According to Espn.com (http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/nba/news/story?id=6000845)

 

"

The New Jersey Nets' latest attempt to acquire Denver's Carmelo Anthony involves theDetroit Pistons.

 

Sources with knowledge of the talks confirmed the Nets and Nuggets have discussed a three-way trade proposal that would land Nuggets guard 

Chauncey Billups and Pistons guard Rip Hamilton alongside Anthony in New Jersey."

 

Lastest

Is 
NJ-RIP, Billups, Melo
DEN- Favors, Harris 2+ 1sts
DET- Petro, Murphy.

I liek this deal. As much as I think Melo is a great player and Billups is a good to keep in Denver. I think right now we need to move Melo so we can get over this lame season and get ready for next.

104.3 with Karl

- Karl said Melo is having his best camp to date and that in his sit down with Melo he told Melo he needs to figure out his goals and become a more complete player and said that he needs to improve his D, not only to make the team better but to make himself better.

- Karl also talked about JR and how in his sit down with him, told JR he has lots of good and lots of bad and that Karl would take less good if it meant less bad. He said that he told JR that he doesn't want him dribbling the ball much till December and that he wants him to come off screens and such to get into the game. The biggest thing though is that Karl said that during his one on one with JR he told JR that he doesn't know if he can take much badand that if he comes with more bad play then he wouldn't see playing time.

Pregame

-Jr got the 3rd loudest introduction by the fans, Melo being 2nd and CB being 1. I guess there are more people like me who like JR than not, or people were too drunk before the game to realize who's name was being annouced

-Bird and Kmart were in attendance Before the game and inbetween quarters they would walk around and sign stuff for the fans. It was pretty obvious Bird was also looking for any hot woman to 'sign' stuff for.

- I was kind of sad the crowd didn't give a loud welcome to Karl, hopefully Oct 27th will be different, I hope people get loudest for him then.

- Each team had uniforms which I guess JR didn't get the memo cause he was on the white shirts but was wearing white shorts (which all teams wore blue shorts) This was very odd

 

Game

-Right out of the gates Big AL looked awesome and continued the whole night. I kept telling my wife that if he could play like this each night that we would be a contender to LA. Hitting jump shots and 3's and playing good D (for a pre-preseason game)

- #0, I kept trying to get the name of this player (names weren't on jersey's) but he was awesome, 200% hustle on both ends and played Melo often and kept up. Dunno who this guy is but he was impressive.

- Wlliams  looked as good as one can in a game like this. Didn't get many touches but played decent D. I think as the year goes he will prove to be somewhat valuable to Denver, with all the injuries.

- Lawson looked great, hitting 3's and a few nice dishes. He was on 104.3 saying how he changed his shot and how it would make him a better shooter. If true, holy balls.  I don't keep stats but i think he went 4-6 in 1st half from down town, though i think he made more than that!

- Melo looked like Melo, though i did notice he was barking more on D than I'm used to him seeing. Let's hope that continues

- If anyone out played AL or TY it was JR. He hit pretty much everything he tossed at the rim it seemed

 

Wife and I left after halftime cause i have been battling a stomach bug. Go Nugs!

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=survivors-100728

 

Denver Nuggets

 

 

 

 

The Nuggets weren't able to rip off Joe Dumars in a trade this year, and their efforts to use their midlevel exception were rebuffed at every turn (Jermaine O'Neal and Udonis Haslem, among others, said no thanks). With Kenyon Martin and Chris Andersen both suffering from knee problems that could last well into the season, Denver was desperate to come up with a frontcourt player.

 

 

Enter the creative contract for Al Harrington, a five-year deal for the full midlevel that, with partial guarantees in the last two years, contractually looks more like a three-year, $27 million deal. While Harrington isn't the defender Utah was hoping to nab, he offers a completely new dimension. The Nuggets haven't had a floor-spacing big man in roughly a century, and it should give Carmelo Anthony in particular a lot more breathing room on the blocks.

 

 

Denver also got good value by inking Shelden Williams to a one-year deal for the veteran's minimum. I saw enough of the Shelden Experience in Atlanta to know what a frustrating offensive player he is, but as a hard-working banger off the pine you could do a lot worse than this guy. The Nuggets need somebody to soak up frontcourt minutes in the first half of the season without killing them; Williams can do that.

