Denver Nuggets

We've written ad nauseum since the dawn of Denver Stiffs about the two basic "have to's" to win an NBA Championship in the modern NBA. First, you "have to" have at least two - if not three - Hall of Fame players on your roster. And, secondly, you "have to" be located in one of the NBA's top-10 markets based on metropolitan area, because that's where the modern NBA players want to be. If you have both things going for you - as virtually every NBA Champion has had since 1980, such as the Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls, Boston (right on the cusp as the 10th biggest metropolitan area in the United States) Celtics and Miami Heat - an NBA title is well within one's grasp. If you have just one of those things going for you - such as the San Antonio Spurs from 1999-2007 and the Detroit Pistons from 1989-90, each of whom won with Hall of Fame talent despite being from a non-top-10 market - you can still win it all but it's less likely. And yet, with just four teams remaining in the 2013 NBA Playoffs, only one fits the mold of the first two "have to's": the 2012-13 Miami Heat who feature two Hall of Fame players plus one perennial All-Star and the NBA's eighth biggest market. And only one fits the mold of the second "have to": the 2012-13 San Antonio Spurs who feature three Hall of Famers playing at the tail end of one of the NBA's all-time great runs for a single franchise. The remaining two conference finals participants are, of course, the Indiana Pacers and Memphis Grizzlies, representing the NBA's sixth and fourth smallest markets by size, respectively (Denver, in case you're curious, ranks as the 13th smallest NBA market). Not only are Indianapolis and Memphis tiny (combined, the two metropolitan areas are smaller than Minneapolis), but neither team features the requisite two Hall of Famers necessary to compete for an NBA Championship ... in fact, there may not be one Hall of Famer on either team combined. Now granted, Indiana and Memphis may be conference finals participants due more to good fortune than prudent professional basketball team-building, but this is why you make the playoffs in the first place whenever possible: anything can happen. Memphis, for example, appears to be the direct beneficiary of the Oklahoma City Thunder (another small market team like San Antonio that featured perhaps three Hall of Fame players on the roster before this season began) losing James Harden via trade and Russell Westbrook via injury. But before besting the Thunder in Round 2, the Grizzlies were able to take out the giant-market Los Angeles Clippers who feature a Hall of Fame point guard in Chris Paul, a potential Hall of Famer in power forward Blake Griffin and a deep bench that only a big market team can buy. Meanwhile, the Pacers have the privilege of playing in the Leastern Conference. A conference so bad that Carmelo Anthony, J.R. Smith and Kenyon Martin can get out of the first round despite losing Game 5 at home and virtually collapsing in a closeout Game 6 on the road. (Sorry, had to.) But while watching the Grizzlies take on the Spurs now and the Pacers about to take on the Heat this Wednesday, Nuggets fans everywhere can't help but have an "it could've been us" feeling. In fact, it feels worse than that. It would be one thing if every conference finals participant were laden with Hall of Fame talent - as we saw last season when the Final Four consisted of Miami, Boston, San Antonio and Oklahoma City. But instead, we have two participants in Indiana and Memphis doing what Denver was supposed to do. Remember, it was our Nuggets after all that were supposed to be the small market, no-Hall-of-Famers team that marched through the NBA playoffs and turned NBA tradition on its head. Conversely, our Nuggets showed so much respect for the regular season that they forgot to respect the post-season. So maybe next season, the Nuggets should concern themselves more with competing in the playoffs than racking up regular season wi

With the Nuggets out of the playoffs, Altitude play-by-play announcer Chris Marlowe is rooting for former Denver forward Chris Andersen to win an NBA title.

