there will be some redundancy here along with all the new stuff. I apologize for any repeating, which I generally avoid without much difficulty. I can't avoid it here because of the way the subjects here kind of blew up in importance without me knowing in advance, and because I have decided that it is very important for me to summarize everything with respect to these topics in one place, which is going to be this place. And I don't want to delete an already posted item.

With any luck, this article will once and for all clear up any and all confusion and hype regarding the defense of the Denver Nuggets and regarding Marcus Camby. Proceeding point by point:

1. In the post just prior to this one, a new report was introduced. this brand new Report, called NBA Breakdown, was done and was uploaded to the Internet via Google Documents as a spreadsheet. With this, not only can you review the Nuggets' defensive efficiency situation, but you can review the offensive efficiency, the defensive efficiency, and the overall efficiency situation for each and every one of the 30 NBA teams, and you can see instantly the changes in all of these things from 2007-08 to 2008-09.

2. Since it is expressed as a rate per 100 possessions, efficiency is standardized relative to the pace of teams. The pace of teams differs quite a bit, but those differences are irrelevant, as they should be, in this investigation of "pure" efficiency or quality of offenses, of defenses, and of teams as a whole. We want to know here about how good the teams or players are, and we are not at all concerned right now about how fast or slow they are.

3. The vast majority of basketball arguments that you see on the internet about teams as a whole, about offenses, about defenses, and about key players, are arguments involving what and who are more efficient than something or someone else, regardless of pace. Fortunately, you or I can get ready to prevail in any argument by focusing in on the efficiency ratings, which automatically allows us to avoid the irrelevant complications of pace.

4. (How to use the spreadsheet.) In the spreadsheet there are 6 sheets; you will see blue links to each sheet at the top. Google Documents is not rendering my descriptive headers properly, so I just removed them and settled for shading of columns by worksheet. When you view each worksheet, you will see that one of the columns is shaded yellow. That is the column that has been data sorted for that worksheet, meaning that whatever is described in the header for that column is how the teams are ranked on that particular worksheet.

So there are six worksheets as follows. Every worksheet has the same data. The only difference between worksheets is that the teams are ranked according to whatever is highlighted in yellow:

Sheet 1 Offensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 2 Defensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 3 Overall, Combined Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams (Offense and Defense Combined) of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 4 Change in Offensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 5 Change in Defensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 6 Change in Overall, Combined Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams (Offense and Defense Changes Combined ) from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009

5, As an example of one of almost countless things you could do with the 6 sheet worksheet, you can find that the Los Angeles Clippers, to whom Marcus Camby was given by the Denver Nuggets for nothing in return, are in fact improved defensively following Camby coming on that team, as Clippers Coach Mike Dunleavy predicted. Do not get lost or played here: Marcus Camby has substantially improved the defense of the Los Angeles Clippers. period. The Clippers are the 10th most improved team defensively in the NBA. The reason why the Clippers are a bad team is clearly shown by their offensive efficiency, which is literally the worst in the NBA. Folks, they have no offense at all to speak of. Defensively, the Los Angeles Clippers are the 17th best team in the NBA this year.

Now prior to getting ambitious and producing the new spreadsheet, I in a different post, this posting established and/or proved all of the following:

6. The efficiency measurements show that the truth is that the Nuggets' defense here in 2008-09 so far is almost exactly as good as the Nuggets' defense in 2007-08 was, no better and no worse.

7. The Denver Nuggets have been, so far at least, able to meet their controversial pledge of having a defense as good as last year’s despite the giveaway of Marcus Camby.

8. By implication, if you think that the Nuggets have a better defense this year than they had last year, you are way out in right field; you have swallowed the hype. But you can't be blamed too much, because even the television sportscasters have been falling over themselves gushing about supposedly how much better the defense is this year compared with last year. They are unfortunately flat out wrong with their gushing.

9. Just in order to match last year's defense, the Nuggets, in order to offset the giving away for next to nothing of Eduardo Najera and especially the giving away for almost literally nothing of Marcus Camby, had to bring in not one or two but three defensive specialists, none of whom are good enough offensively to be able to help to win playoff games. The three new defensive specialists are Chris Andersen, Renaldo Balkman, and Dahntay Jones.

The Nuggets also had to turn over the bulk of their practices into defending drills. And they had to in both practices and games put a lot more enthusiasm, aggressiveness, and effort into defending than into basketball offense, thus reversing last year's priority.

The Nuggets also had to step down from their frenzied pace of last year. They went from fastest pace team last year to 5th fastest this year; from 99.7 total offensive and defensive possessions per game in 2007-08 to 94.1 so far this season.

In sum, they had to do a whole long list of things and make a truly large number of changes in order to offset the loss of Najera and Camby.

In sum, they had to do a whole long list of things and make a truly large number of changes in order to offset the loss of Najera and Camby.

10. So do not get it twisted. It is true that this year as compared with last year the Nuggets are trying harder on defense. It is true that the top team priority has shifted from offense to defense. It is also true that there are fewer Nuggets not very concerned about defending this year as compared with last year. It is also true that the team now has a greater sheer number of defensive specialists. But it is not true that the end result is that the Nuggets' defense is better this year than it was last year.

11. Most Camby haters are hung up about style. Generally you should avoid becoming very concerned about style in order to be correct about evaluating individual players. Substance is far more important than style. The fact that things get done is generally more important than exactly how things get done.

12. On any fast paced team, all defenders will get beat more often than they get beat on average pace and slower paced teams. And not only will they get beat more, they will look worse getting beat while trying to defend for a fast paced team than they will look when they get beat while defending for an average pace or for a slower paced team. So those who are hung up on style will have a lot more to criticize and get hung up on when looking at man to man defending on a fast paced team. Specifically, there were bound to be and there were times when Camby's defensive style did look bad, in the context of the the Nuggets' fast pace offense. But the substance of his defense was always there and was always extremely valuable to the Nuggets, even when his style didn't look so great in a fast paced game.

Now as promised, let me make a few brand new, final points regarding why everyone who thinks Camby was a poor defender for the Nuggets are completely and totally wrong.

13. The Camby haters all focus on Camby's relatively poor man to man defending against powerhouse centers and power forwards. There is some truth in that, but the problem is that the Camby haters are ignoring the forest for the trees. Marcus Camby gets so many defensive rebounds that he gets defensive rebounds that no one else can get. He ends possessions of the other team where no one else could get the rebound and end the possession. In other words, he cuts down on the offensive rebounds that the other team can get.

This means that the other team doesn't get as many chances to score as they would get if Camby was not in there. In turn, this means that any team with Marcus Camby on it does not have to worry about in and near the paint man to man defending as often as does a team that does not have Camby on it. And while good man to man defending is great and very important, it is even greater and more important if you are able to cut down on the need for man to man defending in the first place.