 

 

The Nuggets' future is still tenuous -- Anthony is weighing whether to sign an extension, while Nene, J.R. Smith and Martin can become free agents after the season. But if Melo stays, the expiration of Martin's deal will relieve Denver from a painful stint in luxury-tax territory and it has kept a ton of flexibility for 2011-12 and beyond, including the aforementioned options in Years 4 and 5 of Harrington's deal.

This brings up a couple of thoughts. Could we get him to be a scorer off the bench. 
From espn.com

 

PHILADELPHIA -- Allen Iverson is working on a comeback.

 

Iverson

 

Gary Moore, Iverson's personal manager, said that Iverson is planning a return to the NBA next season. Iverson returned to the Philadelphia 76ers in December and took a leave of absence in March because of family issues.

"Allen is working out and he's getting himself prepared to make his return," Moore said by phone Friday. "He absolutely will try and play next year."

Iverson left the Sixers to deal with an undisclosed illness of his 4-year-old daughter, Messiah.

"With God's graces, she's doing very well," Moore said.

Iverson has not talked publicly since ending his second stint with the Sixers. Iverson's wife, Tawanna, filed for divorce the same week he left Philadelphia. He posted messages on his Twitter account in March telling fans he expected to overcome the most recent obstacles in his life.

Iverson's most recent Twitter updates were promotions for his basketball camp in July and his documentary "Deconstructing Allen Iverson." Moore said the film could be released in the fall.

Iverson was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1996 draft and spent his first 10 seasons in Philadelphia. He won the MVP in 2001 when he led the Sixers to the Finals.

Sixers president Ed Stefanski said on an NBA.com chat this week the team was "not aware of what his plans are for the future."

Iverson, who turned 35 on June 7, was a four-time scoring champion and averaged 26.7 points in a 14-year career with the Sixers, Denver, Detroit and Memphis. He failed to win a championship.

Iverson made a tearful return to Philadelphia eager to prove he wasn't finished after disastrous stints in Detroit and Memphis. He returned to a sold-out crowd dotted with No. 3 jerseys, but he only showed flashes of his former playmaking self when he ruled the NBA as one of the best guards around.

"Allen wants to come and help a team win a championship, which he's completely capable of doing," Moore said.

FROM ESPN

a lil of it

"CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland Cavaliers have fired Mike Brown, the team announced Monday morning.

The Cavaliers had a midnight deadline Sunday night to fire the head coach or pay him his full $4.5 million salary for next season.

Cleveland was ousted from the playoffs two weeks ago by the Boston Celtics, who upset the NBA's top regular-season team in six games in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert made the decision to fire Brown after an organizational review that began following the Cavs' exit from the playoffs.

ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher first reported Brown's firing."

 

 

This is funny cause 2 weeks ago the owner was saying he was keeping Brown and Lebron was saying he liked Brown... I guess the lil cry baby gets his way behind closed doors.

New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov said Wednesday he will retain team president Rod Thorn, but will not ask general manager Kiki Vandeweghe to return when his contract expires this summer.

"His agreement expires this summer and I wish him well," Prokhorov told reporters.

Vandeweghe, reached for comment on a plane as he was about to embark on a scouting trip, said: "I hadn't heard anything." He declined additional comment, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Vandeweghe also coached the Nets this season, taking over after Lawrence Frank was fired following an 0-16 start. The team went 12-52 with Vandeweghe as coach.

This is directly from ESPN Insider, I think it speaks volumes of how we feel about the refs

 

As the Denver Nuggets prepare to tip off Game 5 Wednesday in their playoff series against the Utah Jazz, one of the big questions that must be asked regarding the Nuggets is this: What happened to their formerly reliable free throw advantage?

 

 

Denver led the league in free throw attempts and the Jazz fouled more than any other team in the NBA this season, so we might have expected a Nuggets parade to the line. Yet through four games it's Utah that enjoys a plus-13 advantage in free throw attempts.

 

 

What gives? Well, there appears to be more to the story, one that's been developing since interim coach Adrian Dantley replaced coach George Karl on the sideline. As our Chris Broussard pointed out earlier in the week, the Nuggets are getting fewer foul calls under their interim coach than they did under Karl. Denver went to the line 31.6 times per game under Karl but just 27.2 in the 19 regular-season games the Nuggets played under Dantley. In those games, Denver's plus-315 free throw edge under Karl transformed into a minus-14 deficit under Dantley.

