Is it Possible That Allen Iverson Could be Snubbed by the Basketball Hall of Fame?

The best way to put down a Iverson hater is to point out that Iverson is going to be among a tiny fraction of all players who are admitted to the very prestigious Basketball Hall of Fame (BHOF) in Springfield, Massacussetts. But do we know absolutely for certain that Iverson will be selected?

Quest investigated to find out, and the answer is yes, we do know that.

There are only about 300 players admitted as of 2009, over a 50 year period beginning in 1959. So only six players per year are admitted, and since there are female and international players admitted, on average only three or four former NBA players are admitted each year.

Since Iverson was literally the very best NBA player for at least two years and was among the top three or four players during a five or six year period, it is obvious that he is going to be one of the three or four chosen during one of the years following a five year period after he retires.

But let's play devil's advocate...

IS IT POSSIBLE THAT IVERSON WILL NOT MAKE THE HALL OF FAME?
DEVILS' ADVOCATE THEORY ONE: He will not be admitted because he never won a ring.

A check of recent Hall of Famers (see the list below) reveals that the number of rings won can NOT be major criteria for admission, because there are a good number of players who never won a ring along side players who did win one, and alongside a tiny number of players who won multiple rings. Winning one or more rings can't hurt, but it is definitely not a major criteria.

Even though Iverson never won a ring, his ability to produce wins is phenomenal and indisputable. In the five years prior to Iverson being drafted on the Philadelphia 76'ers, that team was a staggeringly bad 128-282. This is a winning percentage of just 31.2%, one of the worst five year percentages ever. In other words, what is always forgotten is that, unlike most players, Iverson was drafted onto a team that had been miserably bad for half a decade before he got there.

In fact, before Iverson got there, the Philadelphia 76'ers were like the current day Memphis Grizzlies, the doormat of the League. In the five years after Iverson arrived, the 76'ers were 186-192, for a winning percentage of almost 50%.

Officially, Iverson was injured and unavailable for the Pistons for the 2009 playoffs. Unofficially, Iverson quit the dismal and mismanaged Pistons. Either way, it makes little sense to count the Pistons playoff games toward Iverson's playoff record, since Iverson was not a part of that.

So not counting the 2009 Pistons, Iverson was in the playoffs seven different years. Here is that record by wins and losses:

1999: 3-5
2000: 5-5
2001: 12-11
2002: 2-3
2003: 6-6
2005: 1-4
2008: 1-4
TOTAL: 30-38

There are numerous players who are already in the Hall of Fame whose playoff record is not as strong as this one, either because their playoff winning percentage was less, or because they did not play in nearly as many playoff games as did Iverson; he played in 68 playoff games. (Obviously, the simple number of playoff games is important, because the better you are, the more playoff games you get.)

Note that Iverson has averaged more than 5 playoff games played per season in the NBA, which is at least very close to the average among all players. But unlike "all players," Iverson punched his own ticket into those playoff games, because in order to get into those playoff games, Iverson had to turn around what had been the Leagues' worst team before he arrived.

If you think that the Hall of Fame committees look at only whether a player won the Quest or not, and they don't consider overall playoff record at all, you are a fool.

DEVILS' ADVOCATE THEORY TWO: He won’t make it because of the bowling ally brawl and his subsequent legal ordeal.

Allen Iverson was legally pardoned and also completely exonerated for the bowling ally incident, so if he were snubbed over the bowling ally incident, it would definitely be a departure from Basketball Hall of Fame standards. It would also be a snub of former Virginia Governor Doug Wilder, as well as the Virginia Court of Appeals.

After Iverson spent four months at Newport News City Farm, a correctional facility in Newport News, Virginia, he was granted clemency by Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder, and the Virginia Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in 1995 for insufficient evidence.

Isn't it ironic that there is always insufficient evidence for all accusations against Iverson? Interesting and disturbing.

The bottom line is that a snub of Iverson would be the biggest snub in the history of sports halls of fames.

DEVILS' ADVOCATE THEORY THREE: He won’t be admitted because there are hordes of people who have made hate comments about him on the Internet and, for that matter, from the stands at games.

Only in the dreams of the Iverson haters, laugh out loud. Most if not all of the selection committee people would never have the time or the motivation to make or read Internet comments, particularly hateful ones.

Meanwhile, the pro basketball writers who can and often do influence Hall of Fame committees often fail to respect Iverson due to the monkey see, monkey do thing, but at least they generally keep the hate out of it. Iverson's Hall of Fame chances will only be slightly harmed by negative press from sports writers, not enough to stop him from gaining entry. And Iverson will not be hurt at all by Iverson hate in Internet comments.

DEVILS' ADVOCATE THEORY FOUR: He won’t be admitted because as the Quest for the Ring has reported, his career has been harmed by his playing 2-guard (shooting guard) whereas he always should have remained a 1-guard (point guard).

No, this is ridiculous, fortunately. In fact, to the extent this is understood or at least suspected, this will help insure he gets admitted to the BHOF. Honors committees consist of basketball experts, many of whom will at least unconsciously give Iverson some extra credit for doing so well even though technically he was not playing the position best for him and his teams.

WHAT WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY HAPPEN
What is most likely to happen is what almost always happens when a great sports player who has, for some reason, valid or invalid, generated a substantial amount of hatred and/or controversy. Iverson will eventually be admitted to the Basketball Hall of Fame, but he will have to wait a few years past the first year of eligibility, which is five years after he retires.

So unless the world ends or the sport folds, Allen Iverson will be admitted to the Basketball Hall of Fame 8-12 years after he retires.

BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME SELECTION PROCESS
Players need to be retired for five years or more before they can be considered.

The first phase is called screening. A former NBA player has to receive at least 7 out of 9 possible votes from the North American Screening Committee.

The second phase is Board of Trustees review. This board, in relatively rare cases, can overrule a Screening Committee nomination. These rare cases will usually involve players tagged as criminals. Allen Iverson was completely exonerated for the bowling hall brawl and has no conviction record for any crime.

The final stage is that the former player must receive at least 18 of 24 possible votes by the Honors Committee. The purpose of the Honors Committee is to review carefully a candidate's basketball record before casting a vote in favor of enshrining the person into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

There are 24 people on each of the four Honors Committees. They include existing Hall of Famers, basketball executives, media members and other contributors to the game. A core group of 12 people sit on all four committees. Twelve specialists review both the Veterans Committee and the North American Committee. These specialists have an intimate understanding of the specific category of play considered by their committee. A person needs a minimum of 18 votes (of 24 total votes) from an Honors Committee to be enshrined into the BHOF.

If the Honors Committee has not elected a candidate for five consecutive years, the person's candidacy will be suspended for five years and will not be considered during this time. Following this five-year period, the candidate will be eligible to be reconsidered by the appropriate Screening Committee.

PLAYERS INDUCTED INTO THE BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME IN THE LAST 20 YEARS
1990 David "Dave" Bing G
1990 Elvin E. Hayes F-C
1990 Neil Johnston C
1990 Vernon "Earl" Monroe G
1991 Nathaniel "Nate" Archibald G
1991 David W. "Dave" Cowens C-F
1991 Harry J. Gallatin F-C
1992 Sergei A. Belov —
1992 Lusia Harris-Stewart —
1992 Cornelius L. "Connie" Hawkins F-C
1992 Robert J. "Bob" Lanier C
1992 Nera D. White —
1993 Walter "Walt" Bellamy C
1993 Julius W. Erving F-G
1993 Daniel P. "Dan" Issel C-F
1993 Richard J. "Dick" McGuire G
1993 Ann E. Meyers —
1993 Calvin J. Murphy G
1993 Uljana Semjonova —
1993 William T. "Bill" Walton C-F
1994 Carol A. Blazejowski —
1994 Harry E. "Buddy" Jeannette G
1995 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar C
1995 Anne T. Donovan —
1995 Arild Verner Agerskov (Vern) Mikkelsen F-C
1995 Cheryl Miller —
1996 Kresimir Cosic —
1996 George Gervin G-F
1996 Gail C. Goodrich G
1996 Nancy I. Lieberman —
1996 David O. Thompson G-F
1996 George H. Yardley F-G
1997 Joan Crawford —
1997 Denise M. Curry —
1997 Alexander "Alex" English F
1997 Bailey E. Howell F
1998 Larry J. Bird F
1998 Marques O. Haynes —
1998 Arnold D. "Arnie" Risen C-F
1999 Kevin E. McHale F-C
2000 Robert A. McAdoo C-F
2000 Isiah L. Thomas G
2001 Moses E. Malone C-F
2002 Earvin "Magic" Johnson G-F
2002 Drazen Petrovic G
2003 Dino Meneghin —
2003 Robert L. Parish C
2003 James A. Worthy F
2004 Drazen Dalipagic —
2004 Clyde Drexler G-F
2004 Maurice Stokes F-C
2004 Lynette Woodard ]
2005 Hortencia de Fatima Marcari —
2006 Charles Barkley F
2006 Joe Dumars G
2006 Jacques Dominique Wilkins F-G
2008 Adrian Dantley F-G
2008 Patrick Ewing C-F
2008 Hakeem Olajuwon C
2009 Michael Jordan G-F
2009 David Robinson C
2009 John Stockton G

ALLEN IVERSON BIOGRAPHY HIGHLIGHTS
Allen Ezail Iverson, (born on June 7, 1975, in Hampton, Virginia), nicknamed A.I. and The Answer, is a professional basketball player who currently plays for the Detroit Pistons. He is an All-Star point/shooting guard. A thirteen-year veteran at the age of 34, he is considered by many to be among the greatest guards of his generation and one of the most prolific scorers in the history of the game.