With his unbelievably outstanding rebounding and blocking, Camby cuts down from the get go on the number of possessions that his team must man to man defend well or give up a score. He puts you ahead of the game defensively before you even need to start talking about man to man defending.

14. Currently there are only 7 NBA teams who commit more fouls than do the Nuggets. Unlike so many wonderful man to man defenders, Camby is seldom if ever unavailable due to foul trouble. Camby gets very few personal fouls and very few loose ball type fouls despite snagging all those extra rebounds. Meanwhile, Nene is not a particularly good rebounder, and has been in foul trouble from time to time this year after having taken over for Camby at center.

CAMBY, IVERSON, AND MCDYESS HATRED IN COLORADO EXPLAINED
So why has there been so much hatred of Marcus Camby, Allen Iverson and, for that matter, Antonio McDyess among the Nuggets fan base? I truly believe that the answer to that is as follows.

The extremely demoralized Denver fan base at the end of the disastrous playoff series with the Lakers in early May 2008 knew they were stuck with George Karl, despite the fact that it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can not win in the playoffs even with a set of players who are among the most talented in the NBA. He just can't win in the playoffs, period, end of story. But even were it not for the economics emergency, the Nuggets were most likely not going to eat Karl's contract and get a new Coach for 2008-09; the economics emergency made it a no brainer for them that they were going to have to keep Karl until his contract is over with.

But then things went from bad to worse as the owner panicked in the wake of the economics emergency and demanded an immediate termination of liability for the luxury tax. So in order to effect a huge and sudden reduction in team payroll, Camby was given away for nothing, Najera was given away for very little, and essentially nothing was gained from the 2008 NBA draft.

Now the Nuggets were obviously heading South. Most basketball analysts were immediately agreeing that the Nuggets were most likely not even going to make the playoffs in 2008-09. So each Nuggets fan was left with two main choices, neither one of which was very pleasant. He or she could become a very ticked off former fan, which to me was the only logical thing to do. Or he or she could take out frustrations on players who had been thrown overboard and try to, with the aid of rose colored glasses as needed, create an alternative, hypothetical reality, one where the Nuggets organization was acting professionally and intelligently by getting rid of Camby and Iverson and by letting McDyess go on his merry way back to Detroit.

So sure enough, since by definition the Nuggets' fan base does not want to be a former fan base, there were numerous bitter criticisms of the styles of and alleged shortcomings of Marcus Camby, Allen Iverson, and of Anonio McDyess, while the facts regarding the getting rid of those players, the substance of those players contributions, the failure of the Nuggets to coach Camby and especially Iverson correctly on offense, and the disloyal treatment of McDyess from several years earlier, were all mostly ignored by them.

FOR THE RECORD
For the record: Camby was given away for nothing due first and foremost to the owner panicking over the economics emergency. A team has the right to decide that it wants a different type or style of defense than one anchored by Marcus Camby. But a team can not simply give a player of the caliber of Marcus Camby away for nothing and still expect to be considered a serious NBA franchise.

And Iverson was traded for Billups because the Nuggets were living in a dream world when they thought that Iverson was going to miraculously change his own game or was going to perfect the Nuggets offense merely by virtue of being out on the court, after having been instructed by the Nuggets to not make any changes whatsoever from what he had been doing in Philadelphia.

And the Nuggets either did know all along or else they should have known that after being traded along with Chauncey Billups to them from the Pistons, that Antonio McDyess was going to refuse to suit up for them and give them some toughness in rebounding and defending, so badly needed by the Nuggets if they were ever going to win a playoff series in anyone's lifetime. Only a franchise in distress, confusion, or both could have had the McDyess incident play out the way it did.

So if you have been confused by all the Camby, Iverson, and McDyess hating coming from the Nuggets' fan base, don't be confused anymore my friend. For the Denver fan base, hating those three fine players became a matter of survival.

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NBA Breakdown as of Jan. 7, 2009: The First Ever Truth Over Hype Report

OK folks, we have a brand new report here that we know you will love if you have a brain. This is one of the most important and valuable reports ever produced here at Quest. It's a brand new offshoot of the Real Team Ratings Report. This report has been uploaded in spreadsheet format to the web thanks to Google Documents. Google, like every other web entity, can be a little annoying sometimes but let's face it, we would be nowhere without Google these days.

This neat and easy to read spreadsheet document is the ultimate reference if you are trying to get to the bottom of how good NBA offenses, defenses and overall teams really are, with all the hype and illusions removed and all rose colored glasses left at home. This document also allows you to find out instantly how much and in what direction each team's offense, defense, and overall team has changed from last season to this season through the present, Jan. 7, 2009 to be exact.

Specifically, this document gives you the 2007-08 and the 2008-09 through Jan. 7 offensive, defensive, and overall efficiency indices for all 30 NBA teams. Efficiency is simply number of points scored (offense) or allowed (defense) per 100 possessions.

Since it is expressed as a rate per 100 possessions, efficiency is standardized relative to the pace of teams. The pace of teams differs quite a bit, but those differences are irrelevant as they should be in this investigation of "pure" efficiency or quality of offenses, of defenses, and of teams as a whole. We want to know here about how good the teams or players are, and we are not at all concerned right now about how fast they are.

The vast majority of basketball arguments that you see on the internet about teams as a whole, about offenses, about defenses, and about key players, are arguments involving what and who are more efficient than something or someone else, regardless of pace. Fortunately, we can get ready to prevail in any argument by making the complications of pace irrelevant, by focusing in on the efficiency ratings.

In the spreadsheet there are 6 sheets; you will see blue links to each sheet at the top. Google Documents is not rendering my descriptive headers properly, so I just removed them and settled for shading of columns by worksheet. When you view each worksheet, you will see that one of the columns is shaded yellow. That is the column that has been data sorted for that worksheet, meaning that whatever is described in the header for that column is how the teams are ranked on that particular worksheet.

There are six worksheets as follows. Every worksheet has the same data. The only difference between worksheets is that the teams are ranked according to whatever is highlighted in yellow:

Sheet 1 Offensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 2 Defensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 3 Overall, Combined Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams (Offense and Defense Combined) of NBA Teams of 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 4 Change in Offensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 5 Change in Defensive Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009
Sheet 6 Change in Overall, Combined Efficiency or Quality of NBA Teams (Offense and Defense Changes Combined ) from 2007-08 to 2008-09 through Jan. 7, 2009

Sheet 6 would be where you would go to find out which teams are most improved overall from last season to this year. Sheet 5 would be where you would go to find out which defenses are most improved overall from last season to this season. And so on and so forth.

So check it out if you want to separate the truth from the hype regarding the 30 NBA teams. The truth can sometimes be less exciting than the hype, but trust me, you are better off dealing with the truth than the hype. And one thing about the truth is that you can instantly spot those who don't know what they are talking about on Internet sports sites and sometimes even on TV sportscasts.