 

 

In 61 games with Karl on the sideline this season, Denver averaged .392 free throw attempts per field goal attempt. That figure not only led the league by a wide margin but was also one of the best figures in recent NBA history.

 

 

With Dantley, that figure dropped all the way to .323, which was just slightly above the league average and the ninth-best figure in the league. (Note: To compare like pieces of fruit here, all Dantley data is regular season only.)

 

 

We're talking about a whopping 17.6 percent difference in free throw attempts per field goal attempt, and we're talking about a large-enough sample size -- 19 games, or nearly one-quarter of a season -- that it can't be dismissed as a short-term fluke.

 

 

My search for obvious explanations turned up little. Denver played eight times at home and 11 on the road, but it also played several weak defensive teams under Dantley -- including each of the bottom four in defensive efficiency.

 

 

Injuries was my next thought, as it might mean that players less likely to draw fouls were on the floor. But the only regular to miss significant time, forward Kenyon Martin, doesn't draw fouls at a high rate. In fact, he gets to the line dramatically less often than his most frequent replacement, Chris Andersen, and roughly as frequently as the two other players (Joey Graham and Johan Petro) who filled in for him. If anything, Martin's absence should have helped on that front.

 

 

One might think that the Nuggets attempted different shots, and that would account for the free throw disparity, but they really didn't. Denver attempted 1.9 percent fewer shots in the basket area under Dantley than under Karl. It's hard to imagine how that explains 17.7 percent fewer free throw attempts per field goal attempt.

 

 

Finally, you might think, maybe it's just one of those things -- an unusually huge random variation, but a random one nonetheless. Still, every other metric supports the hypothesis that Dantley is the Rodney Dangerfield of coaches.

 

 

As for opponents' free throw attempts? No respect. While Dantley coached, the Nuggets' opposition took 5.5 percent more free throw attempts per field goal attempt than it did while Karl coached.

 

Opponents' foul calls? No respect. While Dantley ran the Nuggets, their opponents received 3.9 percent fewer fouls per possession than they did while the Nuggets were under Karl. That had a double-whammy effect, as it meant less opponent foul trouble -- a key weapon in Denver's arsenal -- and fewer forays for Denver into the bonus.

 

 

Foul calls? No respect. Denver got called for 1.7 percent more fouls under Dantley on a per-possession basis, which isn't a huge increase but is a rise. And as with the opponents' fouls above, it had knock-on effects with foul trouble and the bonus.

 

 

In other words, it's not just one piece of data that supports the hypothesis; it's every piece. Everything you expected to happen if Dantley wasn't getting a fair whistle has happened.

 

 

At this point, somebody from the league might point out that the Nuggets have averaged a very healthy .441 free throw attempts per field goal attempt in their series against Utah, then say that we're all overreacting or that the postseason doesn't support the conclusions above.

 

 

Which would make sense, except for two things:

 

 

First, Denver's opponent, Utah, is the capital of Hackerville. Jazz opponents averaged a league-leading .353 free throw attempts per field goal attempt during the regular season, or 17.7 percent more than the league average. (There's that number again.) Given those parameters, the jump in Denver's rate over such a small sample seems unremarkable.

 

 

And second, have you seen Utah's free throw attempts? I think the Jazz just went to the line again while I was typing that last sentence. Utah has taken 152 in just four games for an ungodly .501 free throw attempts per field goal attempt. To put that number into perspective, only 20 players in the entire league had a rate so high this season, and none of them played for Utah.

 

 

It's unthinkable for an entire team to get to the stripe at such a prodigious rate for a series; even in a short series, it's a dramatic deviation from the norm. Utah and Denver both were above the league norm in earning and allowing free throws, respectively, but they weren't nearly as divergent from the averages as they were at the other side of the court. In other words, we'd have expected Utah's free throw rate to stay close to normal.

 

 

I must point out that this data does not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the refs have been treating Dantley and the Nuggets unfairly. We could come up with other hypothetical explanations for the data noted above. And since it's likely that this information will reach the refs before Game 5, we might expect this data to become more normal in future games.

 

Regardless, we have enough evidence now -- from 82 regular-season games and four playoff games -- to started asking pointed questions.