EARLY YEARS
On June 7 1975, Allen Iverson was born on the Virginia Peninsula (where both Hampton and Newport News are located). The son of Allen Broughton and Ann Iverson, his dad skipped out on the family and their then 15-year-old mother was left caring for him and his sister Brandy. Shortly after being born, his maternal grandmother - often the pillar in an inner-city family - passed away. In 1991, Iverson, Brandy and their mother welcomed a new addition to the family, Leisha, who was ill, adding to the family bills. Growing up, Iverson was often responsible for taking care of his younger sisters Brandy (born 1979) and Liesha (born 1991), which was especially difficult with the toddler, who suffered frequent seizures.

Mounting medical bills pushed the family further in debt. Ann's boyfriend, Allen's de facto father, Michael Freeman has been in and out of jail all of his life. After a car accident left him unemployed once again in 1991, desperate for money Freeman was caught and convicted for drug possession with intent to distribute. "I didn't buy Cadillacs and diamond rings," Freeman explains, "I was payin' bills."

Iverson used to blame the man who taught him how to play basketball and pushed him to excel at it. Today he's proud of Freeman. "He never robbed nobody," said Allen. "He was just tryin' to feed his family. It would kill him to come from jail and find out how his family was living. Every time his mother saw him lose heart, she told him "go till the end every time you see the chance".

Iverson once recalled about his childhood - "Coming home, no lights, no food, sometimes no water. Then when there was water, no hot water. Living in a house where the sewer was busted under the house and having to watch my sister walk around in her socks all day because the floor was wet from the sewage. The smell was making my sister sick."

He had two role models in his youth, his mom and Tony Clark, with whom Iverson had a close relationship. Iverson's mom would tell Allen he could be somebody and could do anything with his God given talent. She told him "never let anyone tell you differently." Tony Clark (not to be confused with the baseball player also inspired Iverson. When Iverson skipped school, he hung out with Tony, who was six or seven years older. Tony would tell Iverson's mom what was going on and Allen's mom would come and get him. Allen would kick and scream and tell Tony that he hated him, but Tony did what he did because he loved Allen and cared. Allen was like his little man, and he stayed with them for two years. Tony, who had a lot going on between his family and his girlfriend, was killed when Iverson was 15. Allen had no more male role models to replace Tony, but there is one guy that he hangs with now, Andre Steele, and now he looks out for him.

BETHEL HIGH SCHOOL
In his days at Bethel High School in Hampton, Iverson was a star football and basketball player. He had scholarship offers from all over the country, as he quarterbacked the football team to a state championship his junior year. He was in the midst of leading the school's basketball team to a state title when he went to a Hampton bowling alley with friends on Valentine's Day 1993. A brawl broke out between Iverson's friends, all of whom were African-American, and several white teenagers.

Iverson claims that the brawl was triggered by racial slurs, and although the level of his involvement remains unclear -- he has maintained his innocence -- Iverson was alleged to have hit a woman in the head with a chair. He and three other African-American youths were arrested.

At 17, Iverson was convicted on a felony charge of "maiming-by-mob" and drew a 15-year prison sentence, with 10 years suspended. All scholarship offers were quickly rescinded. He spent four months at the Newport News City Farm before Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder granted him a pardon. In 1995, the Virginia Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, citing insufficient evidence of his guilt.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
While Iverson was in prison, his mother visited Georgetown basketball coach John Thompson in December 1993, begging him to help her son. "She was the reason why I helped her child," Thompson said.

In spring 1994, he visited Iverson at Hampton's Richard Milburn High, a school that catered to at-risk students or students who already had dropped out of high school. Thompson told the prolific guard that he would offer him a scholarship, but he would not hesitate to send Iverson "back to Hampton with his tail between his legs" if he failed to comply with the legendary coach, or strict honor code of Georgetown.

At Georgetown, Iverson was an Arts major, his first love as a child. He is still known for impressive caricatures that depict teammates and celebrities.

As a Hoya, Iverson won two Big East Defensive Player of the Year awards, a Rookie of the Year award, 1995-1996 All-Tournament 1st Team, and a Gold Medal for his win at the World University Games in Japan in 1995. He was also the Hoyas All-Time leading scorer.

As his family situation worsened and financial responsibility mounted, Iverson needed to turn pro early, which meant leaving school before graduating. Iverson was the first of just two basketball players (Victor Page being the other) to leave Georgetown without a degree under Thompson.

After two phenomenal years at Georgetown, Allen left his coach John Thompson and announced himself eligible for the NBA draft.

NBA CAREER: SIXER YEARS 1996-1999
After two outstanding seasons at Georgetown, Allen Iverson was the first player picked in the 1996 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Iverson quickly established himself as one of the premier point guards in the NBA. In his debut against the Milwaukee Bucks, he scored 30 points. He was named Schick Rookie of the Year and was a member of the NBA All-Rookie First Team.

Iverson led the Sixers with 23.5 points (sixth in the NBA), 7.5 assists (11th) and 2.07 steals (seventh), leading NBA rookies in each category.

In the 1999-2000 season, Iverson made his first trip to the playoffs, having played well in a year in which he set records, was the NBA scoring champion, and a starter for the All Star game - Iverson felt he deserved to go to the play-offs, He started all ten playoff games and averaged 44.4 minutes per game despite being hampered by a number of nagging injuries. He averaged 26.2 points, 4.5 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 1.20 steals per game, with a high of 40 points in the First Round opener at Charlotte on April 22.

2000-2001 MVP season
Iverson arguably had his best season in 2001 - he led his team to win their first ten games, he started and won All-Star MVP honors at the All-Star game, was the NBA scoring champion for the second time, was the NBA steals champion, and ultimately led his team to an NBA finals appearance against the Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

NBA--GENERAL
Iverson is the third leading points per-game scorer in NBA history. He has averaged 27.7 points per game in his career, trailing all-time leader Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain in this category by only 2.0 points per game. Iverson is one of only 30 players in NBA history to score over 20,000 points in his career, and he was the 6th fastest in the history of the game to achieve this feat.

Iverson averages 6.2 assists per game over his career so far, as well as 3.8 rebounds per game.

On defense, Iverson is also an adept ball-thief and is known for playing the passing lanes. He regularly ranks among the league leaders in steals and averages over 2 steals per game for his entire career.

In 2003, Iverson was ranked 53rd on SLAM Magazine's Top 75 NBA players of all time

NBA SUMMARY OF AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS
College Georgetown
Draft 1st overall, 1996
Philadelphia 76ers
Pro career 1996–present
Former teams Philadelphia 76ers (1996–2006)
Denver Nuggets (2006–2008)
Detroit Pistons (2008-2009)
Awards NCAA Big East Rookie Of The Year (1995)
2× NCAA Big East Defensive Player Of The Year (1995, 1996)
NBA Rookie of the Year (1997)
NBA All-Star Rookie Game Most Valuable Player (1997)
1997 NBA All-Rookie Team
NBA Most Valuable Player (2001)
2× NBA All-Star Game MVP (2001, 2005)
3× All-NBA First Team
3× All-NBA Second Team
10× NBA All-Star
3× Steals leader (2001, 2002, 2003)
7× All-NBA selection
4× NBA scoring champion (1999, 2001, 2002, 2005)

=========== VIDEO PLAYER ===========
ALLEN IVERSON MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets Real Player Ratings for 2007-08 and 2008-09 Side by Side, Part Two

REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
Real Player Production (RPP) is the factored sum of all the good things minus the sum of all the bad things a player has done since the season began. Starting in June 2009, RPP is upgraded to include a careful estimate of the value of each player's hidden defending. See the User Guide for complete details about this. RPP adjusted for hidden defending is called Total Real Player Production (TRPP). Generally, only TRPP will appear in reports.