For those of you stuck behind a desk today, take some time to peruse some of these articles: Shot Selection Round-Up: Part 2 - Ian Levy, Hickory-High Again, shot selection is not the be-all, end-all variable for good offense but its impact is significant. In a hypothetical world where the 76ers' shooting percentages from each area of the floor where completely static and immune to changes from outside factors; bringing just their shot selection up to league average XPPS would raise their TS% from 50.9%, 29th in the league this season, to 51.7%, which would have ranked 21st. Using that number, some regression analysis I've done previously, and holding their OReb% and TO% constant, we can predict that their ORtg. would jump from the 99.9 they actually averaged in the regular season to 102.9. That would essentially give them an even point differential for the season, the mark of a 0.500 team. I know I'm sprinting down a slippery slope here, assuming a huge number of other variables wouldn't change as well, but since the 76ers finished at 34-48 we can estimate that their shot selection may have cost them as many as seven wins this season. At the other end of the spectrum we find a pair of teams working shot selection to some unbelievable advantages. The top two team shot selections this season, measured by XPPS, were the Houston Rockets (1.103) and the Denver Nuggets (1.094). Those two marks were not only the highest this season, they're the two highest for the last 12 NBA seasons (which is as far back as my data goes). Given the way shot selection is trending in the NBA, it may be safe to say that they're the two most efficient shot selections of the three-point era. Lots of Nuggets fans tend to think that George Karl has no offensive system, but clearly his players listen to what he wants in the shot selection department and it's reflected in the numbers above. Ok, Who Wants to Sign Dwight? - Barry Petchesky, Deadspin The math is simple enough. The Lakers can offer more money and more years. The four potential suitors-the Rockets, Mavericks, Clippers, and Hawks-can offer fresh starts, and maybe even better teams. More money and more years typically wins out in the NBA. How often do we see free agents, with the recent CBAs, ditch the team that has their "Bird Rights" aka the honor to pay them more than anyone else? Most of the big names we've seen switch teams have done so via trade and sign-and-trade. With the new restrictions on sign-and-trade deals (mainly, you can't get a sign-and-trade done if your team is over the salary cap) it might be even more rare to see guys like Howard skip town. Would it be wise for Howard to ditch the Lakers? From the list above I'd say, yes. Playing in Houston with James Harden, Chandler Parsons, and even Jeremy Lin would be beneficial to Howard. He could focus on defense and he would get his chances on offense in the fast-paced system that Kevin McHale runs. Teaming up with Chris Paul with either the Clippers or Hawks would be wise, too. Atlanta would still have Al Horford and the Clippers have Blake Griffin - to go along with the other role players in each city - smart. Staying with the Lakers would be Howard's biggest gamble as he'd have to carry more of the load and who knows what that roster may wind up looking like next season and beyond (Dallas, to me, is also a risky situation). It would seem like Howard will likely be sticking around out West with four of his five suitors being in the Western Conference, so as Nuggets fans - we should expect to see a lot of Howard for the next four to five seasons, at least. Spurs take Game 1 and play brilliant defense on Zach Randolph Randolph finished with a season-low two points on 1-of-8 shooting in 28 minutes, the lowest-scoring playoff game by a player who averaged at least 15 points per game in the regular season and played more than 20 minutes in the playoff game since Ray Allen in Game 3 of the 2010 NBA Fin

Well, we made it to Sunday. Are you watching the Grizzlies trying to get back into the game against the Spurs in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals? Let's make another poll on who you are rooting for now that the conference finals are set - vote below. Here are some links that are totally worth checking out: The draft coverage over at SLC Dunk was awesome as some of their crew was at the Combine in Chicago this past week. So many video interviews! Click here for all of that. And with the Knicks being eliminated - J.R. Smith is saying he wants to retire a Knick and he's still taking some heat for the rumored late night partying during the post-season - click here. Check out Ty Lawson, of your Nuggets, playing boxer Adrien Broner in a 3-on-3 game. At the end of the clip it sounds like Lawson's team was 2-1 on the day...