 

 

NBA referees are human, and in general that's a really good thing. Being human allows them to make subtle judgments about intent and impact, recognize potentially explosive on-court situations, and maintain law and order in countless other ways.

 

 

The disadvantage, however, is that it renders them vulnerable to all our little human biases and tendencies. One prominent one has already received notice thanks to a research paper by economists by Justin Wolfers and Joe Price, that league officials tend to show a same-race bias. (More on that study can be found here.)

 

 

It's possible there's an "interim-coach phenomenon" as well, especially if it's an interim coach who never argues calls.

 

 

Given the eye-popping differentials in foul calls and free throw attempts, we have to ask if human nature has made some officials respond different to Dantley than to a more intimidating, permanent coach like Jerry Sloan. Are the refs more likely to call, say, three charging fouls in a half on a team's superstar, or call a delay-of-game violation for a technical foul with three minutes left in a close playoff game, or make a dramatic zip-your-lips gesture to the bench as if lecturing a room full of third-graders if the person reacting to that call is basically the substitute teacher?

 

They're the best officials in the world. But they're only human, after all.

Pulled this from espn insider

 

1. Do The Nuggets Have What It Takes?

By J.A. Adande
ESPN.com

Two weeks of watching the Winter Olympics and one game of watching the Nuggets and Lakers have me in flaw-finding mode, like an ice skating judge looking for a missed rotation or a wobbly landing.

Now that the Lakers have established they can actually beat Denver this season, doing so for the first time in three games with a 95-89 victory Sunday afternoon at Staples Center, it's time to nitpick the Nuggets to see whether they really have what it takes to win a playoff series between these teams.

First, the valid Nuggets excuses for their loss Sunday: It was their third game in three cities in four days, having zigzagged from Oakland to Denver to L.A. They had to play the second half without Ty Lawson, who bruised his left shoulder. And they had to play the final 2:13 without Carmelo Anthony, who was whistled for his sixth personal foul, a dubious call when he cleared Ron Artest's arm with a defensive lineman-style swim move while establishing post position.

Next, some complimentary quotes from the victors, led by Lamar Odom calling the Nuggets, "a really tough team -- they play hard, they push us to the limit."

Kobe Bryant explained why he abandoned the Lakers' offense and set up shop on the right block, where he surveyed the floor and found cutting teammates often enough to get 12 assists on a night he shot 3-for-17 from the field.

"God knows I love the triangle, but we kind of had to get into playoff mode a little bit tonight," Bryant said.

That's a testament to the Nuggets, because the Lakers sure weren't inspired to enter playoff mode during an unimpressive victory over the 76ers on Friday night.

The question is whether the Nuggets are capable of getting into playoff mode themselves, of winning when the pace slows and the transition opportunities diminish, as they so often do in the postseason.

As much as they insist they're not as running-game dependent as they used to be, here's some evidence to the contrary: Denver now is 0-3 when scoring fewer than 90 points and 5-13 when scoring fewer than 100 points.

Coach George Karl expounded on the Nuggets' half-court issues, saying, "A lot of our losses, it's because we don't offensively trust the pass and have enough patience to fight through the defensive intensity. When we find the open man, when we move the ball and have a high assist night, it's the key to us winning games."

When it goes bad, they'll pull up for the quick jumper or they'll forget to put the ball in the hands of Anthony, the third-best scorer in the league. It all gets back to the focus issue, the annoying label that has dogged this team for much of the season. It stems from the Nuggets' 24-10 record against winning teams and 14-10 record against teams below .500. They claim they're past that now ("We had a team meeting; guys spoke up," Anthony said), and can point to victories against Golden State and Detroit last week as proof.

And part of me says it's irrelevant because during the playoffs, they'll face only winning teams. But it's indicative of a group that can't find its consistency. Besides, great teams win games when they don't play well. They manage to squeeze out just enough good minutes to prevail.

Then there's the issue no other team is facing, the one you wish no team ever had to deal with. Treatment for Karl's recently revealed throat cancer already caused him to miss the game at Golden State last week, and he said he definitely will miss the March 10 game at Minnesota and possibly back-to-back games in New Orleans and Memphis the weekend after that. Games at Orlando and Dallas at the end of the month are in question as well.

