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Nuggets begin to implode

They haven't gotten rid of Carmelo Anthony—yet—but the Nuggets have begun the disassembly of their dynasty of okay teams that make the playoffs, then lose quickly.

This ESPN.com headline says that the Nuggets traded Marcus Camby to the friggin' Clippers for a second-round draft pick, but the story seems to suggest that the Nuggets gain only the option to swap picks with the Clips in 2010.

I can remember the last time the Clippers wanted to win more than the Nuggets did. It was just a few years ago. And it sucked.

Camby is aging, but he's a solid center, a position very difficult to fill. Last season he averaged nine points, thirteen rebounds, and just over three-and-a-half blocks per game. His blocks average led the league, and his rebounds per trailed only Dwight Howard.

At least we didn't let Camby get away for nothing, right? Except he's not a free agent, and a second-round pick is nothing. The option to trade for such a pick is even less, and if the teams continue in these directions, our pick'll be higher than L.A.'s is anyway.

It pisses me off so much that the Nuggets' decisions are being made by some cheapskate when the choice so clearly hurts the team's chances of winning. Of course, Nuggets fans are hardly the only ones who suffer. Some teams, the Clippers being the prime example for as long as I can remember, almost never try to win.

And we're left with questions.

1. What the heck would you buy a friggin' basketball team if you didn't want to dominate? Seriously. I get that rich people like money, and I'm no businessman, but aren't there much better opportunities for profit? And if your friend owned a terrible team, would you ever stop giving him crap for it? Sure, being a pro sports owner is a pretty exclusive club, but who's impressed with you if you refuse to let your guys get it done on the field?

2. Do paying customers have to put up with this? Absolutely not. I'm all about team loyalty, and I'll bleed orange until I die, but life's too short to care more about a team than the owner does. Shoot, I stopped following the Rockies in part because I felt management wasn't really trying to field a contender. And then I looked like a pretty big frigtard last year, didn't I?

2. How fair is it to blame Carmelo if the Nuggets disappoint next year? Against the Lakers our porous interior defense was exposed, and we just made it much worse. Some West powers would just destroy us now. Mr. Anthony would be completely justified in blasting the team publicly for this move. However, since he just got a DUI and everyone in Denver's, um, uncomfortable with his image, the team would win the PR war by default and he'd just be made out to look more selfish. Which, I'm sure, is why they traded Camby now. I guess the onus is on Iverson.

"Thanks" to Blaine for the tip on the bad news.

Comments

John said…
This makes no sense. If we were going to trade Camby, why not get something in return? Sure, I get the argument that our team was underproductive and the move frees up cap space, but Camby was our ONLY interior player worth a damn. I can see making this deal if we are getting rid of K-Mart in the process, but this move hurts us a ton, and now we are left with a bunch of injury-prone odds and ends to plug up the middle.

And when you have dime-store management like ours, who needs to blame Melo if the team falls apart?

My favorite part about the espn.com story was Rex Chapman's quote that "we are trying to get better. Our goal is to win a championship." Really? It seems like saying that kind of thing is enough to get the media to back off a stupid move - but it doesn't wash as far as I'm concerned.
8:08 AM
blaine said…
The last few years it's seemed like the Nuggets have been trying to win a championship. They brought in George Karl, Camby, K-Mart, and Iverson. Because they haven't had any success in the playoffs, I can understand their reasoning behind wanting to make some moves, and I can even understand Kroenke's desire to spend a little less money on the team. What I don't understand is why trade Camby? Anyone who's watched a Nugget's game in the last 3 years knows that their problem is defense. So what do the Nuggets decide to do? trade their best interior defender.

I think it's great they want to try to re-sign J.R. but he, just like Melo and A.I. is an offensive-minded player. Why not admit you made a mistake signing Nene and K-Mart to huge contracts and trade one of them for a second round trade option? Like you said Mike, it's going to be really tough to try to replace Camby.
8:15 AM
Mike said…
Forgot to mention last night: this wouldn't even be necessary if we hadn't handed mega-deals to Nene and K-Mart.

Kroenke cheaping out is inexcusable. I complain if any other product I buy gets worse for no good reason, even though all those companies want to make money, too. That doesn't change even if you put the human face of an incredibly rich guy on it.

If Nene comes back and can play big minutes and better than ever before, then he'll make up a bit for the loss of Camby, and we could use the more physical presence. I just don't think that's so realistic, and even if it does work out that doesn't make us better for trading Camby, just possibly not too much worse.
8:40 AM
John said…
I agree that the right move was to trade Nene and/or K-Mart. But who wants either one, especially with their big contracts?
12:21 PM
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