For example, just about everyone including sportscasters have been falling over themselves gushing about how the Denver Nuggets have such a far better defense this season than they had last season. But guess what the truth is. The truth is that the Nuggets' defense is almost exactly the same quality this year as last year! Oops! Quite a lot of hype had to be brushed away there for us to be able to reach the truth. Go get a garbage bag so we can stuff all the hype in it and leave it for the trash pick up.

Here is where to go:

NBA BREAKDOWN as of Jan. 7 2009

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Fast Break: Have the Nuggets Met the Pledge They Made After They Gave Away Marcus Camby?

I promised many moons ago to report on controversial claims made by the Denver Nuggets that giving away Marcus Camby would not result in a worse defense. It turns out that the Nuggets have been, so far at least, able to meet their pledge of having a defense as good as last year’s despite the giveaway of Marcus Camby. They had to turn the bulk of their practices and emphasis over to defending, they had to bring in several defensive specialists, and they had to develop a very big and very real enthusiasm and aggressiveness regarding defending to do it, but for the record, they did succeed at doing it so far.

The other side of this coin is that, basically, Marcus Camby alone provided the same quality of defense that all of the above adjustments combined have done, which reminds you of the reality that Camby is one of the very best defenders in the NBA. The Nuggets had to do about a dozen big maneuvers to make up for losing Marcus Camby, yet there are still, even now, uninformed fans claiming that Camby was a defensive liability for the Nuggets! What Universe are they living in, anyway?

Here are the relevant statistics for this ivestigation, the defensive efficiency for the Nuggets and for the Clippers for last year and for this year. Defensive efficiency is simply the average of points allowed for every 100 possessions.

2008-09 Nuggets 106.5
2007-08 Nuggets 106.3

2008-09 Clippers 106.6
2007-08 Clippers 109.1

Since Marcus Camby went to the Clippers, the Clippers’ defense has improved substantially, from 109.1 points allowed per 100 possessions last year to 106.6 points allowed per 100 possessions this year. So Coach Mike Dunleavy of the Clippers was correct in predicting that Camby would improve the Clippers’ defense. The Clippers’ poor season this year is due mostly to having, literally, the least efficient offense in the League.

Meanwhile, since Nene took over the center spot from Marcus Camby, the Nuggets’ defense is a tiny bit worse. The change is not at all statistically significant, so Denver has been able to meet its pledge regarding having the same quality of defense after giving up Marcus Camby.

Specifically, the Nuggets’ defense went from allowing 106.3 points per 100 possessions last year to 106.5 points allowed per 100 possessions so far this year. In order to pull this off, they had to bring in several players known much more for their defense than for their offense, to replace not only Camby but also another defensive specialist who was lost during this past off-season: Eduardo Najera. The Nuggets brought in defensive specialists Chris Andersen, Renaldo Balkman, and Dahntay Jones.

If you look at the rate of scoring, you will find that because the Clippers games are generally much slower paced than are Nuggets games, Marcus Camby is allowing substantially fewer points now with the Clippers than he was allowing last year when he was on the Nuggets. But this is due to the pace and not to Camby’s defending.

The main reason I bring up this pace subject is to point out another reason why those who bitterly criticized Camby’s style last year were off base, a reason that I don’t think I thought of until now. Which is that anyone trying to defend for one of the fastest paced teams in the NBA is going to lose some style points along the way; no defender is going to stylistically look as good defending for a fast paced team as he would for a slower paced team. Marcus Camby while defending for the very fast paced Nuggets had to look at times just a little like a chicken with the head cut off.

Tim Duncan, Amare Stoudemire, Elton Brand, Kenyon Martin, anyone you want to name is going to get beat more often while trying to defend man to man on a fast paced team as compared with a regular or slower pace team.

The slower the pace, the easier it is for a defender to impress fans who think of style in general and tough man to man defending in particular as important. So among those who think style is important, Camby is having an easier time impressing fans of the Clippers than he had impressing such fans of the Nuggets. The Camby haters should either quit completely or at the very least they need to realize that what they really want to criticize is the defensive liability that being a fast paced team is.

And one last very important thing. The Camby haters all focus on Camby's relatively poor man to man defending against powerhouse centers and power forwards. There is a grain of truth in that, but the problem is that the Camby haters are ignoring the forest for the trees. Marcus Camby gets so many defensive rebounds that he gets defensive rebounds that no one else can get. He ends possessions of the other team where no one else could get the rebound and end the possession.

This means that the other team doesn't get as many chances to score than they would get if Camby was not in there. In turn, this means that any team with Marcus Camby on it does not have to worry about in and near the paint man to man defending as often as does a team that does not have Camby on it.

In other words, great man to man defending is great, but even greater is if you are able to cut down on the need for man to man defending in the first place. With his unbelievably outstanding rebounding and blocking, Camby cuts down on the number of possessions that his team must man to man defend well or give up a score. He puts you ahead of the game defensively before you even need to start talking about man to man defending.

And don't forget that unlike so many wonderful man to man defenders, Camby is seldom if ever unavailable due to foul trouble. Camby gets very few personal fouls and very few loose ball type fouls compared to the defenders who have to rely much more on man to man defending to be good defenders.

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Atlanta Hawks Real Player Ratings for 2008-09 as of Jan. 5 2009

ATLANTA HAWKS
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2008-09 Regular Season
Through Jan. 5, 2009

Joe Johnson 0.832
Mike Bibby 0.819
Al Horford 0.781
Josh Smith 0.770
Marvin Williams 0.638
Zaza Pachulia 0.587
Acie Law 0.530
Solomon Jones 0.552
Ronald Murray 0.494
Maurice Evans 0.461

SCALE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS
For a Regular Season

Historic Super Star 0.925 and more
Super Star 0.835 0.924
A Star Player; An Extremely Good Starter 0.760 0.834
A Great Player; A Solid Starter 0.700 0.759
Major Role Player 0.650 0.699
Role Player 0.600 0.649
Minor Role Player 0.550 0.599
Very Minor Role Player 0.500 0.549
Poor Player at This Time 0.450 0.499
Very Poor Player at This Time 0.350 0.449
Extremely Poor Player at This Time / Disaster and less 0.349

ATLANTA HAWKS
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
2008-09 Regular Season
Through Jan. 5, 2009

Joe Johnson 1036.60
Mike Bibby 871.15
Al Horford 709.15
Marvin Williams 635.10
Josh Smith 494.40
Maurice Evans 317.45
Zaza Pachulia 303.00
Ronald Murray 288.80
Solomon Jones 145.60
Acie Law 131.95



























HAWKS STARS AND GREATS

JOE JOHNSON


MIKE BIBBY


AL HORFORD


JOSH SMITH

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USER GUIDE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS BY TEAM REPORTS (Last updated January 6, 2009)

The Real Player Rating (RPR) is a very carefully constructed all inclusive performance measure. Everything of value that a basketball player can do is recorded by official NBA scorekeepers who sit right along the edge of the court, mid-court, and who are trained to observe and record everything that happens in a game.

