The Nuggets Cruise Over the Hurting Nets 100-85, and Why George Karl Should Not Have Been Hired

What is the easiest type of game to win in the NBA? How about a game where your opponent is a losing team, is playing you on your home court, and is playing on back to back nights. If you can’t win that type of game at least 95% of the time, you are probably not a good team yourself. The Nuggets have enjoyed a good number of schedule softies like that this year, and they have won every single one of them, unless you want to count the recent theft of the Timberwolves game as an in effect loss.

The Nuggets had another of this easiest type of game to win and took care of business in Denver as they easily defeated the New Jersey Nets 100-85. Carmelo Anthony, Nene, and Chucky Atkins were all still out injured or sick, and the Nets had nobody out, but the “injury advantage” for the Nets was dwarfed by the talent, home court, and extra rest advantages enjoyed by the Nuggets. The Nets; non-starters outplayed the Nuggets’ non-starters, but the Nuggets’ starters vastly outplayed the Nets’ starters. Specifically, Linas Kleiza and Eduardo Najera were spectacular, or star-plus, according to their real player ratings, while the best two Nets, Antoine Wright and Jason Kidd, were outstanding but not quite good enough to be at the star level.

Najera and especially Kleiza have been the two biggest positive surprises for the Nuggets so far this season. Kleiza, a forward with some guard tendencies, a kind of unofficial guard-forward, has become an Iverson favorite. And why not, since Kleiza has taken after Iverson’s mix of midrange jumpers and attacking the rim scoring attempts. Klieiza was 3/8 on threes, 1/2 on 2-point jump shots, and 3/6 on layups and dunks, which is about as perfect a mix of shots as you will ever see.

Najera played after a one-game absence with a hyper extended right elbow. Like Kleiza, Najera had the right mix of shot types going too but, as usual, at a far lower number of shots taken. With Najera, when you think of mix, you think of the mix between his solid defending and his limited and cautious but efficient offense. In this game, Najera’s mix of defense first and offense second was lethal to the Nets, as the Nuggets outscored the Nets by 20 points in the mere 21 minutes that Najera was on the court. Quite honestly, if your team is destroyed by Najera, you have a lot of rebuilding to do, unless perhaps you were on the road, playing on a back to back, and having a rough year in general. The Nets have lost eight straight, their longest skid in more than three years, and dropped the first five games on a six-game road trip.

The Nets’ front office and coaches will have to determine whether those explanations, or excuses if you prefer, are big enough to justify having been dominated by Najera, who hasn’t dominated a team to this extent in about a year, and by Kleiza, who is young and talented but certainly not unstoppable. "We just didn't have the energy and they did," New Jersey coach Lawrence Frank said after the game. "They were much more aggressive and really attacked us in the paint." True, the Nuggets scored 44 points in the paint while the Nets scored 24 from there. The Nuggets also ramped up their fast break scoring against the road weary Nets. They scored 24 points off fast breaks while the Nets scored just 11.

The Nuggets came out of the block ready to rock and roll, and they played really tough defense, both zone and man to man, in the 1st half, which earned them a 47-31 lead at the half. The Nets missed 17 of their first 22 shots, and they committed 5 early turnovers as well, as they appeared quite honestly to have had little interest in getting into winning gear. Nets Coach Lawrence Frank, who is ranked 13/30 in win-loss percentage among current NBA coaches, was unable to have his team fully ready to compete in this game.

In the 2nd half, a couple of Nets’ comebacks fell short by about a half dozen points, and both of those comebacks were quickly put down by Nuggets runs. The Nets kept shooting themselves in the foot. They committed 20 turnovers and the Nuggets just 10. PG Kidd ended up with 5 turnovers, SF Richard Jefferson made 4 turnovers, and PG Marcus Williams made 4 as well.

At least the Nets were able to dominate in 3-point shooting, which is easy to do when you are playing the Nuggets, and being a little tired should not stop you from doing it. Jefferson made 4/6 threes, Vince Carter made 2/4, and the Nets overall made 10/19 or 52.9%. Other than Kleiza’s 3/8, it was the drought season for the Nuggets in 3-point shots, as they made just 5/23 of them overall, or 21.7%. I remind everyone right here that, while you can beat an East Conference lottery team in the circumstances already discussed with bad 3-point shooting, you can not hope to defeat any of the top half dozen teams of the West Conference.

The fact is, the Nets could theoretically have challenged the Nuggets for this game, what with Melo out, Iverson not at star level, and Camby playing way below his normal level. The Nuggets did not really play well on offense as a whole. Camby, Yakhouba Diawara, J.R. Smith, and Anthony Carter were a combined 4/28 for 15 points. The Nugget’s offense was limited to Kleiza, Najera, Iverson, and Martin. All the Nets had to do was work around Najera on offense and work on Kleiza and Iverson while on defense. But when you are really down and out, opportunities come and go and you don’t even realize you missed them. And there is no such thing as easy when you are down and out.

THE GEORGE KARL FIASCO PART 5
SUMMARY OF GEORGE KARL’S POSTSEASON RECORD

1984-85 CLE 1-3 Lost in the First Round
1985-86 CLE 0-0 Fired During the Regular Season
1986-87 GSW 4-6 Lost in the Second Round (West Semifinals)
1987-88 GSW 0-0 Fired During the Regular Season
1988-89 Did Not Coach in the NBA
1989-90 Did Not Coach in the NBA except briefly as an Assistant Coach for the Jazz
1990-91 Did Not Coach in the NBA
1991-92 SEA 4–5 Lost in the Second Round (West Semifinals)
1992-93 SEA 10-9 Lost in the Third Round (West Conference Finals)
1993-94 SEA 2-3 Lost in the First Round
1994-95 SEA 1-3 Lost in the First Round
1995-96 SEA 13-8 Lost in the Fourth Round (NBA Championship Series)
1996-97 SEA 6-6 Lost in the Second Round (West Semifinals)
1997-98 SEA 4-6 Lost in the Second Round (West Semifinals)
1998-99 MIL 0-3 Lost in the First Round
1999-00 MIL 2-3 Lost in the First Round
2000-01 MIL 10-8 Lost in the Third Round (East Conference Finals)
2001-02 MIL 0-0 Missed the Playoffs
2002-03 MIL 2-4 Lost in the First Round
2003-04 Did Not Coach in the NBA
2004-05 DEN 1-4 Lost in the First Round
2005-06 DEN 1-4 Lost in the First Round
2006-07 DEN 1-4 Lost in the First Round

Now let’s look at the results in detail. The team that Karl coached is in bold letters.