DENVER NUGGETS
FINAL TOTAL REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
2008-09 Regular Season
Quantity of Players: Includes all tracked actions and an estimate for hidden defending

08-09 Chauncey Billups DEN 2364.79
08-09 Nene Hilario DEN 2209.26
08-09 Carmelo Anthony DEN 2051.97
08-09 J.R. Smith DEN 1849.35
08-09 Kenyon Martin DEN 1591.51
08-09 Chris Andersen DEN 1219.82
08-09 Anthony Carter DEN 1194.00
08-09 Linas Kleiza DEN 1111.76
08-09 Renaldo Balkman DEN 635.86
08-09 Dahntay Jones DEN 633.89

DENVER NUGGETS
FINAL TOTAL REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
2007-08 Regular Season
Quantity of Players: Includes all tracked actions and an estimate for hidden defending

07-08 Allen Iverson 3332.78
07-08 Marcus Camby 2755.56
07-08 Carmelo Anthony 2648.02
07-08 Kenyon Martin 1640.60
07-08 Anthony Carter 1380.67
07-08 Linas Kleiza 1331.01
07-08 Eduardo Najera 1222.96
07-08 J.R. Smith 1160.35
07-08 Yakhouba Diawara 291.75
07-08 Chucky Atkins 196.73

DENVER NUGGETS
FINAL TOTAL REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION
2008-09 AND 2007-08 COMBINED SORT
Quantity of Players: Includes all tracked actions and an estimate for hidden defending

07-08 Allen Iverson 3332.78
07-08 Marcus Camby 2755.56
07-08 Carmelo Anthony 2648.02
08-09 Chauncey Billups DEN 2364.79
08-09 Nene Hilario DEN 2209.26
08-09 Carmelo Anthony DEN 2051.97
08-09 J.R. Smith DEN 1849.35
07-08 Kenyon Martin 1640.60
08-09 Kenyon Martin DEN 1591.51
07-08 Anthony Carter 1380.67
07-08 Linas Kleiza 1331.01
07-08 Eduardo Najera 1222.96
08-09 Chris Andersen DEN 1219.82
08-09 Anthony Carter DEN 1194.00
07-08 J.R. Smith 1160.35
08-09 Linas Kleiza DEN 1111.76
08-09 Renaldo Balkman DEN 635.86
08-09 Dahntay Jones DEN 633.89
07-08 Yakhouba Diawara 291.75
07-08 Chucky Atkins 196.73

OBSERVATIONS
In Part One we saw how Allen Iverson in 2007-08 was a better player than Chauncey Billlups was in 2008-09 by about 10%. Here we see that the Iverson over Billups reality was even larger when you look at total net production. Iverson produced 41% more on the basketball court in 2007-08 than Billups did in 2008-09.

Remember Iverson’s 2007-08 TRPP number (3333) because that is one of the highest such numbers you will ever see. Due to George Karl’s inability to coach him correctly, and also due to instructions from the owner and/or the managers of the Nuggets to milk Iverson as much as possible so that the objective of additional Nuggets tickets and merchandise revenues might be achieved, Iverson played a grinding 3,424 minutes in 2007-08, more than every other year except for 2002-03.

The other big time Nugget run out of town following the extremely expensive but underachieving 2007-08 campaign was Marcus Camby, who trails only Iverson in the two year record of total production.

In third, you have the 2007-08 version of Carmelo Anthony. As you can see, the 2008-09 Carmelo Anthony produced a little more than 3/4 of the 2007-08. Much of this drop off was due to fewer minutes played due to nagging injuries, but at least a quarter of the drop off was due to the bad influence of George Karl on Anthony.

Kenyon Martin is a very predictable veteran player. Both his Real Player Rating and his Total Production were very similar in both years.

Notice the huge jump in the J.R. Smith production. Virtually all of this was due to more minutes because, remember, George Karl was restricting J.R. Smith’s minutes in 2007-08 whereas, in the following year, Karl’s stance softened considerably despite the fact that Smith was essentially precisely as good a player in both years! One good theory regarding why Karl softened his restrictions on Smith in 2007-08 is simply that management ordered him to play Smith a minimum number of minutes.

When Linas Kleiza was not given a contract in the smmer of 2008, and when Chris Andersen and Renaldo Balkman shocked the public with their outstanding play and crowded him out, Linas Kleiza gradually fell off the radar screen. Now he is off the team and off to Greece to play this coming season. Kleiza's departure is certainly a case of addition by subtraction.

When the Nuggets sent Dahntay Jones to Indiana a few weeks ago, it was most definitely addition by subtraction. George Karl has developed a reputation for grossly overplaying certain guards (as long as they have compelling personalities, laugh out loud). This past year, Dahntay Jones' personality was Karl’s object of affection. But Nuggets management clearly recognizes this Karl weakness, and so it was no surprise when Jones was not offered any kind of contract by Denver.

Anthony Carter is an aging backup point guard who has become more and more of a playoff defensive liability, in the last couple of years especially.

========== OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS ===========

DENVER NUGGETS
OVERALL OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
2008-09 Regular Season
Offensive Quality: Includes all non-trivial offensive actions

08-09 Chauncey Billups DEN 0.637
08-09 Carmelo Anthony DEN 0.587
08-09 J.R. Smith DEN 0.527
08-09 Nene Hilario DEN 0.478
08-09 Renaldo Balkman DEN 0.432
08-09 Linas Kleiza DEN 0.394
08-09 Anthony Carter DEN 0.385
08-09 Chris Andersen DEN 0.358
08-09 Kenyon Martin DEN 0.354
08-09 Dahntay Jones DEN 0.293

DENVER NUGGETS
OVERALL OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
2007-08 Regular Season
Offensive Quality: Includes all non-trivial offensive actions

07-08 Allen Iverson 0.703
07-08 Carmelo Anthony 0.672
07-08 J.R. Smith 0.587
07-08 Anthony Carter 0.466
07-08 Linas Kleiza 0.453
07-08 Kenyon Martin 0.401
07-08 Marcus Camby 0.385
07-08 Chucky Atkins 0.381
07-08 Eduardo Najera 0.350
07-08 Yakhouba Diawara 0.325

DENVER NUGGETS
OVERALL OFFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
2008-09 AND 2007-08 COMBINED SORT
Offensive Quality: Includes all non-trivial offensive actions

07-08 Allen Iverson 0.703
07-08 Carmelo Anthony 0.672
08-09 Chauncey Billups DEN 0.637
08-09 Carmelo Anthony DEN 0.587
07-08 J.R. Smith 0.587
08-09 J.R. Smith DEN 0.527
08-09 Nene Hilario DEN 0.478
07-08 Anthony Carter 0.466
07-08 Linas Kleiza 0.453
08-09 Renaldo Balkman DEN 0.432
07-08 Kenyon Martin 0.401
08-09 Linas Kleiza DEN 0.394
08-09 Anthony Carter DEN 0.385
07-08 Marcus Camby 0.385
07-08 Chucky Atkins 0.381
08-09 Chris Andersen DEN 0.358
08-09 Kenyon Martin DEN 0.354
07-08 Eduardo Najera 0.350
07-08 Yakhouba Diawara 0.325
08-09 Dahntay Jones DEN 0.293

OBSERVATIONS
You might be surprised to learn that you are right now looking at something unusual and something that is usually a bad thing. You are looking at a bunch of players who made fairly big changes in their games in order to adopt a relatively radical purely defensive approach to basketball.

Specifically:

--Carmelo Anthony’s offensive game dropped from .672 to .587
--J.R. Smith’s offensive game dropped from .587 to .527
--Kenyon Martin’s offensive game dropped from .401 to .354
--Anthony Carter’s offensive game dropped from .466 to .385
--Linus Kleiza’s offensive game dropped from .453 to .394

Of course, as you will see shortly, the flip side of these drops were much higher defensive sub ratings. The problem is that all the Nuggets did was go from one extreme to another. In 2007-08, they were obsessed with offense and, although they were much better defensively than most believe, they did not have enough pride in or reliance on defense to be a legitimate contender. Whereas in 2008-09, the Nuggets were obsessed with defense and did not have enough pride in or ability to rely on offense to be a legitimate contender.

