Nuggets blew season in the off-season
When you think of the game of basketball, you think of a bunch
of players who can take a round, orange-laced ball and shoot it
into a 10-foot high hoop; the way Dr. James Naismith intended it
for it to be.
Unfortunately, the Denver Nuggets don’t think of basketball in
the same way its inventor did. Following the 2003-2004 season, the
Nuggets should have had one goal: to find someone who could improve
their shooting percentage. The Nuggets ranked 28th in the NBA in
field goal percentage last year, shooting a dismal 37 percent. One
reason for their lackluster shooting would be they were without a
talented starting shooting guard. They needed someone to compliment
Carmelo Anthony, so he wasn’t taking so many bad shots.
Voshon Lenard, who by some analysts is considered a legitimate
backup guard, was the starter for the Nuggets last season. He
proved to be a very streaky shooter, getting hot sometimes, but
having the tendency to throw up a lot of bad shots. Lenard did win
the 3-point contest at the all-star game last year, but the Nuggets
still lacked shooters and scorers.
Once the season was over, the Nuggets expected to be a big
player in the free agent market, considering their amazing
turnaround of winning 43 games and making the playoffs for the
first time in nine years.
So, after some wining and dining of Kobe Bryant, who, in my
opinion, would have never considered Denver anyway due to his ties
with Eagle County, the Nuggets found themselves not really doing
much of anything when it came to signing a big name scorer in the
NBA.
They pursued Spurs guard Manu Ginobili, who helped Argentina win
the gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, but he decided that San
Antonio was a good fit for him. Then they balked at signing Jon
Barry, Brent Barry, and Quentin Richardson who are all capable of
shooting and, by the way, were all very interested in joining the
Nuggets.
Instead, what they ended up with was all-star power forward
Kenyon Martin, who isn’t a bad catch at all, but it wasn’t what the
Nuggets needed. They already had two great big men in Marcus Camby
and Nene, with fan favorite Chris “The Birdman” Andersen backing
them up.
Fast forward to game one of this season and you’ll find that the
birdman has flown the coop, Nene is already hampered by a hamstring
injury and Lenard tore his Achilles tendon, ruining his season in
the process.
I’ll bet Kiki Vandeweghe is kicking himself now for not getting
someone who could score and shoot the ball during the
off-season.
So, what we have this season is a struggling Nuggets team who
definitely can’t shoot the ball, especially now that their biggest
three-point threat is gone, and a team that is trying to find a new
chemistry with the loss of their starting shooting guard and the
addition of Martin.
They’ve only played three games and have a record of 1-2, with
the most recent embarrassing loss coming from Utah when the Nuggets
only shot 39.7 percent to the Jazz’s 50.6 percent, losing
106-82.
As much as I hate to agree with Charles Barkley, he was right.
The Nuggets are the most over-hyped team in the NBA this year
simply because they didn’t go out and get what they needed in the
off-season. They may have brought in an all star, but they sure did
overlook what they really needed, someone who can shoot the damn
ball.s
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