DETAIL OF GEORGE KARL’S POSTSEASON RECORD
1985
Boston 63-19 vs. Cleveland 36-46
Boston 3, Cleveland 1
Apr. 18: Thu., Cleveland 123 at Boston 126
Apr. 20: Sat., Cleveland 106 at Boston 108
Apr. 23: Tue., Boston 98 at Cleveland 105
Apr. 25: Thu., Boston 117 at Cleveland 115

1987
Utah 44-38 vs. Golden State 42-40
Golden State 3, Utah 2
Apr. 23: Thu., Golden State 85 at Utah 99
Apr. 25: Sat., Golden State 100 at Utah 103
Apr. 29: Wed., Utah 95 at Golden State 110
May 1: Fri., Utah 94 at Golden State 98
May 3: Sun., Golden State 118 at Utah 113

AND
Los Angeles Lakers 65-17 vs. Golden State 42-40
L.A. Lakers 4, Golden State 1
May 5: Tue., Golden State 116 at L.A. Lakers 125
May 7: Thu., Golden State 101 at L.A. Lakers 116
May 9: Sat., L.A. Lakers 133 at Golden State 108
May 10: Sun., L.A. Lakers 121 at Golden State 129
May 12: Tue., Golden State 106 at L.A. Lakers 118

1992
Golden State 55-27 vs. Seattle 47-35
Seattle 3, Golden State 1
Apr. 23: Thu., Seattle 117 at Golden State 109
Apr. 25: Sat., Seattle 101 at Golden State 115
Apr. 28: Tue., Golden State 128 at Seattle 129
Apr. 30: Thu., Golden State 116 at Seattle 119

AND
Utah 55-27 vs, Seattle 47-35
Utah 4, Seattle 1
May 6: Wed., Seattle 100 at Utah 108
May 8: Fri., Seattle 97 at Utah 103
May 10: Sun., Utah 98 at Seattle 104
May 12: Tue., Utah 89 at Seattle 83
May 14: Thu., Seattle 100 at Utah 111

1993
Seattle 55-27 vs. Utah 47-35
Seattle 3, Utah 2
Apr. 30: Fri., Utah 85 at Seattle 99
May 2: Sun., Utah 89 at Seattle 85
May 4: Tue., Seattle 80 at Utah 90
May 6: Thu., Seattle 93 at Utah 80
May 8: Sat., Utah 92 at Seattle 100

AND
Seattle 55-27 vs. Houston 55-27
Seattle 4, Houston 3
May 10: Mon., Houston 90 at Seattle 99
May 12: Wed., Houston 100 at Seattle 111
May 15: Sat., Seattle 79 at Houston 97
May 16: Sun., Seattle 92 at Houston 103
May 18: Tue., Houston 95 at Seattle 120
May 20: Thu., Seattle 90 at Houston 103
May 22: Sat., Houston 100 at Seattle 103

AND
Phoenix 62-20 vs. Seattle 55-27
Phoenix 4, Seattle 3
May 24: Mon., Seattle 91 at Phoenix 105
May 26: Wed., Seattle 103 at Phoenix 99
May 28: Fri., Phoenix 104 at Seattle 97
May 30: Sun., Phoenix 101 at Seattle 120
June 1: Tue., Seattle 114 at Phoenix 120
June 3: Thu., Phoenix 102 at Seattle 118
June 5: Sat., Seattle 110 at Phoenix 123

1994
Seattle 63-19 vs. Denver 42-40
Denver 3, Seattle 2
Apr. 28: Thu., Denver 82 at Seattle 106
Apr. 30: Sat., Denver 87 at Seattle 97
May 2: Mon., Seattle 93 at Denver 110
May 5: Thu., Seattle 85 at Denver 94
May 7: Sat., Denver 98 at Seattle 94

1995
Seattle 57-25 vs. Los Angeles Lakers 48-34
L.A. Lakers 3, Seattle 1
Apr. 27: Thu., L.A. Lakers 71 at Seattle 96
Apr. 29: Sat., L.A. Lakers 84 at Seattle 82
May 1: Mon., Seattle 101 at L.A. Lakers 105
May 4: Thu., Seattle 110 at L.A. Lakers 114

1996
Seattle 64-18 vs. Sacramento 39-43
Seattle 3, Sacramento 1
Apr. 26: Fri., Sacramento 85 at Seattle 97
Apr. 28: Sun., Sacramento 90 at Seattle 81
Apr. 30: Tue., Seattle 96 at Sacramento 89
May 2: Thu., Seattle 101 at Sacramento 87

AND
Seattle 64-19 vs. Houston 48-34
Seattle 4, Houston 0
May 4: Sat., Houston 75 at Seattle 108
May 6: Mon., Houston 101 at Seattle 105
May 10: Fri., Seattle 115 at Houston 112
May 12: Sun., Seattle 114 at Houston 107

AND
Seattle 64-18 vs. Utah 55-27
Seattle 4, Utah 3
May 18: Sat., Utah 72 at Seattle 102
May 20: Mon., Utah 87 at Seattle 91
May 24: Fri., Seattle 76 at Utah 96
May 26: Sun., Seattle 88 at Utah 86
May 28: Tue., Utah 98 at Seattle 95
May 30: Thu., Seattle 83 at Utah 118
June 2: Sun., Utah 86 at Seattle 90

AND
Chicago 72-10 vs. Seattle 64-18
Chicago 4, Seattle 2
June 5: Wed., Seattle 90 at Chicago 107
June 7: Fri., Seattle 88 at Chicago 92
June 9: Sun., Chicago 108 at Seattle 86
June 12: Wed., Chicago 86 at Seattle 107
June 14: Fri., Chicago 78 at Seattle 89
June 16: Sun., Seattle 75 at Chicago 87

1997
Seattle 57-25 vs. Phoenix 40-42
Seattle 3, Phoenix 2
Apr. 25: Fri., Phoenix 106 at Seattle 101
Apr. 27: Sun., Phoenix 78 at Seattle 122
Apr. 29: Tue., Seattle 103 at Phoenix 110
May 1: Thu., Seattle 122 at Phoenix 115
May 3: Sat., Phoenix 92 at Seattle 116

AND
Seattle 57-25 vs. Houston 57-25
Houston 4, Seattle 3
May 5: Mon., Seattle 102 at Houston 112
May 7: Wed., Seattle 106 at Houston 101
May 9: Fri., Houston 97 at Seattle 93
May 11: Sun., Houston 110 at Seattle 106
May 13: Tue., Seattle 100 at Houston 94
May 15: Thu., Houston 96 at Seattle 99
May 17: Sat., Seattle 91 at Houston 96