Even teams that are obviously much more skilled or interested in either defense or offense can not downplay the other one to the extent the Nuggets did in both years and expect to be a legitimate contender. Even the 1989 Quest Winner Pistons, for example, a defensive monster of a team, had a well run offense that worked well when it was needed. The ’89 Pistons did not even get close to ignoring offense or to having almost no offensive organization and patterns, the way the Nuggets did in 2009.

Even in 2007-08, the Nuggets offense was powered much more by raw skill and athleticism than by strategy and plays, but at least there was a pride and a confidence associated with that offense that was almost completely gone in 2008-09.

The Denver Nuggets were like an empty shell defensively in 2007-08, and then they were like an empty shell offensively in 2008-09. Opposing teams could crack those shells to get playoff wins over the Nuggets.

Don’t get me wrong, there was a lot of skill and potential on the 2007-08 Nuggets defense and the 2008-09 Nuggets offense, and so the actual outcome was actually pretty good. But the strategy, tactics, emphasis, and pride were totally lacking, and so the 2007-08 Denver defense and the 2008-09 Denver offense were both major underachievers.

In theory, had Denver fielded a legitimate, independent defense in 2007-08 or a legitimate, independent offense in 2008-09, they could have been a full scale contender to win the Quest.

While it is acceptable, and usually advisable, to promote either offense or defense over the other one, you can not win the Quest by overweighting one or the other of those to the point where the other one is an afterthought, or is literally derived from the emphasized one.

The Nuggets 2008-09 offense did not exist independently. It was derived from the defense. This is a strategy that will never work in the Quest for the Ring. Players must be able to execute both a separate quality offense and a separate quality defense.

=========== DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS ===========

DENVER NUGGETS
OVERALL DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
2008-09 Regular Season
Defending Quality: Includes both tracked and hidden defending

08-09 Chris Andersen DEN 0.478
08-09 Nene Hilario DEN 0.402
08-09 Kenyon Martin DEN 0.400
08-09 Renaldo Balkman DEN 0.384
08-09 Carmelo Anthony DEN 0.315
08-09 J.R. Smith DEN 0.297
08-09 Anthony Carter DEN 0.283
08-09 Chauncey Billups DEN 0.233
08-09 Linas Kleiza DEN 0.216
08-09 Dahntay Jones DEN 0.152

DENVER NUGGETS
OVERALL DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
2007-08 Regular Season
Defending Quality: Includes both tracked and hidden defending

07-08 Marcus Camby 0.600
07-08 Eduardo Najera 0.385
07-08 Kenyon Martin 0.359
07-08 Carmelo Anthony 0.272
07-08 Allen Iverson 0.270
07-08 Linas Kleiza 0.251
07-08 Anthony Carter 0.238
07-08 J.R. Smith 0.229
07-08 Yakhouba Diawara 0.179
07-08 Chucky Atkins 0.178

The breakdowns between hidden and unhidden are available on request.

DENVER NUGGETS
OVERALL DEFENSIVE SUB RATINGS
2008-09 AND 2007-08 COMBINED SORT
07-08 Marcus Camby 0.600
08-09 Chris Andersen DEN 0.478
08-09 Nene Hilario DEN 0.402
08-09 Kenyon Martin DEN 0.400
07-08 Eduardo Najera 0.385
08-09 Renaldo Balkman DEN 0.384
07-08 Kenyon Martin 0.359
08-09 Carmelo Anthony DEN 0.315
08-09 J.R. Smith DEN 0.297
08-09 Anthony Carter DEN 0.283
07-08 Carmelo Anthony 0.272
07-08 Allen Iverson 0.270
07-08 Linas Kleiza 0.251
07-08 Anthony Carter 0.238
08-09 Chauncey Billups DEN 0.233
07-08 J.R. Smith 0.229
08-09 Linas Kleiza DEN 0.216
07-08 Yakhouba Diawara 0.179
07-08 Chucky Atkins 0.178
08-09 Dahntay Jones DEN 0.152

OBSERVATIONS
Chris Anderson produced about 80% of what Marcus Camby did the year before while earning less than 10% of the pay. So to say the Nuggets got lucky with Andersen would be a major understatement. They got a miracle with Andersen.

The flipside of the big offensive declines above would be the big defensive increases:

--Carmelo Anthony’s defensive game increased from .272 to .315
--J.R. Smith’s defensive game increased from .229 to .297
--Kenyon Martin’s defensive game increased from .359 to .400
--Anthony Carter’s defensive game increased from .238 to .283
--Linus Kleiza’s defensive game declined from .251 to .216

The biggest improvement in absolute and in percentage terms was by J.R. Smith who went up by almost .070. Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin, and Anthony Carter all went up by a little less than .050. Linus Kleiza was substantially worse defensively in 2008 than he was in 2007, so he was completely out of step with the 2008 Nuggets. He is now out of town too, as he has signed a contract to play basketball in Greece.

PERCENTAGE CHANGES OF THE FIVE NUGGETS WE CAN COMPARE YEAR TO YEAR
In a few weeks, the fall 2009 Real Player Rating “Tweak” is going to boost the defending factors and reduce the offensive factors. As of now, roughly speaking, RPR is weighted 60% offense and 40% defense. This is going to become roughly 55% offense and 45% defense. This will be a small but non-trivial change.

This will most likely be the last tweak that is more than a trivial change. Starting in 2010, all annual RPR changes will be trivial.

We can, even with the existing slightly imperfect numbers, fairly compare five Nuggets from 2007-08 to 2008-09 on offense and on defense simply by using percentage changes.

Carmelo Anthony was 16% better on defense but 14% worse on offense in 2008-09 compared with the year before. Note that since Carmelo Anthony has always had far more potential on offense than on defense, this was a net negative for him with respect to prospects for winning the Quest.

J.R. Smith was almost 30% better on defense but about 10% worse on offense in 2008-09 compared with the year before. Smith’s defensive improvement was huge, so arguably this was a good tradeoff for him. Smith’s offensive decline was less than I thought it would be.

Kenyon Martin was about 11 1/2 % better on defense but almost 12% worse on offense in 2008-09 compared with the year before. An already defensive player became an overly defensive player here.

Anthony Carter was 19% better on defense but almost 17 1/2 % worse on offense in 2008-09 compared with the year before. There is no denying that Carter’s defense needed some improvement, but in the process he became even more of an offensive lightweight, non-factor than he already was.

Linas Kleiza was 14% worse on defense and 13% worse on offense in 2008-09 compared with the year before.

As you can see, the Nuggets swapped out offense and swapped in defense. Had they in 2008-09 respected and understood the concept of professional basketball offense, they could have possibly held on to almost all of their 2007-08 offensive performance, which would likely have made them actual contenders, and a true threat to the Lakers.

As it was, since the Nuggets disrespected the concept of organized, professional offense, the “threat” that the 2009 Nuggets posed to the Lakers winning the Quest was nothing more than a figment of the imagination.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

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Denver Nuggets Real Player Ratings for 2007-08 and 2008-09 Side by Side, Part One

Part One features the basics, including the Real Player Ratings and a new, very important “Quick Evaluation” system for quickly determining to what extent a team is most likely a contender to win a Ring or not.

NUGGETS MOST VALUABLE PLAYERS 2007-09
Congratulations and respect are due to CARMELO ANTHONY, who led the Nuggets in quality basketball IN 2008-09.

Congratulations and respect are due to MARCUS CAMBY, who led the Nuggets in quality basketball in 2007-08.

Congratulations and respect are due to CHAUNCEY BILLUPS, who contributed more than any other player to the Nuggets in 2008-09.

Congratulations and respect are due to ALLEN IVERSON, who contributed more than any other player to the Nuggets in 2007-08.

HISTORIC MAJOR SUPER STARS 2008-09
None

HISTORIC MAJOR SUPER STARS 2007-08
None

HISTORIC SUPER STARS 2008-09
None

HISTORIC SUPER STARS 2007-08
None

SUPERSTARS 2008-09
CARMELO ANTHONY

SUPERSTARS 2007-08
MARCUS CAMBY
ALLEN IVERSON
CARMELO ANTHONY

STARS 2008-09
Nene
Chauncey Billups
Chris Andersen
J.R. Smith
Renaldo Balkman

STARS 2007-08
J.R. Smith

OUTSTANDING PLAYERS: SOLID STARTERS 2008-09
Kenyon Martin

OUTSTANDING PLAYERS: SOLID STARTERS 2007-08
Kenyon Martin

BEST BY SIDE OF COURT
BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER 2008-09
Chauncey Billups

BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER 2007-08
Allen Iverson

BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER 2008-09
Chris Andersen

BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER 2007-08
Marcus Camby

OBSERVATIONS
The Nuggets had no major and no ordinary historic superstars either year. There were a total of 13 historic superstars in the NBA in 2008-09.