Since nowdays all of these counts are immediately all input into continually updated public data bases online, such as at ESPN, it is theoretically possible to combine everything together into an overall performance measure for each player. This is what the RPR is.

Not counting purely subjective and abstract factors such as leadership, and a few other, less common things not being counted or tracked by anyone yet, such as chasing down loose balls, the only thing a basketball player can regularly do on the court of any value, that is not counted by scorekeepers, is preventing what would have been a score from being a score by defending against the shot well enough to change the shot from a score to a miss. This would be counted too if it were possible, but there is no way to know exactly how many shots a good (or any kind of) defender has changed from being a score to a miss.

The RPR is everything (other than as just discussed changing scores to misses) a player does, good and bad, added and substracted (with negative things such as turnovers and missed shots being subtracted) together using very carefully calibrated factors, or weights, per minute of playing time. All of the good and bad combined together is divided by minutes, so we can tell the rate, which we need to determine the overall quality or value of the player.

As of January 8, 2009, Quest for the Ring is very happy to announce a major breakthrough that we have been hoping for and cautiously expecting for many months. We discovered a relatively obscure web site with a sophisticated basketball database. This gem of a site has, for every NBA player, numerous advanced statistics, including "Defensive Rating." A player's defensive rating reflects how well that player defends, in other words, how well the player does in converting scores to misses and, more generally, how well the player ruins possessions of the opposing team.

A careful review of both the underlying formulas used and of the actual ratings of players that resulted from them resulted in a decision by Quest for the Ring to use these ratings in the Real Player Ratings effective immediately. A conversion chart has been constructed to translate the defensive ratings to factors that will be added to all of the other RPR elements (all of which are counted by the scorekeepers, as you will recall.) So effective January 8, 2009, Real Player Ratings will from now on include good estimates of the quality of every player's defending.

The range of possible defending adjustments to the base RPR is from 0 to 1.5. In most cases, however, the adjustment will be between 0.200 and 1.000.

Because it is per time, RPR is the best possible measure of the net quality of a basketball player, or simply "how good" the player is (on average) for each minute of playing time. But to be completely honest and clear, although it is the best possible overall real life measure, it is still not a perfect or absolute, "final word" measure on any player. This is because players need not only playing time but possession of the ball in order to produce many of the things that count in the rating. So if, for whatever reason, a player does not get the ball as often as he would on a different team, or with a different coach, or with whatever other circumstances you can dream of, then his RPR will be lower than what it could or would be. So don't think of RPR as the ultimate gospel or bible on how good players are. But do think of it as an extremely accurate and reliable summary of how good the players actually have been in real life in the specific circumstances involved.

So with a Real Player Ratings Report for a Team for the Regular Season, you can see very rapidly who the best players on the team have been during the course of the season.

However, not as many breakdowns of individual game ratings are going to closely track the overall average for the roster as you might think. This is because one of the interesting things about basketball that makes it different from most other sports is that "how good" a player is from game to game varies radically. The best players have terrible games where they do almost nothing sometimes, while players who normally do not do much can every once in a while have outstanding games, at least if you measure it per minute on the court anyway. If you just looked at actual production, and never at a reserve player's Real Player Rating, you would hardly notice any of his unusually outstanding games, since players who normally do not do much will normally not have much playing time.

But of course, looking at actual production (everything positive added together and everything negative subtracted out) is something that is extremely important too. The total production (everything good and everything bad combined together) is simply called Real Player Production or RPP.

There are certain things that only certain players can do very well, and if those things are crucial for the team, than those players will have to play more minutes than they might otherwise play. The extra minutes might tend to reduce the player's Real Player Rating, while his total production will rise with the additional minutes. So to fairly and completely evaluate any player, you must always look at both the Real Player Rating (RPR) and the Real Player Production (RPP).

Furthermore, it is strongly suspected that, in order to compete in the playoffs, a team must have as many players of as high a quality (RPR) as possible, while at the same time having at least one or two players whose actual production is among the highest in the NBA regardless of exactly how high the RPRs happen to be. (All high RPP players will be relatively high RPR players; some will be higher than others.) Specifically for example, LeBron James' actual massive amount of production is most likely just as important to the Cleveland Cavaliers as is his RPR or, in other words, as is his rate of production. Similarly, Kobe Bryant's quantity is probably at least as important to the Lakers as is his quality.

Whereas, teams such as the Denver Nuggets, who have instructed a possible huge producer, Carmelo Anthony, to "not worry about scoring," may have made a fatal mistake relative to the playoffs, because teams with no extremely high rate producers may be generally doomed to lose quickly in the playoffs even if they have an unusually large number of high quality players as shown by RPR. This is because extremely high RPP players can by themselves "dominate a game" to some extent, meaning they can by themselves possibly win the game for their team, without worrying about complications that come in to play if you need to coordinate several high RPR but ultimately and theoretically limited RPP players.

Only players who played at least 5% of the minutes of whoever has played the most minutes on the team are included in these reports. Any player who has played for less than 5% of the minutes of the player who has played the most minutes is not included, since he didn't play for long enough to be fairly or reasonably compared with the other players.

For 2008-09, the RPR formula has been very carefully and accurately tweaked again and is set to be 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 2.15

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

DEFENDING ADJUSTMENT
A quality of defending adjustment of between 0 and 1.4 is added, depending on what the player's Defense Rating is. In turn, the Defense Rating is a good indirect estimation of how many shots a player changes from being a score to a miss and, more generally, how many possessions of the other team are ruined by that player's defending. Although the overall adjustment range is 0 to 1.5, in most cases, the adjustment will be between 0.200 and 1.000.

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} SUMMARIZED
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, without regard to playing time.

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 team is playing the way it is.

Players who over the course of a season appear to rank higher in RPR (quality) but lower in RPP (quantity) may not be getting enough playing time. Players who over the course of a season appear to rank lower in RPR (quality) but higher in RPP (quantity) may be getting too much playing time. But as alluded to earlier, you must not automatically conclude this, because some skills are needed out on the court most of the time, but yet may be available only from a small number players on the roster. Such players may have to get more playing time due to that critical skill in short supply, even if their overall quality does not seem to justify all of that playing time.

A relatively common reason for unusual playing time will be players who are either truly outstanding defenders (who get extra playing time) or truly bad defenders (who get their playing time reduced).

Another common reason for extra playing time 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 may end up sort of like cutting your foot off because you have a bad case of athletes foot!