1998
Seattle 61-21 vs. Minnesota 45-37
Seattle 3, Minnesota 2
Apr. 24: Fri., Minnesota 83 at Seattle 108
Apr. 26: Sun., Minnesota 98 at Seattle 93
Apr. 28: Tue., Seattle 90 at Minnesota 98
Apr. 30: Thu., Seattle 92 at Minnesota 88
May 2: Sat., Minnesota 84 at Seattle 97

AND
Seattle 61-21 vs. Los Angeles Lakers 61-21
LA Lakers 4, Seattle 1
May 4: Mon., L.A. Lakers 92 at Seattle 106
May 6: Wed., L.A. Lakers 92 at Seattle 68
May 8: Fri., Seattle 103 at L.A. Lakers 119
May 10: Sun., Seattle 100 at L.A. Lakers 112
May 12: Tue., L.A. Lakers 110 at Seattle 95

1999
Indiana 33-17 vs. Milwaukee 28-22
Indiana 3, Milwaukee 0
May 9: Sun., at Indiana 110, Milwaukee 88
May 11: Tue., at Indiana 108, Milwaukee 107
May 13: Thu., Indiana 99, at Milwaukee 91

2000
Indiana 56-26 vs. Milwaukee 42-40
Indiana 3, Milwaukee 2
Apr. 23: Sun., Milwaukee 85 at Indiana 88
Apr. 27: Thu., Milwaukee 104 at Indiana 91
Apr. 29: Sat., Indiana 109 at Milwaukee 96
May 1: Mon., Indiana 87 at Milwaukee 100
May 4: Thu., Milwaukee 95 at Indiana 96

2001
Milwaukee 52-30 vs. Orlando 43-39
Milwaukee 3, Orlando 1
Apr. 22: Sun., Orlando 90 at Milwaukee 103
Apr. 25: Wed., Orlando 96 at Milwaukee 103
Apr. 28: Sat., Milwaukee 116 at Orlando 121
May 1: Tue., Milwaukee 112 at Orlando 104

AND
Milwaukee 52-30 vs. Charlotte 46-36
Milwaukee 4, Charlotte 3
May 6: Sun., Charlotte 92 at Milwaukee 104
May 8: Tue., Charlotte 90 at Milwaukee 91
May 10: Thu., Milwaukee 92 at Charlotte 102
May 13: Sun., Milwaukee 78 at Charlotte 85
May 15: Tue., Charlotte 94 at Milwaukee 86
May 17: Thu., Milwaukee 104 at Charlotte 97
May 20: Sun., Charlotte 95 at Milwaukee 104

AND
Philadelphia 56-26 vs. Milwaukee 52-30
Philadelphia 4, Milwaukee 3
May 22: Tue., Milwaukee 85 at Philadelphia 93
May 24: Thu., Milwaukee 92 at Philadelphia 78
May 26: Sat., Philadelphia 74 at Milwaukee 80
May 28: Mon., Philadelphia 89 at Milwaukee 83
May 30: Wed., Milwaukee 88 at Philadelphia 89
June 1: Fri., Philadelphia 100 at Milwaukee 110
June 3: Sun., Milwaukee 91 at Philadelphia 108

2003
New Jersey 49-33 vs. Milwaukee 42-40
New Jersey 4, Milwaukee 2
Apr. 19: Sat., Milwaukee 96 at New Jersey 109
Apr. 22: Tue., Milwaukee 88 at New Jersey 85
Apr. 24: Thur., New Jersey 103 at Milwaukee 101
Apr. 26: Sat., New Jersey 114 at Milwaukee 119
May 29: Tue., Milwaukee 82 at New Jersey 89
May 1: Thur., New Jersey 113 at Milwaukee 101

2005
San Antonio 59-23 vs. Denver 49-33
San Antonio 4 Denver 1
Game 1 April 24 San Antonio Spurs 87 Denver Nuggets 93
Game 2 April 27 San Antonio Spurs 104 Denver Nuggets 76
Game 3 April 30 Denver Nuggets 78 San Antonio Spurs 86
Game 4 May 2 Denver Nuggets 115 San Antonio Spurs 126
Game 5 May 4 San Antonio Spurs 99 Denver Nuggets 89

2006
Los Angeles Clippers 47-35 vs. Denver 44-38
Los Angeles Clippers 4 Denver 1
Game 1 April 22 Los Angeles Clippers 89 Denver Nuggets 87
Game 2 April 24 Los Angeles Clippers 98 Denver Nuggets 87
Game 3 April 27 Denver Nuggets 94 Los Angeles Clippers 87
Game 4 April 29 Denver Nuggets 86 Los Angeles Clippers 100
Game 5 May 1 Los Angeles Clippers 101 Denver Nuggets 83

2007
San Antonio 58-24 vs. Denver 45-37
San Antonio 4 Denver 1
Game 1 April 22 San Antonio Spurs 89 Denver Nuggets 95
Game 2 April 25 San Antonio Spurs 97 Denver Nuggets 88
Game 3 April 28 Denver Nuggets 91 San Antonio Spurs 96
Game 4 April 30 Denver Nuggets 89 San Antonio Spurs 96
Game 5 May 2 San Antonio Spurs 93 Denver Nuggets 78

Number of series where Karl’s team was favored and Karl’s team won: 8
Number of series where the other team was favored but Karl’s team won: 2
Number of series where Karl’s team was favored but the other team won: 2
Number of series where the other team was favored and the other team won: 12

Finally, let’s take a close look at the four upsets. In 1987, George Karl’s Warriors (42-40) scored a small upset playoff series win over the Utah Jazz (44-38) when they defeated the Jazz in Utah 118-113 in the 5th and deciding game of the series.

Then, in 1992, George Karl’s Supersonics (47-35) scored an upset playoff series win over the Golden State Warriors (55-27) 3 games to 1. Two of the 3 wins, though, were extremely close games, 1-point and 3-point wins.

In 1994, Karl’s most famous playoff failure occurred, in what is regarded by many as the biggest playoff upset/choke in the history of the NBA, though some would rank last year’s Warriors win over the Mavericks as just as or more historic. Karl’s Supersonics (63-19) were defeated by the Dikembe Mutombo and the Denver Nuggets (42-40) 3 games to 2, with the final game of the series being a thrilling and shocking overtime win for the Nuggets in Seattle. The Sonics were the 1st seed of the West, while the Nuggets were the 8th seed.