May 2, 2013; Oakland, CA, USA; Denver Nuggets president According to Adrian Wojnarowskiof Yahoo! Sports, Denver Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri, the league’s Executive of the Year, is the top target of the Toronto Raptors. Bryan Colangelo hired Ujiri as the Raptors’ Director of Global Scouting and Ujiri eventually worked his way to the assistant general manager position in 2008 before being hired by the Nuggets in 2010. Ujiri, who just recently was named the league’s Executive of the Year, is the first African-born GM in North American sports. He  was charged immediately with handling the Carmelo Anthony saga. Ujiri was praised for the move, as he received a lot of young valuable assets from the New York Knicks in a trade. Also on his resume is the deals he made for Andre Iguodala and JaVale McGee. The Philadelphia 76ers made a move for Ujiri last off-season but he didn’t show interest in leaving Denver. His past in Toronto, however, could make this off-season’s decision a little tougher. Ujiri’s contract is up in Denver and signing him is presumably Nuggets’ president Josh Kroenke’s number one priority. Toronto, who cut ties with Bryan Colangelo, according to sources, also listed the Washington Wizard’s vice-president of basketball operations Tommy Sheppard as a possible target. *** Thanks for reading and follow me on Twitter @lashy.

The Denver Nuggets and the Seattle Supersonics both entered their respective leagues at the same time, 1967. Denver in the ABA and Seattle in the NBA. This is the first in a surprisingly very long line of shared history between the two cities that continued all the way to 2008. Some of the most pivotal moments in Nuggets/NBA history occurred between the Nuggets and the Sonics in that time span starting in 1969. The Denver Rockets of the ABA signed Spencer Haywood in 1969 after one year of college. Due to the NBA's "Rules of eligibility" at the time, Haywood couldn't sign with the NBA. Haywood's one season in Denver was spectacular, averaging 30 points and 19.5 (!) rebounds a game. Amazing talent in a fledgling league. It was inevitable that the ABA would be too small for the amazing talents of Haywood. In 1970 Haywood and the Seattle Supersonics agreed on a contract, putting them in direct violation of the NBA's eligibility rules. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and resulted in a landmark decision regarding eligibility for professional leagues. The two teams didn't intersect again until after the Nuggets entered the NBA. They met in the Western Conference Finals in 1978. The Nuggets were defeated in six games 4-2 and the Sonics went on to lose to the Washington Bullets in the Finals. The next year the Sonics would play the Bullets again in the Finals and win their only Championship. Three seasons later, in 1982 the Nuggets would trade troubled star David Thompson to Seattle for none other than the Stiffiest Stiff of them all ... Bill Hanzlik. The Nuggets and Sonics met again in the first round of the 1988 NBA playoffs. The Nuggets won 3-2 over a Sonics team featuring Xavier McDaniel, Tom Chambers and future Nuggets player Dale Ellis. They were coached by Bernie Bickerstaff. Fast forward two years ... in 1990 the Nuggets' pretend owners Peter Bynoe and Bertram Lee hired Bickerstaff as general manager. Four seasons later, the (then) upstart Denver Nuggets met the heavily favored Sonics in the first round of the 1994 NBA playoffs. We all know what happened there, NBA History. The Nuggets became the first-ever No. 8 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the playoffs. A great moment for the Nuggets and the NBA (not so much Seattle or George Karl). The next year Bickerstaff brought in former Sonics sharp-shooter Dale Ellis. The Nuggets connection fell off until January of 2005 - the Nuggets hired Karl, former Sonics coach. He has been with the club ever since. The last "connection" and milestone was the NBA record 168 points in regulation that the Nuggets put on the Sonics in their last-ever season in Seattle in 2008. These are all moments that connect the Nuggets to the Sonics, a connection that runs just as deep as the one with the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs (the Nuggets have faced both of those teams six times in the NBA playoffs). I have to say, speaking for myself, it has been weird not seeing the Nuggets annual trek up to the Pacific Northwest. The back to back of the Portland Trail Blazers and the Supersonics was a tradition. The events of what happened in 2008 are well worn and covered extensively by the documentary Sonicsgate. You can understand the lingering animus and ill-feeling toward Commissioner David Stern and former Washington State Speaker of the House Frank Chopp after their ego-fueled showdown in 2006. After an attempt to purchase the Sacramento Kings by Hedge Fund Manager Chris Hansen and Microsoft Billionaire Steve Ballmer this year was denied by the NBA, and David Stern started off his press conference on May 15th by saying "This is going to be short for me. I have a game to get to in Oklahoma City..." ... you can understand the hurt and enraged feelings. I'm going to set the Sacramento issue aside. It is settled in my mind and I'm happy that the people there get to move forward knowing their team will be there for the foreseeable future. Quite frankly, for a team that has been