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Rose Colored Glasses

Regardless of all the wins this season, you can't really and honestly be happy as a fan or reporter for the Denver Nuggets unless you wear large rose colored glasses. Which of course is exactly what most reporters and fans other than yours truly (who we'll call "The Others," lol) are wearing. With their rose specs on, The Others are looking at the Nuggets as if the sudden slicing and dicing of the roster, and of the payroll, and of of any and all the possible opportunities from the 2008 draft, all of which happened during the, ummm, 2008 off-season unpleasantness, never happened. As if the kicking to the curb of Marcus Camby and Allen Iverson never happened. As if Antonio McDyess was being completely unreasonable in point blank refusing to play for the Nuggets at a large personal financial cost. Yes, McDyess paid dearly to avoid this franchise, avoid having to put on rose colored to glasses, to stay in Detroit where you seldom see this type of glasses. And so then The Others are proceeding to one extent or another as if all these regular season wins against all the Indianas of the NBA really do mean that the Nuggets can finally win a playoff series this coming Spring.

Unfortunately, when any of The Others dare to remove their rose spectacles, he or she will see again that this is a team that was in fact partially dismantled in a hurry when the owner went into a financial panic as a result of the economics emergency. With those crazy glasses off, he or she will see that this franchise became the hyena of the NBA, picking up several inexpensive players that just about no other team wanted. And he or she will see again that this team is coached by a coach who not only has proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that he can not win in the playoffs, but has actually admitted he doesn't know how to win in the playoffs at press conferences.

And once the rose colored glasses are removed for a while, he or she will recall that this financial panic struck after the Nuggets blew the kind of opportunity that only very rarely comes around, the opportunity to achieve a near perfect offense. Specifically, the Nuggets blew the opportunity to get the very expensive Camby-Martin-Iverson-Anthony-J.R. Smith offense tuned up right, and to then very possibly earn an appearance in the West finals in 2008. Or at a rock bottom minimum, they blew the opportunity for a solid, respectable appearance in the West semifinals (the round of the final four Western teams).

Yes, you heard me correctly. It is true, in the Spring of 2008, it could have been the Nuggets against the Lakers for the West Championship and not a complete and I do mean a complete burying of the Nuggets by the Lakers in the very first (baby) round, with Carmelo Anthony looking like he was going to break down and cry at any moment while telling reporters about how the Nuggets quit in the 2nd half of being routed in game three in Denver.

With respect to yours truly, especially this year, it may often seem, and it is to some extent objectively frequently true, that I am, while refusing to wear the rose colored glasses, frequently ticked off about the Nuggets' relative cheapness this year, and even by all their false hope generating winning. But overall I'm still plenty happy and contented enough. Being hyper critical and seemingly unhappy in my critical writings is normal for my brain and for my personality. This pattern originates also from my education and training, the result of which is that I am supposed to spot every small and big problem and mistake, and then suggest solutions.

So on the one hand, the Nuggets have ticked me off by being so cheap and unintelligent about how they run their business. But if you just judge from my writing, I always will seem less happy than I am. So do not be fooled: I am often relatively happy overall even while being apparently ticked off about particular things. And when I am not ticked off about anything at all, which does happen sometimes believe it or not, I can be really, really, extra happy.

So don't try to judge how happy or unhappy I might be overall by how critical I might be in any of my writings. I don't get unhappy overall unless I am really, really ticked off about something, which doesn't happen as often as you probably think.

But getting back to the rose glasses wearers, let me say to you that you can't be serious if you claim the Nuggets are for real in terms of the playoffs, with all their low salary, defense-only players. The Nuggets winning all these regular season games is a special case that has been largely explained in recent reports. Aside from the special players involved, this is just good old Mr. Karl and the good old Nuggets management, who have cooked up yet another dish to fool the public during the lengthy regular season again. Both Mr. Karl and the Nuggets' management have been doing this "Go all out in the low pressure regular season and forget about the high pressure playoffs" routine for many years now.

But don't blink next Spring at playoffs time. Because if you blink, you might completely miss the Nuggets playing in the playoffs.

With Mr. Karl, this regular season only thing goes back going on two decades now. With Mr. Karl, the names and faces of the players, of the managers, of the owner, and of the fans change, but the game is always the same: to win enough regular season games to continue to be considered a solid, historical coach, but to never worry about how to win in the much more difficult situations found in the playoffs. Leave the much more demanding and complicated task of how to win in the playoffs for the chump coaches who are coaching for more demanding owners, managers, and fans.

And see, this particular year, the economics emergency year, the Nuggets owner, management, and Mr. Karl are all eye to eye on this subject: they are all on the same page in this regard. All of them are fully aware that the Nuggets can not win in the playoffs this year and, probably, anytime in the next few years. They can't be dumb enough to think otherwise after frantically slashing their payroll and bringing in a bunch of defense-only players from the waiver wires, as the new hyenas of the NBA.

And after telling Carmelo Anthony they do not want him to worry about scoring or about trying to lead or carry his team to tough wins. I guess they are saving him for the future, in case they ever get their act together offensively from dumb luck, laugh out loud.

The Nuggets and their fans are like one big happy but dysfunctional and delusional family. And yes, that will have been a very nasty thing to say to some people, but I come in peace really, because I come with total honesty and with total truth and with total fairness. But I come pulling no punches. And I will not put on the rose colored glasses. I do not like rose colored glasses, never have and never will.

I am not going to get all that perturbed about people wearing rose colored glasses, because humans are going to do that from time to time. But I am going to report it.

Do not forget, it was I who just did a full report on how it looks like the Nuggets players themselves are going to remain relatively happy this year even when they can't win a playoff series. So I hardly qualify for the title of Official Scrooge of the Nuggets.

And the owner, the managers, and the coaches of the Nuggets are extra happy this year if fans and bloggers are wearing the rose colored glasses and are actually thinking that the Nuggets can win in the playoffs this year. This is an unexpected bonus for them, and an unexpected extra happiness.

So everyone is happy and everyone is going to continue to be happy. Right?

Except for me.

Because I am never going to be rose colored glasses happy after what I and the Nuggets went through in the Spring and Summer of 2008. You see, for someone like me, rose colored glasses are never going to be enough to overcome that amount of failure and panic.

But damn, even so, I better keep a pair handy, because I need those babies whenever I remember how Carmelo Anthony practically broke down and cried after the Nuggets were totally and completely dismantled and destroyed by the Lakers during the Spring 2008 series. And how Iverson was sort of crying a little inside his mind, and how he wanted to leave the Nuggets after that, because he knew then that the Nuggets were never going to win a playoff series during the years when he was still playing in the NBA.

And how J.R. Smith was treated like dirt even though he was one of the very best young shooting guards in the League. Fortunately, J.R. Smith turned out to be even more of a gentle soul than I thought he was, and so he was able to get through the endless gauntlet that the monstrous Karl had him go through without any immediate, obvious damage or disasters.