The next year, in 1995, there was another monumental Karl first round playoff failure, though it is much less famous than the one the prior year. In 1995, the Los Angeles Lakers (48-34) scored a major upset over Karl’s Supersonics (57-25) 3 games to 1. Although the win-loss gap between the two teams in the 1995 upset was less than in the 1994 upset, the Sonics managed to win only 1 game against the underdog Lakers.

In evaluating his record, we can analyze that Karl’s 1992 upset victory offsets his 1995 upset loss. His 1987 upset win, while coaching the Warriors, was just barely an upset, and worth very little weight in this review. So after these dispensations, you are left with that 1994 loss, which is, to repeat, one of the worst and probably the very worst playoff defeat in the history of the NBA. Even if Karl were to win a Championship, or one or two new upset playoff series wins, he would never be able to escape the “coach of the team with the worst playoff series loss in history” tag.

As we will see in Part 6, Karl has a poor win-loss postseason record compared with other current coaches. But this review shows that his poor record is due just as much to his having had a series of marginal teams in the playoffs, especially the Bucks and the Nuggets, as it is due to his actual failures in the playoffs, which could be reduced to that one whopper, losing to the 8th seed Nuggets as Coach of the 1st seed Sonics in 1994.

Overall, and ironically, Karl’s very poor reputation regarding postseason results among avid basketball fans is not entirely supported by the facts. The real truth is that, when you look carefully at Karl’s postseason record, you find that it is only slightly below par not counting the 1994 Nuggets-Sonics shocker. When that is included, his overall playoff record becomes modestly to moderately poor, depending on how much weight you want to put on the 1994 fiasco.

But moderately poor, modestly poor, or even average is just not good enough in professional sports. Whether you consider his record to be modestly poor or moderately poor, it is still not good enough if your objective is to break through to the highest level of the Western Conference, which is the highest level of pro basketball there is in the world. For that huge task, you need an above average in the postseason type of coach.

So although Karl’s postseason record is not as terrible as many including myself have imagined it to be, his record nonetheless reveals that he is almost certainly not the coach you want if you have difficult mountains to climb, but you are determined to climb them, and you have equipped yourself with one the most talented and expensive pro teams in the world with which to make the climb. Quite to the contrary, Karl would be your man if your objective was to tragically waste one of the most talented and expensive pro teams in the world, by not providing it with a Coach who would have all of the skills and abilities needed to perform at a high level in the postseason.

In part 6, you will see that there are a substantial number of coaches right now in the NBA who have shown above average ability in the postseason, so it is anything but impossible or extremely difficult to find and hire such a coach. It is difficult, and requires a huge amount of work, but the payoff for finding the right coach could be a Championship for a team like the Nuggets. Don’t dodge tough jobs if when they are completed a lot of other jobs become a lot easier.

The Nuggets thought they were playing it safe by hiring Karl, who had a good overall record and was already highly experienced at the time he was hired in January 2005. They thought his relatively low opinion of individual players as compared with the great game itself would be a counterweight to the volatile mix of stars they were bringing on to the team. Unfortunately, they overestimated the need for a counterweight to volatile personalities, and they also underestimated Karl’s tendency to penalize rather than teach. As Karl has gotten older, he has become more and more like a 19th century schoolteacher putting any youngster who acts up a little in the corner with a dunce cap. He has become more and more of a disciplinarian and less and less of a motivator and teacher.

The real truth is that the Nuggets’ organization was actually taking a big risk by hiring Karl, because they hired a Coach who has been mediocre at best in the postseason, which is obviously and certainly not appropriate if you have otherwise gone to great expense and great effort to fill out your roster with some extremely talented players, who are simply better than the vast majority of other players in the League. So it was not a safe or a wise choice at all. It was unwise, unsafe, and quite illogical in fact.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Carmelo Anthony: Suffered a left ankle sprain at L.A. Lakers on 1/21
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least late March. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup by early April.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least late February, but could be out for the entire rest of the season.

NETS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
No Injuries to report.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of January 26, 2008

The Nuggets are under a RED ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Carmelo Anthony injury 34 points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
3. Nene illness 14 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 2 points.

3. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 1-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 3 points. Najera should have played at least a half a quarter more.

4. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 7 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 78, which constitutes RED ALERT.

RED ALERT (75-99): Serious damage to the season is occurring now. Beating quality teams is almost impossible. Beating mid-level teams is extremely difficult and will be unusual. About 3/4 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost if there is a RED ALERT. The result against low-level teams is on a case by case basis. Close to 1/2 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Essentially, a RED ALERT means that an otherwise good team has been reduced to being a poor or low level team.

The damage description assumes that Nuggets opponents are in a GREY ALERT or better status. When the Nuggets play teams that are in yellow alert or worse, the damage they suffer from being in a significant alert status will be substantially reduced. In other words, opponents who are themselves in significant alert situations will obviously be more beatable, even when the Nuggets are in a significant alert situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
The Nuggets now have their first RED ALERT of the 2007-08 season. Injury and illness disaster has once again struck the Nuggets, with Carmelo Anthony, Chucky Atkins, and Nene all out. Anthony is likely to be back for the Sunday Jan. 27 game in Dallas versus the Mavericks, which will put the Nuggets back into the more manageable ORANGE ALERT status for that game. However, both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many weeks, and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs. Hollinger at ESPN has the odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs at almost exactly 50% right now. And those odds do not factor in the indefinite unavailability of Nene and Atkins.

The recent losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT or RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Nets 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Nets 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 17
Nets Non-Starters Points: 25

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 12
Nets Non-Starters Rebounds: 9

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 3
Nets Non-Starters Assists: 8

Karl was forced to play Smith due to the three key injuries the Nuggets have right now. Even so, the injury free Nets had a 1 player advantage. The Nets’ non-starters did better in scoring and especially in assisting than did the Nuggets’ non-starters. In rebounding, the Nugget’s non-starters were a little better.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
2: He's making a run for the exits

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Allen Iverson: Game 41.1 Season 41.2
Linas Kleiza: Game 40.9 Season 20.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 29.6 Season 20.8
Eduardo Najera: Game 28.9 Season 13.7
Marcus Camby: Game 22.8 Season 32.9
Anthony Carter: Game 20.9 Season 21.9
J.R. Smith: Game 4.2 Season 13.9
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 1.1 Season 5.5

Carmelo Anthony: Did Not Play-Injury
Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

Steven Hunter: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision
Von Wafer: Did Not Play-Coach’s Decision

NETS PLAYER RATINGS
Jason Kidd: Game 40.0 Season 32.6
Josh Boone: Game 27.9 Season 15.7
Vince Carter: Game 26.0 Season 33.8
Antoine Wright: Game 26.0 Season 13.5
Richard Jefferson: Game 23.7 Season 33.2
Malik Allen: Game 10.9 Season 10.3
Darrell Armstrong: Game 6.1 Season 4.6
Marcus Williams: Game 1.5 Season 5.9
Sean Williams: Game 1.3 Season 16.4
Jason Collins: Game -0.6 Season 3.9

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE RATINGS:
Allen Iverson has given a lot of respect to Linas Kleiza for about a year now, which would be most of the time Iverson has been a Nugget. The Iverson to Kleiza for a score and, to a lesser extent, the Kleiza to Iverson for a score, have become two of the Nugget’s most productive plays.