The Nuggets had one superstar in 2008-09 and three of them in 2007-08. There were a total of 24 superstars in the NBA in 2008-09.

On the other hand, the Nuggets had five stars in 2008-09 and only one in 2007-08. So in total, the Nuggets had six stars and higher players in 2008-09, and four of them in 2007-08. However, one of the 2008-09 stars, Renaldo Balkman, was not recognized as a star and played only 780 minutes. Moreover, Balkman hardly played at all in the playoffs.

Moving down the scale one more notch, the Nuggets had one outstanding player / solid starter in both years, and it was the same one: Kenyon Martin.

In total, the Nuggets had seven players rated solid starter or better in 2008-09 and five of them in 2007-08. Subtract Balkman from the 2008-09 crew if you agree that 780 minutes playing time for him was not enough and was not very significant.

You would never know it if you polled Nuggets fans, but Allen Iverson edged out Carmelo Anthony as the best offensive player in 2007-08.

You would also definitely not know it if you polled current, mostly deluded Nuggets fans, but Allen Iverson in 2007-08 was a much better Nuggets player than was Chauncey Billups in 2008-09. See the combined sort below, where you can see that Iverson in 2007-08 was a .973 Superstar, whereas Billups in 2008-09 was a .870 Star.

There is also an unhealthy disrespect among confused 2008-09 Nuggets fans for their 2007-08 defensive leader, Marcus Camby. In fact, as you can see below, Camby in 2007-08 was the best of all Nuggets from either year.

While I realize that sports fans latch onto myths the way barnacles latch on to the bottom of a ship, and while I realize that sports fans often do not believe in respect as a guiding principal, it is truly disturbing to what extent both the best offensive and the best defensive player of the 2007-08 Nuggets were and still are to this moment treated more or less like dirt by the 2008-09 Nuggets fans.

The Nuggets swapped out a whole lot of fans from one year to the next, but even so, the current Nuggets fan base seems to have completely gone off the reservation.

It is doubtful that a franchise whose fans heavily disrespect some of their best recent players is going to win a Championship anytime in at least the next fifteen years, probably more than that.

For one thing, such "fans" are way to easy to please. Just swap out a few stale styles and they will be happy.

DENVER NUGGETS
FINAL REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2008-09 Regular Season
Quality of Players: Includes all tracked actions and hidden defending

Carmelo Anthony DEN 0.901
Nene Hilario DEN 0.880
Chauncey Billups DEN 0.870
Chris Andersen DEN 0.835
J.R. Smith DEN 0.824
Renaldo Balkman DEN 0.815
Kenyon Martin DEN 0.754
Anthony Carter DEN 0.669
Linas Kleiza DEN 0.610
Dahntay Jones DEN 0.445

DENVER NUGGETS
FINAL REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2007-08 Regular Season
Quality of Players: Includes all tracked actions and hidden defending

Marcus Camby 0.999
Allen Iverson 0.973
Carmelo Anthony 0.944
J.R. Smith 0.817
Kenyon Martin 0.760
Eduardo Najera 0.735
Linas Kleiza 0.705
Anthony Carter 0.704
Chucky Atkins 0.559
Yakhouba Diawara 0.538

DENVER NUGGETS
FINAL REAL PLAYER RATINGS
2008-09 AND 2007-08 COMBINED SORT

07-08 Marcus Camby 0.999
07-08 Allen Iverson 0.973
07-08 Carmelo Anthony 0.944
08-09 Carmelo Anthony 0.901
08-09 Nene Hilario 0.880
08-09 Chauncey Billups 0.870
08-09 Chris Andersen 0.835
08-09 J.R. Smith 0.824
07-08 J.R. Smith 0.817
08-09 Renaldo Balkman 0.815
07-08 Kenyon Martin 0.760
08-09 Kenyon Martin 0.754
07-08 Eduardo Najera 0.735
07-08 Linas Kleiza 0.705
07-08 Anthony Carter 0.704
08-09 Anthony Carter 0.669
08-09 Linas Kleiza 0.610
07-08 Chucky Atkins 0.559
07-08 Yakhouba Diawara 0.538
08-09 Dahntay Jones 0.445

OBSERVATIONS
Looking at all the Nuggets who played 300 minutes or more in 2007-08 and 2008-09, we can see that the top three player years were all in 2007-08: Marcus Camby, Allen Iverson, and Carmelo Anthony. But then all of the next five were 2008-09 Nuggets: Carmelo Anthony, Nene, Chauncey Billups, Chris Andersen, and J.R. Smith.

Following these eight top positions, you have the 07-08 J.R. Smith, the 08-09 Renaldo Balkman, and then both of the Kenyon Martins.

Generally speaking, the 2007-08 Nuggets had much stronger stars than did the 2008-09 Nuggets but, on the other hand, the 2008-09 Nuggets had substantially more stars.

Is there a way to very quickly compare the two very different teams with respect to what extent they were contenders in the Quest for the Ring?

There is now.

A NEW, LIGHTNING FAST WAY TO EVALUATE WHETHER A TEAM IS A CONTENDER OR NOT
First, here is what we are talking about; here are the types of players which are necessary to try to win the Quest for the Ring, as defined by RPR:

Major Historical Superstar: 1.100 and higher
Historical Superstar: 1.000 to 1.099
Superstar: .900 to .999
Star: .800 to .899
Outstanding / Solid Starter: .750 to .799

Now we need to come up with a simple scheme to count the value of these players, which can be as follows:

Major Historical Superstar: 6, possibly 7 points
Historical Superstar: 4.5
Superstar: 3
Star: 2
Outstanding / Solid Starter: 1

Now anyone with half a brain can in less than a minute flat look at a team’s Real Player Rating report and evaluate whether it is a contender or not:

QUICK CONTENDER EVALUATION OF A TEAM (QCET)
15 points or more: Automatic Major Contender
14 points: Likely Major Contender / at minimum a Wild Card Contender
13 points: Possible Major Contender / at minimum a Wild Card Contender
12 points: Likely a Wild Card Contender, but possibly only a Long Shot Contender
11 points: Possibly a Wild Card Contender, at minimum a Long Shot Contender
10 points: Generally a Long Shot Contender

NOTES
(1) In years with more superstars than usual, more points than usual would be required. For example, in a year with an unusual number of superstars on key teams, it might take 13 or 14 points to be a Wild Card Contender instead of just 12.
(2) If time permits, fine tune your evaluation by subtracting or adding a point, or a fraction of a point, for players who are close to the boundary between two categories.
(3) A major historical superstar could in theory be worth as many as about 7.5 points. Michael Jordan comes to mind. Currently, LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Dwyane Wade are examples of players worth about 7 contender evaluation points.

TYPES OF NBA CONTENDERS
Generally, in any NBA year, there will be about three Major Contenders, about three Wild Card Contenders, and about three Long Shot Contenders. (Wild Card Contenders are in between the Major Contenders and the Long Shot Contenders.) .

SO TO WHAT EXTENT WERE THE 2007-08 NUGGETS CONTENDERS?
In 2007-08, the Nuggets had three superstars, giving them nine contender points right there. The Nuggets that year also had one star and one solid starter. So their total score was 12 points, which as you can see is evaluated this way: “Likely a Wild Card Contender, but possibly only a Long Shot Contender".

What actually happened was that the 2007-08 Nuggets were at best a Long Shot Contender, and not really even that. Obviously, the 2007-08 Nuggets were major underachievers.

Hypothetically, if J.R. Smith had been a superstar instead of just a star in 2007-08, and if Kenyon Martin had been a star instead of just a solid starter, then the Nuggets would have been, or at least very close to have been a major contender. Had Smith and Martin been those things, and had either Najera or Kleiza or Carter been a solid starter, than the Nuggets would have had 15 evaluation points (three more than they actually had) which would most likely have made them major contenders.

Now do you see why I kept going ballistic about things such as J.R. Smith being intimidated or partially benched by George Karl and by Najera being left out of the offensive flow all of the time? Laugh out loud at how many times.