"There are going to be days I'm not going to be with them," Karl said. "I'll try to keep that upfront and ahead of the curve. I'm not going to hide anything from them. They've been great. They've been a great team all year long. I believed in this team, I think, last year before anybody did. And I really do believe in the team this year. I don't want to be a distraction from the standpoint of taking away from the opportunity. The opportunity is there for us. My staff is talented enough to fill in the holes when I'm not there. And they're talented enough, if they accept the opportunity and the challenges to get better in the next 25 games, I think we have that opportunity to be the best."

You get the sense that Karl, who survived a battle with prostate cancer, is particularly frustrated by this go-round because he feels this could be the group that wins him his first NBA championship and he doesn't want to be a burden on these players. His own health is far more important than the impact his absences could have on the Nuggets' place in the Western Conference. Still, for Karl and everyone else connected to him, there is business to address.

"It is a major thing, but George's attitude has given us so much positivity," Chauncey Billups said. "He's so positive and upbeat about it. If we see him like that, we have no choice but to kind of be the same way. If we see him coaching games like this and coming out and putting his heart out for us, we kind of owe it to him to return the favor."

Karl sounds both brave and realistic.

 

"I'm going to be tough," he said. "But I'm not going to be stupid-tough."

It sounds like good advice for the Nuggets as well. Tough but not stupid. Focused, not foolish.

They have defeated the Lakers twice. Their aggressiveness had the Lakers out of whack and behind by 13 points in the second quarter Sunday. And despite everything that went wrong Sunday, including the 32 percent shooting and 37 points in the second half, the Nuggets still were tied with about three and a half minutes remaining and within four points inside of two minutes. Except they never scored again.

It was their inability to sustain their style of play or to counter the adjustments by the Lakers that let this game get away -- and let doubts about their ability to get it done in the playoffs creep in.

 

J.A. Adande is a columnist for ESPN.com.

Big Z's future 11:56 AM ETZydrunas Ilgauskas | Wizards | Interested: Nuggets?, Mavericks?, Cavaliers? Top Email Zydrunas Ilgauskas is now a member of the Wizards, as he was shipped there in the three-team deal that sent Antawn Jamison to the Cavs. But as we've noted previously here, it was a likely scenario that if Big Z's expiring contract was traded, the receiving team would likely buy him out, thus giving him an opportunity to come back to the Cavs. Z's agent, Herb Rudoy, confirmed to Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he'll seek a buyout. "I'm going to try to get them to do a buyout, but I've already heard from a few teams -- good teams -- that are really interested in wanting to talk about Z going to play for them," Rudoy told the paper. " ... I don't know exactly what's going to happen. I think his heart is in Cleveland, that's for sure. But we'll see how this plays out. He's got 30 days to make a decision if it's Cleveland. If it's somebody else, he could make it in a week. His whole decision will be based on what's best for his career. He'd like to win a championship, that's for sure. But it's his call, not mine. I'm just going to give him all the options." With Jamison now on board, the Cavs having he best record in the league and the Cleveland fans loving him, one would think Big Z would head back to the team. But Schmitt Boyer points to two other teams that could potentially pick up Ilgauskas if he's bought out: Dallas and Denver. As far as whether he'll actually get bought out or not, Brain Windhorst of the Cleveland Plain Dealer thinks it makes plenty of sense for the Wiz: "Overnight study of numbers shows Wizards still over the luxury tax line. Buying out Ilgauskas could save $5-$7 million. No brainer."

from espn.com rumors.

 

Camby on trading block?

3:57PM ET Marcus Camby | Clippers Top Email

Marcus Camby is near the top of players teams are looking to trade for because of his talent and expiring contract. The Clippers at this time are not entertaining thoughts, of trading him, even though it doesn't look good for them to make the playoffs.

"Everybody on our team could be traded," Clippers general manager/head coach Mike Dunleavy told AOL FanHouse in December. "But we're not looking to trade him at all."

On Thursday night Dunleavy said, "Committed at that time. But yet I said about all our guys, if a deal comes up that makes sense for us we don't have anybody that's not tradeable ... None of us know what's out there. So I can't say somebody is untradeable, and it won't happen."

"I want to be here, but I said the same thing when I was in Denver," said Camby. "So it remains to be seen ... The NBA is a business. You can get your hopes up and then you get your hopes and dreams crushed."