Najera had a monster game. Martin’s real rating is probably close to 30, and this was another game where he is moving in the direction of actually achieving that, following his long time away due to knee surgery.

Marcus Camby had what is for him a relatively poor game, for the first time in many moons. J.R. Smith blew an opportunity to shine in relatively substantial playing time, which he gets only once in a while under Karl.

Jason Kidd led the Nets. Josh Boone and Antoine Wright were both way above their normal performance level. However, both Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson were not as productive as usual for the Nets. Since these two and Kidd are the most important players for the Nets by far, the simultaneous off games from both Carter and Jefferson was very damaging to the Nets’ chances in this game.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Rare Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance Plus-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-NETS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Eduardo Najera, Den 1.376
2. Linas Kleiza, Den 1.319
3. Antoine Wright, NJ 1.040
4. Jason Kidd, NJ 1.000
5. Allen Iverson, Den 0.956
6. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.822
7. Josh Boone, NJ 0.821
8. Malik Allen, NJ 0.681
9. Vince Carter, NJ 0.634
10. Darrell Armstrong, NJ 0.610
11. Marcus Camby, Den 0.600
12. Richard Jefferson, NJ 0.539
13. Anthony Carter, Den 0.536
14. J.R. Smith, Den 0.191
15. Marcus Williams, NJ 0.150
16. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.100
17. Sean Williams, NJ 0.087
18. Jason Collins, NJ -0.120…Collins played only 5 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Eduardo Najera has come alive this season relative to last season, and has been living up to his billing as a good defensive player who can score if he really puts his mind to it. Najera and the Lithuanian star Linas Kleiza were by far the best players on the court in this game; both of these Nuggets were star-plus. The Nets had no stars and only two outstanding players, Antoine Wright and Jason Kidd. Since Iverson was also outstanding for the Nuggets, the Nuggets had 3 players who were outstanding or better, whereas the Nets had just the two.

Both Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson were major disappointments for the Nets. For the Nuggets, Marcus Camby was by far the big disappointment. Carter and especially J.R. Smith are well known to be inconsistent, so they were not as disappointing in the relative sense.

The biggest disappointment among all players who played was Sean Williams of the Nets. The other Williams, Marcus Williams, was also a no-show, and those two players with the same last name ended any chance that the Nets could upset the Nuggets in this game.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Eduardo Najera: +20
Anthony Carter: +15
Kenyon Martin: +13
Allen Iverson: +11
J.R. Smith: +7
Yakhouba Diawara: +6
Linas Kleiza: +3
Marcus Camby: +0

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
This reinforces what I already reported, that Najera had a real gem of a game against the Nets. Anthony Carter’s high score suggests that those who think he has intangible value beyond his production may be correct, at least in this game. Martin and Iverson were also able to do serious damage to the Nets in this game.

Although J.R. Smith and Yakhouba Diawara were a no shows, at least they had modestly positive plus-minuses. The Nets did well while Kleiza was in there, but it sure wasn’t due to Kleiza himself. Camby was the only player that the Nets were able to take advantage of to any extent.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Yakhouba Diawara played 11 minutes and was 0/3, 0/2 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 2 points, and he made 1 rebound.

J.R. Smith played 22 minutes and was 1/7, 0/5 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 3 points, and he made 3 assists and 2 rebounds.

Anthony Carter played 39 minutes and was 1/8, 0/3 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 9 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Marcus Camby played 38 minutes and was 2/10 and 2/4 from the line for 6 points, and he made 14 rebounds, 4 blocks, 2 steals, and 1 assist.

Kenyon Martin played 36 minutes and was 8/15 and 4/8 from the line for 20 points, and he made 7 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1 steal.

Allen Iverson played most of the game, 43 minutes, and was 8/21, 1/3 on 3’s, and 13/15 from the line for 30 points, and he made 5 assists, 3 steals, and 2 rebounds.

Linas Kleiza played 31 minutes and was 7/16, 3/8 on 3’s, and 6/6 from the line for 23 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Eduardo Najera played 21 minutes and was 4/6, 1/2 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 12 points, and he made 9 rebounds and 5 steals.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Sunday, January 27 in Dallas to play the Mavericks at 6 pm mountain time. Neither the Mavericks nor the Nuggets will be playing on back to back nights.

The Nuggets Beat the Unimpressive Hawks 107-100, and The George Karl Fiasco Story Part 4: The Resume

Carmelo Anthony sprained his ankle in Los Angeles two nights earlier and joined Nene and Chucky Atkins on the Red Cross list for this game. But the Denver Nuggets led from 8 minutes into the game to the final buzzer, as the Hawks failed to produce enough offense to overcome the decent if not spectacular defense of Marcus Camby, Eduardo Najera, and Kenyon Martin. The Nuggets led 29-17 after one quarter, 52-42 at the half, and 78-70 after 3 quarters. The Nuggets defeated the Hawks, with neither team playing on back to back nights, but neither team playing all that great quite honestly, 107-100. The Hawks drew to within 4 points in the 4th quarter, but the Nugget’s win was never in any true jeopardy because Atlanta didn’t have enough players playing at the higher performance levels.

On offense, Iverson shot very poorly from the field, but made 15/18 free throws to largely make up for it. Linas Kleiza and Kenyon Martin were solid if not outstanding on offense, and both of them, like Iverson, made a fairly large number of drives to the hoop. Iverson scored 29 on 6/21 shooting, Kleiza scored 23 on 9/18 shooting, and Martin scored 20 on 7/14 shooting. Camby added 13 points on 4/7 shooting. NBA rebounding and blocking leader Camby also made 21 rebounds, 4 blocks, and 4 assists in this game.