And how Nene had cancer and hardly played at all for the umpteenth year and how the Nuggets were making a bad situation worse by making it seem like he would never play basketball again.

In fact, hand me those rose glasses right now, because I feel a real sadness coming on again.

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Fast Break: 900 Remarkably Meaningless George Karl Wins

George Karl recently went over 900 NBA wins. Don't forget to wear these when you read about his remarkably meaningless 900 wins, because in order to be in synch with the Nuggets and with many Colorado basketball fans these days, you are supposed to overlook all of Mr. Karl's playoff wipe-outs and disasters:

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Real Team Ratings as of Jan. 3, 2009

Real Team Ratings for NBA Teams
As of Jan. 3 2009
The rating system has been improved. A new User Guide follows the ratings.

1 Los Angeles Lakers 51.20
2 Cleveland Cavaliers 50.80
3 Boston Celtics 48.90
4 Orlando Magic 28.00
5 Houston Rockets 12.60
6 Atlanta Hawks 11.50
7 New Orleans Hornets 11.30
8 Utah Jazz 8.40
9 Denver Nuggets 8.00
10 San Antonio Spurs 6.50
11 Portland Trail Blazers 6.20
12 Dallas Mavericks 1.20
13 Detroit Pistons 0.00
14 Phoenix Suns -4.70
15 Miami Heat -6.10
16 New Jersey Nets -12.90
17 Milwaukee Bucks -15.20
18 Indiana Pacers -22.10
19 Philadelphia 76ers -24.20
20 Charlotte Bobcats -26.70
21 Toronto Raptors -31.40
22 Chicago Bulls -31.90
23 New York Knicks -34.30
24 Los Angeles Clippers -37.00
25 Golden State Warriors -38.90
26 Memphis Grizzlies -38.90
27 Washington Wizards -50.10
28 Minnesota Timberwolves -54.00
29 Sacramento Kings -58.00
30 Oklahoma City Thunder -65.30

COMPLETE SPREADSHEET FOR THIS REPORT IS HERE:
Detailed Spreadsheet for Real Team Ratings Jan. 3, 2009

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USER GUIDE FOR REAL TEAM RATINGS
Updated as of Jan. 4, 2009

Starting with these ratings the Real Team Rating system is improved. It was improved to make absolutely certain that you can predict the outcome of the playoffs in advance as accurately as possible. Since all crucial factors are now included and weighted very carefully, it is very unlikely that there will be many major changes in this system in the coming months and years.

SUMMARY OF FACTORS USED
1. Offensive Efficiency: Points Scored per 100 Possessions; WEIGHTED 2.0 (The points scored per 100 possessions is doubled and input into the formula for the overall rating.)

2. Defensive Efficiency: the Negative of Points Allowed per 100 Possessions; WEIGHTED 2.0 (The points allowed per 100 possessions is multiplied by -2 and input into the formula for the overall ratings.)

3. Net Points Per Game: Points Per Game Scored Minus Points Per Game Allowed; WEIGHTED 1.0 (The straight up points scored per game minus points allowed per game is input into the formula.)

4. Defensive Overweight Adjustment. The teams are sorted by defensive efficiency. Then, using a range from -4.5 to 4.5, points are assigned, in equal increments of .3, to each team in order of how it ranks according to defensive efficiency. 0 is skipped. Specifically, the team with the best defensive efficiency (fewest points allowed per 100 possessions) is given 4.5 points, the 2nd most defensively efficient team gets 4.2 points, the third most defensively efficient team gets 3.9 points, and so on, until the least defensively efficient team gets minus 4.5 points.

It is well known that, for the playoffs, how well a team can defend is generally somewhat more important than during the regular season. This factor gives an up or down adjustment in the Ratings in accordance with how each team ranks in defensive efficiency in the NBA. Since almost all teams ramp up their defense in the playoffs, you have to be careful here to avoid getting carried away and putting in adjustments that are too large.

5. Each team's win-loss record is accessed for games it played against the top 16 teams and, separately, each team's win-loss record is accessed for games it played against the top 10 teams. These two records are added together, which has the effect of double weighting wins and losses versus top 10 teams, while leaving wins and losses versus the 11th through the 16th best teams single weighted. In other words, the sum of the wins versus the top 10 teams is added to the sum of the wins versus the top 16 teams, and the sum of these two sums is added to the overall Real Team Rating formula (with weight of simply 1.0). Losses in games against the top 10 and against the top 16 are subtracted from the overall Real Team Rating in the same way that the wins are added.

Number 5 is a key improvement from the previous version and clearly establishes Real Team Ratings as the most accurate playoff predictor possible without guessing how unmeasurable factors such as unknown coaching strategies and possible injury problems will affect individual playoff series. By counting in the overall formula actual wins and losses in games between the likely playoff teams, you have gone in a straight line directly to evidence for the question we are out to answer: how good are the teams really going to be in the playoffs, according to everything known now?

This factor makes a separate strength of schedule adjustment mostly unneeded, because the strength of schedule is automatically reflected by the number of games a team has played versus the best 16 and the best 10 teams.

Note that #1 and #2 combined is net efficiency or net points gained or lossed per each 100 possessions. This is doubled, whereas the simple net points per game is single weighted. In the original version of the Real Team Ratings, the efficiency was single weighted and the points per game was ignored. Then it was realized that teams in the playoffs do not have as much freedom as they do in the regular season to set the pace they want, so the points per game should be considered as a reality measure along with the points per 100 possessions, because net points per game is much more independent of pace than is net efficiency, which is not theoretically very independent of pace.

For example, consider the Denver Nuggets. They are the or almost the fastest paced team in the NBA during the regular season. If you just look at the efficiency measures, the Nuggets appear to be almost identical to the Utah Jazz both offensively and defensively. But since the Jazz play at a slow pace, the teams are not really similar at all when you look at efficiency and pace together.

Suppose that in the playoffs, the Nuggets and Jazz play, and the Jazz decide to and are able to disrupt the Nuggets usual fast pace and slow it down. In this case, there will be fewer possessions for the Nuggets in the playoff games than they had typically in the regular season. This in turn means that the Nuggets will be disrupted in what they did during the regular season to one extent or another. This means that both the offensive and the defensive efficiency could change in the playoffs from what it was in the regular season, due to all of the changes forced on the Nuggets by the change of pace. Both the offensive and the defensive efficiency might change, and each change could be either for the better or for the worse.