For comparison purposes, the 2008-09 Lakers are scored at about 15.5 points.

SO TO WHAT EXTENT WERE THE 2008-09 NUGGETS CONTENDERS?
In 2008-09, the Nuggets barely had one superstar, Carmelo Anthony. Given the fact that history has proven time and time again that superstars count for much more than do stars in the Quest, you would probably need six stars to go along with one superstar in order to be a true major contender, whereas the Nuggets had five, one of which, Renaldo Balkman, was not regarded or treated as such.

If you do count Renaldo Balkman as a star, than the 2008-09 Nuggets can be quick evaluated as having had 14 points which, as you can see, is evaluated this way: “Likely Major Contender / at minimum a Wild Card Contender”.

But the Nuggets didn’t really have all of 14 points, because (1) Renaldo Balkman was not recognized as a star (ask George Karl why, I have no idea why myself) so the two points from his status should be cut to one. And (2) Carmelo Anthony was almost exactly on the border between star and superstar, so that his contribution to the team contender evaluation should be cut by half a point.

Taking these two adjustments to account, the Nuggets of 2008-09 were really more like a 12.5 team than a 14 points team. So actually, the 2009 Nuggets were not a major contender, but they were a Wild Card Contender.

Mostly major contenders will appear in Conference Finals, but every year you might expect one of those final four teams to be a Wild Card Contender. In 2009, it was the Nuggets who appeared in a Conference Final as a Wild Card Contender.

In effect, the “Nuggets' wild card” was drawn from the deck, and so the Nuggets miraculously appeared in the West Final, due largely to all the misfortunes that were suffered by other key West Conference teams. Those misfortunes are too numerous to mention and are beyond the scope of this report, but just for starters you had Historical Superstar Yao Ming of the Rockets and high end Superstar Manu Ginobili of the Spurs out due to injuries.

Hypothetically, the Nuggets might have been a 15 points team instead of a 12.5:

--If Carmelo Anthony had been at least a full scale superstar (add half a point)
--If Kenyon Martin were a true star instead of just someone who everyone assumes is a star (add one point)
--If Renaldo Balkman had gotten the playing time he deserved (over for example Dahntay Jones (add one point)

These three improvements would have produced a Nuggets evaluation of 15 points, and then the Nuggets would actually have been dangerous to the Lakers instead of just in mythology (and the alternate Universe, laugh out loud.)

SCALE FOR REGULAR SEASON REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Outstanding Player: A Solid Starter 0.750 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.700 0.749
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player 0.520 0.579
Poor Player 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.399

NOTE REGARDING LOW REGULAR SEASON RATINGS
Players rated below about .550 sometimes get playing time based largely on factors outside of RPR, but valued by coaches and other players, such as:
--Great energy, effort, and hustle
--Toughness, such as diving after loose balls and taking charges
--Leadership and/or knowledge, especially in the case of veterans
--Perceived potential for future improvement in terms of real basketball production, especially in the case of young players
--See User Guide for more

This concludes Part One of the side by side comparison of the 2007-08 and the 2008-09 Nuggets. In Part Two, the Real Player Production will blow away some more myths, as will the two sub ratings: the Offensive Sub Rating and the Defensive Sub Rating.

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Carmelo Anthony Real Player Ratings by Year: the First Ever Player Career RPR Report

This Report features the first ever multi-year Real Player Ratings (RPR) for a specific player. This is information that has been generated from the latest RPR technology, which continues to improve behind the scenes. Hidden defending adjustements can now be made for NBA seasons from 2005-06 on.

This Report features Carmelo Anthony's six year career so far.

COMING LATER THIS WEEK
Quest for the Ring started out as a Nuggets only site. Later this week, look for the definitive Denver Nuggets Real Player Ratings for 2007-08 and 2008-09. This will be the straight up comparison of the two teams using state of the art RPR. We can use this to cut into the ignorance and mythology that always hangs around sports team fandom, but especially in the case of the recent versions of the Nuggets.

CARMELO ANTHONY CAREER REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Note: Due to data unavailable, the 2003-04 and the 2004-05 numbers use the average hidden defending adjustment (HDA) for the latter four years. Those four years, however, include the annual HDAs needed to properly calculate state of the art RPR.
2003-04 .747
2004-05 .730
2005-06 .959
2006-07 .921
2007-08 .944
2008-09 .901

EVALUATION SCALE FOR SEASONS
Perfect for all Practical Purposes / Major Historic Super Star 1.100 and more
Historic Super Star 1.000 1.099
Super Star 0.900 0.999
A Star Player / A Well Above Normal Starter 0.800 0.899
Outstanding Player: A Solid Starter 0.750 0.799
Major Role Player / Good Enough to Start 0.700 0.749
Good Role Player / Often a Good 6th Man 0.640 0.699
Satisfactory Role Player 0.580 0.639
Marginal Role Player 0.520 0.579
Poor Player 0.460 0.519
Very Poor Player 0.400 0.459
Extremely Poor Player and less 0.399

EVALUATION FOR CAREER AS A WHOLE
Carmelo Anthony has an average RPR of .867 for his career, which makes him a superstar by a small amount. The superstar range for a career is .860 to .939.

GEORGE KARL HAS BOTH SUCCEEDED AND FAILED WITH RESPECT TO CARMELO ANTHONY
Carmelo Anthony's total potential was high end superstar or low end historical superstar. See this Report for evidence. (Note: don't email me, I realize that college information alone is not enough to prove beyond all doubt that he could have been an historical superstar; even I do some things on faith every once in a great while.)

George Karl started coaching the Nuggets in January 2005, whereupon the Nuggets went on an improbable 32-8 tear. But Carmelo Anthony that year, which was the second year of his career, was not a great player. He was, to put it as nicely as possible, still learning the ropes. Karl did almost nothing in his first few months to bring Anthony up to speed. In fact, Anthony was downplayed as an option, which allowed veterans such as Andre Miller, Kenyon Martin, and Marcus Camby to take charge during that 32-8 streak.

But in the ensuing season, 2005-06, Carmelo Anthony exploded and played what to this day is his best season yet, a .959 RPR. People started to sit up and take notice, even though most of them were always deeply skeptical that he could or would ever win a Ring.

Quest was not even thought of during 2005-06, so we don’t know the details of exactly how Carmelo Anthony jumped up to became a superstar after being merely “good enough to start” in his first two years. But George Karl, at the very least, did nothing to harm Anthony that year, and he did nothing to stand in the way of Anthony taking command of the Nuggets offensive productivity.

It was in later years that Karl became a negative influence on Anthony, and we know the specifics of it, if only because Karl repeatedly made his false beliefs about Anthony known in the media. As has been extensively reported and proved here at Quest, Karl became more and more obsessed during 2006 and 2007 that Carmelo Anthony would never win a Championship because his offensive game was too imbalanced in favor of scoring, and because he doesn’t work hard enough on defense.

The basic problem, put as simplistically as possible, is that Karl does not understand that basketball is not like football and some other sports. Basketball is not biased in favor of defense over offense. In basketball, a very well coached offense can trump a well coached and motivated defense. So Carmelo Anthony’s bias in favor of scoring over assisting and offensive rebounding and so forth was never a serious or major problem.

But Karl did and still does disagree, so he has been hounding Anthony to get more rebounds, more assists, and more amorphous offensive hustle plays. Carmelo Anthony has responded to Karl’s complaints to some extent, so that as you can see, his RPR went down to the very low superstar range in 2006-07 and then again in 2008-09. When you do what Karl says on offense, your RPR goes down, not up as Karl would believe.

Defensively, Carmelo Anthony was kind of lazy in his first few NBA years, so Quest agrees with that part of the Karl assessment. And we give Karl credit he is due for getting Anthony (and other Nuggets) to work harder on defense. In fact, we are willing to historically declare that Karl was and is a good and sometimes a very good defensive coach. But offensively, to say that Karl leaves something to be desired would be an understatement.

Then most recently, during the Nuggets ten playoff games wins in 2009, Carmelo Anthony linked up with his inner soul and his past. He went back to aggressive shooting and scoring, thus leaving Karl’s offensive preaching in the dust. Anthony has clearly concluded that although Karl may know what he is talking about on defense, the Coach is out to lunch when it comes to offense.

SUMMARY CONCLUSION ABOUT KARL'S IMPACT ON ANTHONY
Karl, at the least, did not stand in the way when Carmelo Anthony surged to become a superstar in 2005-06. But Karl has failed to offensively coach Anthony correctly and, as a result, not only has Carmelo Anthony not become a historical superstar (as he could be) but Anthony actually declined in 2006-07 and especially in 2008-09. Anthony’s offensive backsliding has been a bigger negative than his defensive improvement has been a positive.