The Hawks made slightly more rebounds, 61-54, and slightly more assists, 29-26, and turnovers were also slightly in favor of Atlanta, since the Hawks committed 15 turnovers while the Nuggets committed 17 of them.

This was a game where Atlanta slightly outplayed the Nuggets from a technical standpoint, but the Nuggets had a decisive advantage in terms of the number of players who were playing, using the real player ratings, at the outstanding level or better. While the best players on the court were both Hawks: Center Al Horford and PF Josh Smith, both of whom played at the star-plus level, the Hawks had no other outstanding or better players. But the Nuggets had 3 players playing outstanding ball, Martin, Najera, and Kleiza, and they enjoyed a star performance from Camby.

Had anyone among PG Tyronn Lue, SF Josh Childress, PG Anthony Johnson, PF Marvin Williams, or SG Joe Johnson been outstanding or better, the Hawks could have at the very least threatened to send this game into overtime, because Iverson was off and Carmelo Anthony was out with the ankle sprain. So the Hawks missed a golden opportunity to win on the road in Denver, because they could have done so had any one of those five players stepped up. So this was yet another in an already surprising list of games that the Nuggets won without playing all that great, thanks to an opponent not playing as well as they could and in fact do on other occasions. Added to those wins would be the surprising list of lucky wins, including the 1 point win from the Kleiza buzzer beater in Sacramento on December 23. In total, the Nuggets have won at least 6 games so far, any combination of which could easily have been losses, while losing only one game that could easily have been a win, the Lakers game where Iverson scored 51 points.

With almost every Coach Karl quote I can extend or at least confirm my understanding of how he thinks. Karl was quoted as follows after this game: "We probably don't win that game tonight without Linas. A.I. had another gutty performance. Marcus was remarkable and Kenyon played good defense. Without Nene (testicular tumor surgery), Melo and Chucky Atkins (sports hernia operation), we are kind of in survival mode." Iverson actually did not play all that well, so you can see Karl’s bias in favor of the living legend here. Kenyon Martin played good defense and good offense, but Karl would not give him a sweeping endorsement like he did to Iverson and Camby, because in Karl’s world Martin is not an “historical great” of basketball. The comment about Linas is meaningless since; obviously, the Nuggets would have lost had Kleiza not been available. The comment about being in “survival mode” is a classic Karl quote revealing his high level of insecurity regarding the fate of the Nuggets. If you still have Camby, Martin, and Iverson, you can not be in just survival mode. At least 12 teams in the League would trade their best three players for those three in a heartbeat, and they would then expect to be in a much better mode than survival.

THE GEORGE KARL FIASCO PART 4

In the first three parts, I focused on the present day thinking and decisions of George Karl. In the next 6 parts, parts 4-9, I will explore the past and explain why Karl should not have been hired by the Nuggets in January 2005. In part 4, I lay out and discuss Karl’s coaching resume, with specific attention paid to the regular season win-loss records and patterns of his teams.

In Parts 6-9, we will look in greater detail at Karl’s previous years as a head coach. We will go over his best players and his teams winning and losing year by year. In other words, we will be giving a narrative complement to the earlier statistical presentation. When we are through, every reader will be extremely well informed about Karl’s history, and what it says about his strengths and weaknesses, from both a statistical and from a historical perspective.

GEORGE KARL’S REGULAR SEASON WIN LOSS RECORDS:
1984-85 Cleveland Cavaliers 82 games, 36-46 .439
1985-86 Cleveland Cavaliers 67 games, 25-42 .373; fired during season
1986-87 Golden State Warriors 82 games, 42-40 .512
1987-88 Golden State Warriors 64 games, 16-48 .250; fired during season
1988-89 Did Not Coach
1989-90 For a short time, Karl was an Assistant Coach for the Jazz, but was fired.
1990-91 Did Not Coach in the NBA; coached Albany in the CBA.
1991-92 Seattle Supersonics 42 games, 27-15 .643
1992-93 Seattle Supersonics 82 games, 55-27 .671
1993-94 Seattle Supersonics 82 games, 63-19 .768
1994-95 Seattle Supersonics 82 games, 57-25 .695
1995-96 Seattle Supersonics 82 games, 64-18 .780
1996-97 Seattle Supersonics 82 games, 57-25 .695
1997-98 Seattle Supersonics 82 games, 61-21 .744; voluntarily left the Supersonics to coach the Bucks at the end of the season.
1998-99 Milwaukee Bucks 50 games, 28-22 .560
1999-00 Milwaukee Bucks 82 games, 42-40 .512
2000-01 Milwaukee Bucks 82 games, 52-30 .634
2001-02 Milwaukee Bucks 82 games, 41-41 .500
2002-03 Milwaukee Bucks 82 games, 42-40 .512; fired at the end of the season.
2003-04 Did Not Coach
2004-05 Denver Nuggets 40 games, 32-8 .800
2005-06 Denver Nuggets 82 games, 44-38 .537
2006-07 Denver Nuggets 82 games, 45-37 .549
2007-08 Denver Nuggets 45 games, 27-18 .600

OBSERVATIONS ON KARL’S REGULAR SEASONS
The most obvious thing to note from his early years is that Karl twice, for two different teams, had a big drop off from the first year to the second year. The second time, with the Warriors, the drop off was truly massive. In both instances, he was fired before the 2nd season was over.

Following these two similar episodes, Karl could not get a coaching job at all in 1988-89. In 1989, Karl was an assistant Coach under Jerry Sloan in Utah for part of the season, but he was once again fired from that job before the season was over. After being fired from Jerry Sloan's staff in Salt Lake City, Karl returned to the Continental Basketball Association as coach of the Albany Patroons for 1990-91, winning the coach of the year award in 1991. He had been a CBA coach in Montana prior to his first NBA head coach position with the Cavaliers. Under Karl, the Patroons completed a 50-6 regular season, including winning all 28 of their home games.

Karl’s dour personality and his hard work produced a huge success in the CBA, which made it theoretically possible for Karl to be invited to return to head coaching in the NBA. And that is exactly what happened. The overall shortage of experienced coaches made Karl an attractive candidate for the Seattle Supersonics in late January of 1992, after they fired Coach K.C. Jones.

Karl’s tenure with the Supersonics, in the regular season at least, turned out to be the opposite, in terms of the win-loss record and in terms of the stability of the winning from season to season, of his time with the Cavaliers and his time with the Warriors. The Sonics during every one of Karl’s 6 ½ years as Head Coach were a rock solid regular season team, with winning percentages ranging from .643 to .780. The Sonics earned home court advantage in round one, at a minimum, in every one of the Karl years.