In other words, when looking at the playoffs, the efficiency is not at all written in stone. Therefore, we decided to bring in actual points per game at 1/2 the weight of efficiency, since in the playoffs the actual points per game will change only in the same direction as the pace changes, which means the relationship between offense and defense can not be disturbed as it can be in the case of efficiency. In summary, efficiency is generally theoretically superior to points per game, so it is double weighted. But if a team is forced to play at a different pace in the playoffs from what it played in the regular season, a small amount of forecast error could be in the regular season efficiency performance measure. This possible error can be largely offset by bringing in the simple points per games scored and points per game allowed in single weight strength, as we have done.

In extreme cases, such as the fastest pace team being slowed down substantially in the playoffs, there may still be substantial forecast error even after everything we have done. In all such cases, you would expect that a team forced to play at a much different pace in the playoffs than they did in the regular season would do worse in the playoffs than the forecast would indicate. This in turn means that it is dangerous for a team to be relying on either a very fast or on a very slow pace during the regular season, unless it is certain that it will be able to operate at that pace in the playoffs even when the other team is trying to disrupt that pace.

You can no longer use the actual ratings as a starting point for estimations of margins of games between teams, which is no real loss, because you could not do that very accurately with the previous system anyway. Remember, you should never bet money on the outcome of games, because there are always variables that neither you nor anyone else will be aware of that will go into determining the outcome of each game.

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The 2009 Denver Nuggets: All For One, One For All, and Very Happy to be in the Game

Just who are these 2008-09 Nuggets and just who do they think they are winning just about every single game they can possibly win following the partial dismantling of the team in the wake of the owner’s big payroll cuts in the wake of the economic meltdown? In recent reports we have gone over how the Nuggets correctly picked the best strategies and tactics available to them in the wake of the sudden shrinkage of dollars available. Head Coach George Karl is a mastermind at the not overly complicated task of winning in the regular season against less talented teams, and this year so far he has outdone himself in that regard. The Nuggets in each game have been rolling over every less talented team that is the slightest bit less enthusiastic and determined than they are, which has been basically all of them.

There is something exotic about this situation though; teams that have been partially and awkwardly dismantled seldom if ever come out of the gate as if they were just put together shiny, sleek, and new out of the box. So there is something a little quixotic and mysterious about this team and about how it is motivated to perform at the extreme high end of the possible range it could be in. I thought it was about time to suggest some explanations for how the Nuggets are winning without the tools, techniques, and leadership that is usually used to get those wins. In other words, let's see if we can find out what is behind this magic show.

Who is leading the Nuggets to all these extra wins? No one and nothing would appear to be the answer at first. But we had better go on an expedition to see if there are some things that are at first hidden from view.

A Coach who doesn’t have and can’t fake a lot of confidence can not lead a team to extra victories and this team does in fact have a Coach whose lack of confidence lies just beyond view of the public, but certainly within sight of the most perceptive and long-term players on the Nuggets. And since this Coach leads in only the most roundabout and indirect ways you could imagine, this team is certainly not led in the way that many NBA teams are led by head coaches. Furthermore, the Nuggets’ assistant coaches all heavily defer to Head Coach George Karl and are all relatively soft spoken to boot. In summary, there clearly is very little real leadership to be found among the assistants or the Head Coach.

Nor are the Nuggets led by any of the players in any visible, obvious, or ordinary way. Which Nuggets player motivationally leads the other players to wins the Nuggets would not otherwise get? You can’t answer that, because there isn’t any answer. In fact, the Nuggets don’t even have clear statistical performance leaders, as you will see at the end of this report. Carmelo Anthony was instructed to tone his game down and it this point he has. The truth is that none of the Nuggets is a natural leader and none of them want the job of leading in the traditional American sense of the term.

So just what is making these mysterious Nuggets tick? We can start with the observation that the background of the players is different from that of most other teams. This is not your everyday African American team. Nor is it a team with a heavy European influence such as the Raptors. Nor is it a team with a core of well known Caucasian white guys.

This team has a unique ethnic mix on it; there is no other team with a makeup like this one. This is a team with a blended Latino-African and African-American identity. Two of the best three players on the team this year, Nene and Carmelo Anthony, are Brazilian (Portuguese-African to be more precise) and Latino-African (part Puerto Rican to be more precise) respectively. Renaldo Balkman, another big Latino influence, has been another one of the many surprisingly good players this season for the Nuggets. In short, looking at players making the most impact, the Nuggets are the most Latino NBA team as 2009 begins, something which has of course gone unrecognized by Big Media, but may have something to do with how this team has pulled so many rabbits out of so many hats in just the first two months of this season.

Speaking quite generally but accurately, it seems that Latinos commonly can do well without the kind of clearly defined and often heavy handed leadership that other types seem to have (and need?) more often. Although there used to be many dictators in South America, many South American countries today are at least as democratic and almost as multicultural as the USA is. And Spain itself is today a very advanced and sophisticated democracy. My point is that Latinos are at least as good at running things well with shared leadership as is any other ethnic background.

Aside from sharing the leadership nice and equally, all for one and one for all style, it appears that the Nuggets are being largely run by some kind of exotic Latino soul or spirit, the same one that allowed Nene to so quickly and so completely recover from at least two major injuries in recent years, from a major cancer scare last year, and from the conflict between two nationalities that every international player must solve sooner or later.

Nene recently solved his Brazil/USA conflict by announcing that he will become an American citizen. Somehow I don’t think he would be leading the NBA in field goal percentage, ahead of Carmelo Anthony and second only to Billups among Nuggets in Real Player Rating, were he still stuck with any of those health issues or even with just the nationality conflict. No, just as Nene has nicely survived all of those trials and tribulations, the Nuggets somehow and so far have nicely survived their economic meltdown and their kicking to the curb of Marcus Camby, Eduardo Najera, Allen Iverson, Antonio McDyess, and a few others over the years.

Which only goes to show you, even the badly and unwisely behaved can succeed for awhile if the soul and the spirit are correct and powerfully positive. It is always possible to break the rules and succeed. It is always possible to find a strange way of doing things that can work for awhile.

Aside from the heavy Latino influence, you have on the Nuggets the usual African American type players such as Kenyon Martin and Chauncey Billups. But none of these are heavy duty leaders that many of the other teams have, in the mold of, for example, Keven Garnett or Amare Stoudemire. Kenyon Martin used to be truly ferocious, but following microfracture surgery on two devastated knees, he is too aware that he is lucky to be playing at all to be as ferocious as he used to be.

But Billups is the perfect player to make up for a coach who is unable to direct, design, or operate a pro NBA offense. In fact, he would make the perfect player coach. If Nuggets Owner Stanley Kroenke were to fire the entire coaching staff and designate Billups as the Head Coach, the Nuggets would win almost as many games, and the money saved would go a long way to soothing the frazzled nerves of the billionaire Mr. Kroenke.. Then again, the other owners would be laughing at Mr. Kroenke behind his back at parties if he ever actually fired all the coaches and installed Chauncey Billups as the Head Coach.