This was pulled from ESPN's insider :

 

11:00AM ET J.R. Smith | Nuggets Top Email

J.R. Smith made 10-17 three-pointers against Atlanta on Dec. 23. Since then he's only 11-50 from beyond the arc. Does George Karl want him to shoot less from long range?

"No," Karl told The Denver Post. "Yes, you want the mentality to be team-oriented, but the options sometimes are taking him out of the game or run different plays and put him in different places. And my decision is J.R. is too valuable to take out of a game. ... Not only is he missing 3s, but he's missing wide-open 3s. Hopefully, it's just a slump. Statistically, J.R. has played better after the all-star break, so maybe we're hoping it's just his personality taking time. And being suspended for the first seven games probably pushed it a little longer."

I'm done with Nene.

I'm done with his little flip shots that don't go in while he could easily dunk it. I'm tired of his none effort most nights on the boards. I'm tired of him crying to the refs more than Melo and JR. I'm tired of everyone saying 'but he has talent' yeah but it only comes out once every 7 games. We need a big man and I don't mean 7 ft true center guy. What we need is someone with decent height and tons of hustle that can turn and dunk and boxing out would be nice as well. Something Nene obviously can't do.

We need a center that can avg 15 pts a game and 10 rebounds and 2 block shots. We need a center who gets the ball in the paint and knows how to finish ALL THE DAMN TIME.

 

I'm done with Karl.

I'm done with his smirk on the sidelines while his team is getting demolished, who know it was funny when you have the better team and are losing. Get up and get active. Players can only be faulted to a point, what happens on a given night goes hand in hand with how a coach prepares and what he does during the game. I'm tired of the horrible substitutions. We know you have a rotation you like but when your team is crawling back into a game it's really ok to leave the players in. Instead you decide to pull players at regular times with no reguard of what is happening on the court. Lawson is lighting it up, better pull him cause its 'that time', whats that JR just brough you back from the brink, better pull him cause its 'that time'

I'm done with Karl

 

I'm done with AC

I hope he isn't getting more than the min salary. He's turrible as Charles would say. I'd rather Balkman or Petro play 3rd string guard

 

I'm sure some of you guys n gals will come with the whole Karl is awesome logic or the Nene is the Brazillian beast stuff. But the facts are clear that Karl doesn't work here and if Nene is the Brazillian beast, I feel bad for other players from there, gives them a bad rep.

We could easily trade Nene for a great Center like Mark Gasol or a slew of other guys.

I've been to the last 3 games. Why is he not even dressing? Karl really doesn't like him eh

I'm glad to see AC is in his rightful place, close to end of the bench!

Is JR the best cheerleader/player in the league, if you go to a game you know what I mean.
Karl getting fired up and getting a T last night was the greatest thing that happened last night, and when Martin got kicked the crowd went wild!!

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=FuturePowerRankings-2-091110

"

10. Denver Nuggets | Future Power Rating: 545

 

 

PLAYERS	MANAGEMENT	MONEY	MARKET	DRAFT
254 (8th)	134 (11th)	85 (23rd)	51 (16th)	22 (28th)

 

 

 

The Nuggets are largely a veteran team, but the future remains fairly rosy because their few young players are so good. Leading the way, of course, is Carmelo Anthony, who looks like an absolute monster this year and at 25 has several productive years ahead of him. Rookie guard Ty Lawson is another keeper, while if J.R. Smith (24) is a potential star if he can keep his head on straight. Meanwhile, Nene (27) provides a solid keeper in the middle, and Denver still has the rights to Linas Kleiza (24).

In these ratings, we had a difference of opinion on the Nuggets' management, with Denver's ability to unearth diamonds in the rough weighing in its favor but its history of assembling combustible chemistry working against it. On available money, however, we saw eye to eye, and that's Denver's biggest issue going forward. Denver could potentially have some cap space in 2011, when Kenyon Martin's onerous deal comes off the books, but the Nuggets will be a tax team next year with their starting five alone and don't have the kind of market that can profitably support such a large payroll.

Fortunately they're owned by Wal-Mart heir Stan Kroenke, but if things take a turn for the worse, the Nuggets could be forced into fire-sale mode, as they were a year ago with the Marcus Camby trade.

As with other highly ranked teams, Denver's one poor score came in the draft. It's difficult to imagine the Nuggets getting a high draft pick at any time in the near future.

"