But the postseasons were entirely another matter and the Supersonics were more like jelly than rock solid in many of the 7 postseasons under Karl. In the next report, which will be for the Nets game, we will look at Karl’s postseason coaching, both for the Supersonics and all the other teams he has coached.

At the end of the 1997-98 season, Karl voluntarily chose to leave the Sonics to assume the head coaching duties for the Milwaukee Bucks. Quite honestly I have not been able to determine Karl’s reason(s) for this move, but if I had to wager I would say that he was most likely not getting along all that well with the Sonics’ front office at the time.

Karl’s performance in Milwaukee ended up about half way between his terrible start as a head coach while coaching the Cavaliers and Warriors on the one hand, and his perfectly rock solid 7 regular seasons with the Supersonics on the other hand. His overall record while Coach of the Bucks was 205-173, not bad but not great either. And his playoff record for the Bucks was mixed as well, even relative to the lower postseason expectations the Bucks had compared with the Supersonics.

At the end of the 2003 season, following a lackluster regular season and a quick exit in the playoffs, Karl was fired for the third time in his head coaching career, as the Bucks hired Terry Porter to replace him. Karl did not coach in the NBA during 2003-04, nor did he during the first few months of the 2004-05 season.

Then on January 28, 2005, Karl was again brought out of mothballs, this time by the Nugget’s organization. With Carmelo Anthony as the cornerstone, the Nuggets were aggressively maneuvering through front office and roster changes to rapidly rise up from being about the worst team in the League to, hopefully, one of the best. The Nuggets organization was extremely ambitious at that time, and Bzdelic did not seem to have the potential to pilot the Nuggets optimally in the great seasons that the front office was dreaming of. The Nuggets front office thought of the franchise as a rising star, and thought of Bzdelic as lacking star power so to speak.

So even though Coach Jeff Bzdelic was good enough to oversee the Nuggets going from 17-65 in 2002-03 to 43-39 in 2003-04, he was given the heave out the door after a 13-15 start in 2004-05. The Nuggets’ front office gambled that Karl’s Seattle regular season performances are more representative of his real abilities than were his other performances. In other words, the front office gambled that Karl was a star coach who had no luck when he was at Cleveland and Golden State. So Karl was handed a talented team that became even more talented, extremely talented in fact, during the next two seasons, 2005-06 and 2006-07.

With the Nuggets maxed out financially, and with the owner in fact paying a luxury tax for running an oversized payroll, the 2007-08 Nuggets of the here and now are loaded to the rafters with talent and skill. The team is a kind of coach’s dream, in that the skills and talents of the best 4 or 5 players are so stratospheric, that a coach can be lazy and/or incompetent to one extent or another and few will notice, because the team will be winning often just from the talents and skills of those superstar and star players.

Despite the overload of talent, Karl and the Nuggets have as yet failed to win more than a single postseason game in each of the three years that the Nuggets have been coached by Karl: 2005, 2006, and 2007. Now here in 2008, there is almost no evidence to suggest that the Nuggets are going to do much better than 1 postseason win this year. Worse still, there is at least a 50/50 chance that the Nuggets will not make the playoffs at all this year, thanks to the Nugget’s inability to make headway against the top half dozen teams of the West. The Nuggets are in real danger of not making the playoffs, thanks to the amazing New Orleans Hornets, who apparently now are one of those top teams, thanks to the again explosively dangerous Golden State Warriors, thanks to Rick Adelman who is most likely going to maneuver his Rockets into one of the playoff slots, and thanks even to the stunning performance of the Portland Trailblazers, despite the fact that they lost Greg Oden to an injury for the entire season.

Assuming that the Suns, the Hornets, the Lakers, the Mavericks, the Spurs, and the Jazz are all playoff locks, the Nuggets are going to have to finish ahead of two out of three between the Warriors, the Rockets, and the Trailblazers, or they are going to go down in history as the most talented team to fail to make the playoffs in the history of the NBA. Since 16 out of 30 teams make the playoffs in the NBA, it is not supposed to be difficult for a highly talented team to at least get a low seed. But for the Nuggets, and this is smoking gun evidence that Karl’s coaching skills are limited, it is and will most likely continue to be, for the duration of the season, dangerously difficult.

To summarize, during his NBA head coaching career, Karl has been fired three times and voluntarily quit a team, the Supersonics, once. During his 20 year coaching career spanning 24 years, (the 4 years difference is because he was not the head coach of any NBA team during 4 years) Karl’s record to the present moment is 856-600, for a percentage of 58.8%. That’s good, but the bulk of the excess of wins over losses was provided by the Sonics gig, and to a lesser extent by the Nuggets gig. And both of these teams were. and are, known as having extremely talented players who can win games without quality coaching. Consider this summary of wins and losses:

GEORGE KARL WINS AND LOSSES BY “PHASE”
Phase 1: 1984-1988 Cavaliers-Warriors 119-176, or 40.3%
Phase 2: 1991-1998 Seattle Supersonics 384-150, or 72.4%
Phase 3: 1998-2003 Milwaukee Bucks 205-173, or 52.4%
Phase 4: 2005-2008 Denver Nuggets 148-101, or 57.1%.

When Karl was brought out of the unemployment wilderness by the Nuggets, his cumulative win-loss record was 708-499 or 58.7%. But this was composed of three phases of his career, one of which was a major failure, one of which was in between a failure and a success, a slight success at best, and the other one of which was a huge success. But another very plausible way of looking at the Sonics years is to hypothesize that they were relatively easy teams to coach because they were very talented and self-motivated teams, with such famous and semi-famous players as Sean Kemp, Gary Payton, Nate McMillan, Sam Perkins, Detlef Schrempf, and Vin Baker.

Even if you give Karl huge credit for the Sonics years, his history is a totally inconsistent mishmash of results. This is precisely why you have to consider the “Sonics were easy to coach” theory as stronger and stronger with each passing month that the current Denver Nuggets fail to break through to the top of the Western Conference by being able to beat the best teams in the West on occasion by more than a bucket or two. If the Sonics were relatively easy to coach, and the Nuggets, who I readily admit are not easy to coach, continue to fail to be fully competitive with the top teams of the West, the inescapable conclusion will be that, even though he is a gentleman and someone who means to do well, George Karl was and is a failure at the task of putting a very talented basketball team in a position to win at the highest levels of pro basketball.