COULD CARMELO ANTHONY POSSIBLY WIN THE QUEST?
Most likely not. At a minimum, Anthony needs a coach who truly appreciates and understands offensive basketball at the NBA level. Tunnel vision defensive minded coaches will mess with his game to no end. And he needs a new team, because the Nuggets owner has become too financially conservative in the wake of the economic emergency to be able to properly finance the Quest for the Ring.

Whether Anthony has been permanently scarred due to drinking the Karl kool-aid offensively is still up in the air, although those who think he has not been permanently scarred were given a big boost from Melo's spring 2009 playoff season, when we were briefly treated to the classic Carmelo Anthony, the one that won the National College Championship, come back to life again.

HOW CARMELO ANTHONY’S BREAKOUT YEAR 2005-06 LED DIRECTLY TO THE BIRTH OF THIS SITE
Quest for the Ring was originally "Nuggets 1". The site was born in late 2006, in the first part of the season that followed Carmelo's breakout year. However, at that time, RPR was not even a figment of the imagination, so we did not have the hard data that you just saw, with which to base becoming a Nuggets fanatic on. Nor did we know about just how big the Nuggets payroll was, and was about to become.

So objectively, there was little, in late 2006, to base any prediction that the Nuggets could be a major contender on. But intuitively we knew that Carmelo Anthony was now for real, and could theoretically win a Ring. And so we got swept up in Nuggets fandom.

And since we were not on the Net yet, and didn’t want to be bored and/or enraged all the time by doing economics and politics, we decided to do basketball. The combination of wanting to write about something that is not often depressing and Nuggets fandom produced the legacy site “Nuggets 1,” which transformed over time into The Quest for the Ring. More detailed history can be found in several different User Guide Reports, including this one.

And so it was just an educated guess that told us that the Nuggets could possibly win a "miracle ring" in either 2007, 2008, 0r 2009. When the Nuggets obtained Allen Iverson in December 2006, right when this new site was still in the incubator as an infant, Quest very naively believed that the Nuggets were truly serious about being a major contender, and that now they actually were a major contender. (Oh to be young and stupid again, it seems looking back that youthful ignorance was a lot of fun.)

But the Denver Nuggets of recent years were never a true major contender if everything now known is factored in. It has been proven beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Allen Iverson Nuggets thing was about marketing and money making, not about becoming a major contender to win the Quest. And you really have to make a leap of faith as wide as the Grand Canyon to actually with a straight face believe that George Karl could ever or will ever win the Quest.

For these and other lesser reasons that have been exhaustively reported and proved, it was never realistic that the Nuggets were a major contender during any of the springs of 2007, 2008, and 2009.

NUGGETS COVERAGE TO BE COMPLETED SOON
But in 2009, like a monster that comes back for more in a horror movie, the Nuggets became one of the luckiest franchises/teams of all time, whereupon they fooled hordes of people into thinking they were a major contender. Grown men, none of whom predicted early in the season that the Nuggets were going to win much of anything in the playoffs, were claiming by the time the Nuggets met the Lakers in the 2009 West Finals that they "might actually be better" than the Los Angeles Lakers! Not that it is ever fully rational, but some of the basketball world was going stark raving mad from Nuggets mania, and Quest was compelled to report that the alternate universe had kicked in.

But then reality made a big comeback and the normal Universe came back. The Nuggets lost to the Lakers four games to two, and they were eliminated at home by 27 points as the Lakers synchronized offense made mince meat of the suddenly scared witless Denver rough, tough, and nimble defense.

We intend to do another, final, big Report on this subject before we put “the Nuggets thing" to rest for who knows how many years. One thing we absolutely have to do is to complete the explanation of why we were wrong when we in January 2009 predicted that the Nuggets would not win more than a couple of playoff games in 2009. (They ended up winning ten of them.) Ironically, getting time resources approved to do this is tricky, precisely because, despite those ten wins, the Nuggets were in 2009 much more the luckiest franchise than they were an actual major contender. But do it we must, and we will, by mid October at the very latest.

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Will the Revamped Mavericks Look for Revenge Against Denver for Kenyon Martin Flagrant on Dirk Nowitzki and for Other Transgressions?

Laugh out loud George Karl! You, more than probably any other coach, think personalities, especially how "tough" they are, are crucial in determining who wins playoff games. But it is your team that arguably has one of the roughest, most questionable set of personalities among all NBA teams. Being too tough, to the point where you had Kenyon Martin and Dahntay Jones doing trips and throw downs out of bounds, and J.R. Smith usually looking like and occasionally acting like a deranged lunatic, puts you in the thug category.

Your team went over the line, Mr. Karl, especially against the Mavericks, and everyone knows it. And you don't get a pass from consequences for that just because you finally won a few playoff games.

Dahntay Jones, incidentally, was a sometimes dirty player who Karl loved, but Nuggets management, in agreement with Quest, thought was close to worthless. So when Jones received a relatively low offer from Indiana, the Nuggets did not match.

I was literally forced to do a Thuggets Report this year, since I would have been negligent had I not.

But meanwhile, Dallas Mavericks owner Marc Cuban, looking for revenge not only against the Nuggets but also against losing the 2006 Quest to Shaquille O'Neal, Dywayne Wade, and the rest of the Miami Heat, is clearly truly serious about winning playoff games. So Cuban and his managers have made some significant strategic moves this off season.

The most notable Dallas move is acquiring Suns playoff wins veteran scrapper Sean Marion. Marion is no nonsense tough, and scores a lot of points, more points than Kenyon Martin can or does. In other words, Marion doesn't let his toughness interfere with his actual basketball performance, the way Kenyon Martin sometimes does.

Dallas also now has Cavaliers and Bulls veteran Drew Gooden backing up Dirk Nowitzki at power forward and 6th year man Kris Humphries, from the Raptors, backing up Erick Dampier at center. Neither Gooden nor Humphries are lacking in toughness. Humphries was a Raptors fan favorite precisely because of his hustle and toughness.

To get those three, Dallas shipped out some younger players, perhaps with a little more skill but with substantially less seasoned toughness, if you will. So overall, we are looking at a more seasoned, tougher Dallas team, which apparently was not tough enough to hang with the overly tough Nuggets during the May series.

Whereas whatever the Lakers' actual "toughness quotient" was, it was irrelevant due to their massive skill level and their huge coaching advantage.

The Mavericks may now be tough enough to want to and be able to hang rough with the Thuggets and extract some revenge from them for a few dirty and manhandling incidents during both the regular season and during the playoff series. They may also wish to extract a pound of flesh for the Nuggets' efforts, which were partially successful, to make their owner, Marc Cuban, look like a jerk. In fact, Martin and Cuban had a full scale feud going during most of the year, and it boiled over during the series.

There was another incident in Denver where at the very end of a first half, J.R. Smith heavily elbowed a Maverick in the neck or lower face, and Cuban complained to both the referees and to Smith himself to no effect. Whereupon a holier than thou George Karl tried to lecture the Dallas owner about what a NBA owner is and is not allowed to do when visiting Denver. And whereupon Nuggets fans opined that Cuban is one of the biggest jerks in basketball.

And God only knows how many other "little" incidents there were.

What has Denver been doing to improve their team this off season? Cue the crickets, please.

Given that Dallas has much increased their toughness factor, look for at least some revenge this coming season and, more importantly, look for the Mavericks to at least split games with the Nuggets, instead of losing almost all of them, as they did in 2008-09 due to the Nuggets' very unusual and dangerous to basketball combination of raw but great offensive skill and overdrive defensive roughness.

CHIEF THUGGET KENYON MARTIN SENDS A MESSAGE TO NOWITZKI AND THE MAVERICKS EARLY IN GAME ONE


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DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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[This was a fast break type of posting, a short post needed to be pushed out the door quickly to be timely. In the great majority of cases, a fast break posting is followed up by much longer articles, that will contain a lot of proof for any points made in the fast breaks. Remember that many Quest reports have much more detail than this one; Quest for the Ring prides itself on game, team, and League breakdowns that are as long as necessary to make and prove the points.]

More on why and how the Detroit Pistons fell Apart in 2009

Well I think that underlying everything is that Iverson has been playing the wrong position for many years. But he has followed instructions to reduce his shooting, which would reduce the negative effect from that.