Although Billups structurally directs and coaches the offense, his personality is literally too nice for him to be able to lead the Nuggets, motivationally, particularly in high stress situations such as the playoffs. As seemingly everyone in the Land of Rose Colored Glasses, Colorado, is fond of pointing out, Chauncey Billups is a nice man with a nice personality, which is precisely the reason why he is not someone who might lead his team to victory in a ferocious game seven.

There is also on the Nuggets the black sheep of the family, offensive star and defensive wild card J.R. Smith, the one whose immature personality is considered to be completely out of place by many Coloradans and especially by “The Decider” when it comes to the quality and performance potential of personalities: George Karl. Smith is in fact psychologically younger than his years which are just 23, and his personality is too undeveloped for him to be any kind of a leader. Unless you need to be led to a really good video game, in which case you might want to consult with J.R..

Proceeding further on the Nuggets’ strange roster, you have Chris Andersen who you make fun of at your own risk. The biggest upside surprise of all statistically for these Nuggets, and responsible for at least a couple of the surprise Nuggets wins by himself, Andersen, to cynical observers, has seemingly failed at everything. But cynical observers need to update their information. Andersen has definitely not failed at everything anymore, because he has been a big reason why the Nuggets have been a very big upside surprise so far this year.

Andersen was born where the weather is usually perfect: Long Beach, but he ended up flunking out of the steamy hot University of Houston, and then playing at a college that no one has ever heard of: Blinn College. There was no way anyone was ever going to get drafted out of Blinn College.

But at 6 feet 10 and with versatile and excellent athletic leaping ability for someone so tall, in 2001 he earned a spot on the then very lowly Denver Nuggets and he remained on the team for three years, when he went to the New Orleans Hornets and was better coached to a much more substantial outcome there.

But Andersen’s personality can be completely out of line by Colorado and George Karl standards and, in January 2006 he was caught having ingested a truly illegal substance and was banned from the League for two years. With assistance, of course, from the Player’s Union, he was reinstated to the NBA and to the Hornets in March 2008 but didn’t play much at all for the Hornets during the last part of that regular season, or during the lengthy Hornets 2008 playoff run.

Meanwhile, the economic emergency was inducing the Nuggets’ management to throw more and more expensive players, ones they didn’t know how to coach anyway, overboard into the drink, which made it however the perfect situation for Andersen to gain an opening. So despite his banishment, and a detour to Chinese basketball, he was practically a preseason star this past fall in Denver, and so it was only natural that he would return to where he started, Denver, for the 2008-09 season. And at a cost to the Nuggets for this season of next to nothing, perfect for an economic emergency.

Now then wouldn’t you know that the Nuggets would be lucky beyond belief with respect to Mr. Andersen. With a Real Player Rating so far of just over .700, which puts him in the category of “Star: High Quality Starter,” and also puts him right up there with Carmelo Anthony, you are an idiot if you think Chris Andersen is a failure these days.

Ultimately, there is something incredibly exotic about the Nuggets when you look for common denominators and think everything through in long form. This is a team filled with players who are all very lucky to be here. There are few if any inevitable or automatic players on the Nuggets. There are hardly any fancy prep school players; there are no European prep players. All of them except for Chauncey Billups could have easily been out of basketball by now if they had not luckily gotten enough good luck to offset all the serious bad luck they had over the years.

Having grown up in one of America’s highest crime, most dangerous neighborhoods, Carmelo Anthony could just as easily be in jail or even dead right now. Similarly, J.R. Smith grew up in a high danger zone, and could have been ruined by that, or else could have washed out of the NBA already due to hostility from coaches including George Karl. Kenyon Martin comes from Saginaw, Michigan, one heck of a depressed town.

Anthony Carter was elevated from total oblivion by Karl, who overrates every relatively short but good personality guard he ever sees. Anthony Carter would probably be about nowhere were he not on the Nuggets right now.

So every time you see the Nuggets you are seeing, unlike with other teams, players who could just as easily not be there. They could easily be in jail, or dead, or working at Wal-Mart. The Nuggets are almost a science fiction team. So therefore, almost all of these Nuggets are players who are really glad to be playing in the big time NBA, in the Mile High City, and to be making a lot of money in the process. I mean, they are really, really glad, as in practically joyful. As in it might bring a tear to your eye that all of them have survived all of the big threats that they have survived, threats at levels that most other players don’t have to ever worry about. Most have been to hell and back, to now strangely end up in the same place and at the same time, all for one and one for all, as if it was all intended to be such.

Iverson fit into this pattern very well, but he wanted out because he wants to win the Quest for the Ring at all costs and he knew the Nuggets were not going to really be about the Quest in the next few years, which are his last in the NBA. The Nuggets are about being a zone for those who have been through a lot more than normal to be in the game.

Iverson is correct: this team can not possibly win a playoff series if the truth were told. Even so, this team is and very plausibly will remain a very happy team, and to be happy is just as important as to win. If you win you will be happy. But you can, in certain circumstances, if you have a very strong mojo, a strong faith, be happy without winning anything important, and the Nuggets can pull that off this year the way they are going.

And so as a fan, don’t be fooled into thinking that they can compete with the top teams, but at the same time don’t be fooled into thinking that the Nuggets will not be happy even though they can’t.

They are very happy to be in the game, all for one and one for all.

SCALE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS FOR A REGULAR SEASON
Historic Super Star 1.000 and more
Super Star 0.825 to 0.999
A Star: A Very Good Starter 0.700 to 0.824
Good, Solid Starter 0.620 to 0.699
Major Role Player 0.550 to 0.619
Role Player 0.500 to 0.549
Minor Role Player 0.450 to 0.499
Very Minor Role Player or Very Important Defender 0.400 to 0.449
Poor Player or Extremely Important Defender 0.350 to 0.399
Very Poor Player Regardless of Defending 0.300 to 0.349
Extremely Poor Player / Disaster of a Season / Injury Problems etc. Less to 0.299

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2008-09 Season, as of Jan. 4, 2009

Chauncey Billups 0.795
Nene Hilario 0.740
Carmelo Anthony 0.714
Chris Andersen 0.702
Kenyon Martin 0.647
J.R. Smith 0.637
Renaldo Balkman 0.633
Allen Iverson 0.589
Anthony Carter 0.562
Linas Kleiza 0.506
Chucky Atkins 0.447
Dahntay Jones 0.343

NUGGETS REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
2008-09 Season, as of Jan. 4, 2009

Chauncey Billups 846.25
Nene Hilario 816.45
Carmelo Anthony 706.85
Kenyon Martin 643.15
J.R. Smith 541.40
Anthony Carter 443.15
Linas Kleiza 382.30
Chris Andersen 298.35
Dahntay Jones 211.55
Renaldo Balkman 200.00
Allen Iverson 72.40
Chucky Atkins 50.95

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