The Toronto Raptors have pillaged a few assets from the Denver Nuggets over the years; from Linas Kleiza to Gary Forbes and they were rumored to be interested in Wilson Chandler when the forward was returning to the NBA from his stint in China during the lockout. Now, the Raptors are after their former employee: Masai Ujiri, reports Adrian Wojnarowski. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment is pursuing Denver Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri to take over as the top basketball executive of the Toronto Raptors, league sources told Yahoo! Sports. Masai, the 2013 NBA Executive of the Year, has emerged as the top choice of the search firm - Korn/Ferry International - that's been charged with finding a successor to Raptors president Bryan Colangelo, league sources said. MLSE has until Monday to make a decision on Colangelo's contract option for next year. It is possible that he could stay with the franchise under a new top basketball official. Ujiri's contract as Denver's general manager expires this summer and he has been in talks with ownership on an extension. Ujiri, 42, has a strong bond with Nuggets CEO Josh Kroenke, but new MLSE top executive, Tim Leiweke, has expressed a desire to make a serious financial and organizational commitment to an elite executive to turn around the franchise. I'm not sure how much money will play into things, but it's interesting to note in Woj's article: Ujiri is one of the NBA's lower paid GMs. In my opinion, it would be a huge mistake to let Ujiri's free agent status come to fruition. The Nuggets need to get a deal done with Ujiri before he's able to test the waters. He has done a remarkable job since coming to Denver and his vision for the team has not yet been realized. Let's hope Josh Kroenke can keep the Nuggets' front office in tact with Ujiri and Pete D'Alessandro staying put. The culture change in Denver has been taking shape under Ujiri's guidance and I think just about everyone in Nuggets Nation would agree. Keep Ujiri in Denver. And for fun ... with Ujiri earning the Executive of the Year he can easily reenact this famous scene:

I always go through this when the season for the Denver Nuggets ends. What to do? The first couple weeks is always the hardest part and most of the time it's alot like adjusting to all the other elements of life that you put off. You get so consumed by every detail coming out of Pepsi Center that you let other things slip you by. I know I do. I work two other jobs in addition to writing for Denver Stiffs and other sites, as well as the weekly Colorado Sports Guys Podcast. It's amazing now that the Nuggets season is over, that couple hours during the day I devoted strictly to Nuggets news and info is left a bit empty. I think everyone, as fans, devotes that kind of time ... it just so happens that I have been writing about it for three years. The routine is omnipresent, and you just get used to it. I've found myself getting sucked in to the Kings/Sonics saga. While I am certainly glad that the people of Sacramento get to keep their NBA squad, I am absolutely devastated for the people of Seattle who continue to anguish without a team. All that being said, I have no stake in that. It's hard to thrust yourself headlong into something that doesn't, and shouldn't really involve you. It is fascinating though, and my truest hope is that very soon the Nuggets will be making their annual trek to the pacific northwest to take on both the Portland Trail Blazers and the Seattle Supersonics. So we trudge on. As most of you may know, I am not the biggest fan of the NBA draft. A history of Nuggets draft busts and the reality that NBA prospects are just as likely to fail as they are to succeed has worn me down into a cynical husk. I found myself intentionally ignoring prospect information because I just couldn't be bothered. Someone like me is definitely not your go-to source for Draft information, and Nate Timmons does an excellent job of covering different draft angles as well as listening for key prospects. Much of our readership is quite good at parsing out who has greater potential and that is what makes Denver Stiffs the go-to site for Nuggets coverage. Period. I don't really hit my stride until free-agency. That's where I begin to take the greatest interest. It's quite a bit like having two birthdays in one month when free agency gets started (Free Agency starts July 1st, my birthday is July 16th) and there's nothing I like more than hunting for prospective free agents on the market for the Nuggets to sign. This year, re-signing Andre Iguodala and re-signing Masai Ujiri are the Nuggets biggest free agent priorities and I look forward to seeing what they have up their sleeve to improve the team going forward. All that being said, how do you deal with the off season blues? What do you do to fill the gap when the Nuggets aren't playing? Are you a draft junky? You love free agency like me? Or do you just check out and then shuffle back in around September? Tell us your story.