But let's leave Iverson aside for now to try to explain this year's Pistons. These are just preliminary teasers really; I intend to be more thorough later. So this is just a brief chat answer and not a complete answer.

--Rodney Stuckey, who is Chauncey Billups' replacement, has been wildly inconsistent. He was a superstar in December and only a poor player unqualified to start in February. The Pistons will never be a very good team if Stuckey is going to be this inconsistent.

--Although Coach Michael Curry was smart to try numerous starting lineups and rotations, he probably got carried away with experimenting.

--Worse, Curry has had difficulty judging the results of the experiments and has not done very well with rotations overall. He gets an A on generosity to reserves, but maybe a C- on judging which reserves to play when.

--Specifically, Amir Johnson and Will Bynum have not played enough, whereas Walter Hermann and Arron Afflalo have played too much. At least one of the two between Hermann and Afflalo should not be playing at all, considering the Pistons are overloaded with guards who are better than them.

--There is one player who has played worse due to both Stuckey and Iverson combined: Rip Hamilton. It basically makes a mess of the offense to have all three of them out there at the same time, which for some strange reason Curry has insisted on for way too many minutes. In other words, small ball has been a total disaster.

--Although many Pistons are down from last year to this year, Rasheed Wallace deserves special mention. His 3-point shooting has not been as bad as it may seem, and his defending is almost as good as last year. But he isn't taking it to the hoop as much, so his overall scoring, free throws, and offensive rebounding are all down. Since he mostly wants to catch and shoot now, his assists are down also.

--Let's be honest: the Pistons may have drunk the kool-aid and decided that it doesn't matter what they do this season because "everybody knows" that Dumars is rebuilding now and will be getting rid of Iverson and Wallace in order to get new big time players in the next couple of years.

The trouble is, "everybody" does not really know this. Nothing is written in stone. If Iverson or Wallace were to accept much reduced salary, they would probably be welcome to remain. Or if the Pistons with this group went to the East Conference Final, at least one of the two between Iverson and Wallace would be given a new contract that was not discounted.

But this may be a big problem with the Internet and 24/7 TV news now: everyone and his uncle has cynical, simplistic, and exaggerated theories about what general managers are doing. Dumars and other managers can do some of the things people are dreaming of, but not all of them and not even the majority of them.

For one thing, Dumars is in competition with 29 other managers for those players you are dreaming of. For another thing, not every player Dumars or you or I might want is going to want to play in Auburn Hills, Michigan. For a third thing, you have a big potential problem even after you get the player you are dreaming of. A great player who is chronically injured is not really so great a player, really. For example, the Rockets don't have Tracy McGrady due to injury, and so they are most likely not going to be able to make it to the West finals.

Another huge complication for any multi-year plan right now is that the League may end up in some kind of lock-out if the economy is bad enough, and no manager is going to be able to operate any huge plan if that happens. Keep in mind that the salary cap can go down as well as up, and if it is going to go down, then dreaming about cap space right now is kind of silly.

But if the players, as a result of all the know-it-alls, believe this season is just a transition from the old Great Pistons to the new Great Pistons, and so this year is just a wasted year in between needed due to basketball economics, than they might believe that nothing they do this season is going to change the Plan, so why should they go all out to make this season a good one? What does it matter whether the Pistons win 40 or 55 games when Dumars already has a plan he is set on that will go forward no matter what?

If Dumars were a perfect genius, he would have informed the Pistons that this season, like all seasons, matters, and that he has no set in stone, detailed plan about who is coming back in 2009-10. But there are no perfect genius managers, and Dumars may have, by accident, made the Pistons more likely to believe the media rumors that this season is meaningless, when in his news conferences and statements to reporters he emphasized that he would make as many changes as necessary, and when he did nothing to refute the notion that he has a master plan that makes this season meaningless.

I think Dumars should have kept his great eagerness to make changes, immediately in off-season 2008 and in the next few years to follow, out of the public view, so that it would be out of the player's view. No GM should ever create the impression that the Plan is so big that the season can not affect the plan, or else the result may be a ruined season. And if the season is ruined, you now need a bigger plan, one so big that it probably can not be implemented successfully. You've dug yourself a whopper of a hole, laugh out loud.

So general managers need to keep their plans and their eagerness to make changes to themselves, and they have to remind everyone from time to time, especially the players, that every season matters and that there is no set in stone plan ever.

But the players should be smart enough to know that Dumars is not dumb enough to have a set in stone Plan to the point where he will totally ignore the results of this season. But maybe they drunk the kool-aid, since everyone and his uncle (but not me, l avoided it) was saying that this season has to be meaningless due to basketball economics.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early March, 2009. For a much more on the subject of the Pistons in 2009 and going forward, see this Report.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written during the spring on forums. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

--The Michael Jackson Hero of the Quest Report was actually not finished when it was posted, and is being finished by noon on August 12. More music videos and one or two music video players are being added.

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DETROIT PISTONS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Real Player Ratings for Carmelo Anthony and the Syracuse Orangemen: 2003 College Basketball Champions

Here are the basic Real Player Ratings (RPR) for the NCAA college Champion Syracuse Orangemen from six years (and a few months) ago, featuring Carmelo Anthony before he became a rebel who refuses to come out of games, laugh out loud.

Note #1: due to lack of data and inadequate sample size if there were data, the following is basic or classic RPR and not state of the art RPR, which is adjusted for hidden defending.
Note #2: The ratings cover BOTH the regular season and the NCAA tournament.

SYRACUSE ORANGEMEN
REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Quality of Players
2002-03 REGULAR SEASON AND TOURNAMENT

Carmelo Anthony 0.970
Hakim Warrick 0.799
Josh Pace 0.709
Gerry McNamara 0.653
Billy Edelin 0.649
Kueth Duany 0.632
Jeremy McNeil 0.547
Craig Forth 0.477
Matt Gorman 0.355

SCALE FOR REAL PLAYER RATINGS (Unadjusted for hidden defending)
Perfect Player? Is there Such a Thing? 1.000 and more
Historic Super Star 0.950 and more
Super Star 0.850 0.949
A Star Player; An Extremely Good Starter 0.775 0.849
An Outstanding Player; A Solid Starter 0.700 0.774
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

CARMELO ANTHONY: HISTORICAL SUPERSTAR IN COLLEGE BUT NOT IN THE NBA
Notice that Carmelo Anthony was an "Historical Superstar" in college, but he has been merely a Superstar in the NBA. In fact, this past season, he was just barely over the line separating Star from Superstar. He had a higher rating in the three prior years than he did this year.

The bottom line is that, relative to other players, he has not been quite as good in the NBA as he was in College. So something has gone a little wrong in the NBA for him.

It could have something to do with this Karl guy. You never know. Oh, you actually might know if you read Quest.

SYRACUSE ORANGEMEN
REAL PLAYER PRODUCTION (BASIC)
Quantity of Players
Estimate for Hidden Defending Not Included
2002-03 REGULAR SEASON AND TOURNAMENT

Carmelo Anthony 1134.20
Hakim Warrick 830.15
Gerry McNamara 695.10
Kueth Duany 513.10
Jeremy McNeil 326.05
Billy Edelin 302.75
Josh Pace 297.95
Craig Forth 254.50
Matt Gorman 24.25

SYRACUSE ORANGEMEN
DEFENDING SUB RATING
Tracked Defending Only
2002-03 REGULAR SEASON AND TOURNAMENT

Carmelo Anthony 0.484
Hakim Warrick 0.440
Josh Pace 0.408
Jeremy McNeil 0.397
Billy Edelin 0.361
Gerry McNamara 0.338
Kueth Duany 0.335
Craig Forth 0.328
Matt Gorman 0.299

SYRACUSE ORANGEMEN
OFFENSIVE SUB RATING
All Tracked Offensive Actions
2002-03 REGULAR SEASON AND TOURNAMENT

Carmelo Anthony 0.565
Hakim Warrick 0.435
Gerry McNamara 0.404
Kueth Duany 0.386
Josh Pace 0.375
Billy Edelin 0.369
Craig Forth 0.214
Jeremy McNeil 0.200
Matt Gorman 0.093

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WEBMASTER NOTES: The video players we use take extra time to load, 30-90 seconds more than the rest of the page. The video players, so far as we know now, work in any browser. The Photobucket slideshow embed is not meshing with Google, so I off-linked it. Always remember that Firefox is the heavily recommended browser for the Quest home page.

CARMELO ANTHONY AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 2003 VIDEO PLAYER

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