Converting lobs from Andre Miller and protecting the rim defensively, Nuggets center JaVale McGee averaged 9.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.99 blocks in 18.1 minutes per game. His .575 field-goal percentage was a career-best and ranked third in the NBA.

Feb 2, 2013; Chapel Hill, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels guard/forward Reggie Bullock (35) shoots in the second half. The Tar Heels defeated the Hokies 72-60 at the Dean E. Smith Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports School: University of North Carolina Position: Small forward Size: 6’7 (in shoes) Wingspan: 6’8.75 Weight: 190 Season School Conf G MP PER TS% eFG% ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% 2010-11 North Carolina ACC 27 392 16.1 .461 .453 5.9 13.6 9.9 7.5 2.5 0.7 6.7 22.6 2011-12 North Carolina ACC 38 965 16.2 .557 .550 6.7 13.3 10.1 8.8 1.4 0.8 11.2 15.9 2012-13 North Carolina ACC 35 1100 23.7 .625 .607 6.7 15.5 10.9 16.6 2.2 0.9 9.9 18.5 Career North Carolina 100 2457 19.5 .568 .555 6.6 14.3 10.4 12.1 2.0 0.8 9.7 18.2 Provided by Sports-Reference.com/CBB: View Original Table Reggie Bullock developed into a 3-and-D type player for the Tar Heels and looks like he’ll translate well to the NBA. He increased in points, rebounds and assists per game all while becoming much more efficient as an offensive player. He defended the best player on the floor game-in and game-out and thrived because of his size and competitiveness on that end of the floor. In his junior season, his 3-point percentage raised to 43.6 and he began shooting more comfortably coming off screens and in spot up situations. As a rebounder, he’s solid. He’s not the most comfortable of ball handlers but he knows when to zip the ball across to a teammate for open looks. He’s not the most athletic player, but he makes up for it with his competitive spirit. He’s not a great ball handler, but he makes up for that with his high basketball IQ. As a freshman and sophomore, he made poor decisions with the ball in his hand, often looking to do something he wasn’t capable of. As a junior, his turnover rate dropped and he became much more comfortable in Roy Williams’ system. His ceiling in the NBA is limited but he should make for a nice role player for years to come. He’s never going to be an All-Star but he will be a solid contributor and could work his way to a starting role at some point in his career. How would he fit in with Denver? Well that sort of depends on how the Nuggets view their other young wing players in Evan Fournier and Quincy Miller. As a player he seems to fit the mold of what the Nuggets need: a defensive minded player who stretches the floor with 3-point shooting. The Nuggets’ inability to stretch the floor killed them in their first round playoff exit. That, and they struggled in guarding the perimeter. Bullock might patch some of those holes. But would he hurt the development of Fournier and Miller? There are a few ways to look at this. If the Nuggets let Corey Brewer walk in the off-season, that’s 24 minutes a game opened up. If Andre Iguodala decides he doesn’t have a chance to win a championship in Denver, that’s another 35 minutes. There’s also the possibility that Denver will select one of the numerous available international players and stash them away for a few years to allow its young guys to develop. Bullock isn’t the sexiest pick but he’s as close to a sure thing that you can find at the bottom of round one. He’s going to come in immediately, compete on the defensive end and provide floor spacing with his outside shot. And if you’re selection No. 27, isn’t that what you want? *** Thanks for reading and follow me on Twitter @lashy.