Technically the jury is still out, because the 2008 fate of the Nuggets is yet to be seen. But a lot of evidence has already been introduced against Karl, and no one least of all myself will be surprised if the jury returns a verdict of “a gentleman but guilty of not being capable of coaching successfully at the advanced level of pro basketball competition.” If Karl is convicted of that as seems all too likely, Allen Iverson and the rest of the Nuggets will pay the price as victims. They will never experience the thrill and honor of playing in the Western Conference finals or the NBA Championship, which they theoretically could have with the assistance of a highly skilled head coach and able assistant coaches.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Carmelo Anthony: Suffered a left ankle sprain at L.A. Lakers on 1/21
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks. Atkins is out until at least late March. With any luck, he will be back in the Nuggets lineup in early April.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown. He is out until at least late February, but could be out for the entire rest of the season.

HAWKS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Speedy Claxton: He is still unable to even practice with the team as he continues his recovery from off-season knee surgery. There are also conflicting reports stating he's away from the team for personal reasons. He is out indefinitely.
Salim Stoudamire: He sustained a sprained ankle on Dec. 14. He is still unable to cut and is not traveling with the team.
Zaza Pachulia: He was forced to sit after a doctor's visit revealed an ingrown toenail on his left foot. He should be ready to return to action soon, maybe on Jan. 25 at Seattle. .

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of January 24, 2008

The Nuggets are under a RED ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Carmelo Anthony injury 34 points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
3. Nene illness 14 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 10 points.

2. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 1-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 0 points.

3. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 7 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 83, which constitutes RED ALERT.

RED ALERT (75-99): Serious damage to the season is occurring now. Beating quality teams is almost impossible. Beating mid-level teams is extremely difficult and will be unusual. About 3/4 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost if there is a RED ALERT. The result against low-level teams is on a case by case basis. Close to 1/2 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Essentially, a RED ALERT means that an otherwise good team has been reduced to being a poor or low level team.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
The Nuggets now have their first RED ALERT of the 2007-08 season. Injury and illness disaster has once again struck the Nuggets, with Carmelo Anthony, Chucky Atkins, and Nene all out. Anthony is likely to be back for the Sunday Jan. 27 game in Dallas versus the Mavericks, which will put the Nuggets back into the more manageable ORANGE ALERT status for that game. However, both Atkins and Nene are definitely going to be out for many weeks, and either one of them or both of them could easily be out for the entire rest of the season. And George Karl is definitely not going to pull a few offensive set plays out of a hat any time soon. Therefore, the Nuggets, unless they make a trade and/or acquire a diamond in the rough player, are doomed to be in ORANGE ALERT or YELLOW ALERT for the rest of the season, which endangers their chances of making the playoffs. Hollinger at ESPN has the odds that the Nuggets will make the playoffs at exactly 50% right now.

The recent losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the close calls at home against the Wolves and the Hawks, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easy wins had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT or RED ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 7 Hawks 8
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 7 Hawks 7

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 14
Hawks Non-Starters Points: 18

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 4
Hawks Non-Starters Rebounds: 15

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 3
Hawks Non-Starters Assists: 5

George Karl was lucky to get this win “on the cheap”; he got away with playing only 7 players compared with 8 for the Hawks. Also, the Hawks had two other players who played 4 minutes each while the Nuggets had just one other player who played 4 minutes, J.R. Smith.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
2: He's making a run for the exits

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Marcus Camby: Game 44.8 Season 33.8
Allen Iverson: Game 36.7 Season 41.1
Kenyon Martin: Game 36.4 Season 20.8
Linas Kleiza: Game 36.3 Season 19.1
Anthony Carter: Game 22.4 Season 21.0
Eduardo Najera: Game 16.4 Season 13.1
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 6.6 Season 5.4

Carmelo Anthony: Did Not Play-Injury
Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness

HAWKS PLAYER RATINGS
Josh Smith: Game 49.8 Season 35.4
Al Horford: Game 36.7 Season 22.1
Marvin Williams: Game 28.3 Season 26.1
Anthony Johnson: Game 24.0 Season 16.6
Joe Johnson: Game 23.5 Season 33.3
Josh Childress: Game 20.1 Season 21.1
Tyronn Lue: Game 14.6 Season 10.7
Solomon Jones: Game 1.8 Season 2.0

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE RATINGS:
For the Hawks, PF Josh Smith, C-F Al Horford, and PG Anthony Johnson were the key performers, while Joe Johnson was the lone disappointment. Johnson missed 8 of 10 jump shots from inside the arc, while he did succeed at making 2/4 threes.

For the Nuggets, Camby, Martin, and Kleiza were the power performers, while Iverson, Carter, and Najera were more or less normal.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Rare Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance Plus-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-HAWKS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Al Horford, Atl 1.266
2. Josh Smith, Atl 1.215
3. Marcus Camby, Den 1.093
4. Eduardo Najera, Den 0.965
5. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.958
6. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.908
7. Allen Iverson, Den 0.816
8. Tyronn Lue, Atl 0.811
9. Josh Childress, Atl 0.804
10. Marvin Williams, Atl 0.786
11. Anthony Johnson, Atl 0.706
12. Anthony Carter, Den 0.640
13. Joe Johnson, Atl 0.588
14. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.330
15. Solomon Jones, Atl 0.200…Jones played only 9 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Although Camby played very well and was a star, the young Hawks star center Al Horford did him one better, as he was a star-plus. In 29 minutes, the rookie Horford was a very efficient 6/8 and 2/5 from the line for 14 points, and he added 11 rebounds, 5 steals, 2 assists, and 1 block. Horford, who was born in the Dominican Republic and went to high school in Michigan, also did Carmelo Anthony one better, because he led his college team to TWO National Championships instead of just one, as Anthony did for the Syracuse Orangemen. As a college rookie, Horford helped the Florida Gators win the 2005 SEC divisional Championship. The following year, 2005-06, the Gators, who lost 3 starters from the previous year, vastly exceeded expectations by winning it all. Horford led Florida as they defeated George Mason in the final four and then defeated UCLA in the 2006 NCAA Championship. Next year, which was this past season, on April 2, 2007, Horford and the rest of the Gators became the first team to repeat as national Champions since the 1991-1992 Duke Blue Devils, and the first ever to do so with the same starting lineup. Horford left the Gators after his junior year, and was selected 3rd overall this past June by Atlanta Hawks in the 2007 NBA Draft.

As of the December 28 NBA Real Player Ratings, Horford was the 156th best player in the NBA this year. Expect him to reach at least the top 130 by the end of the season.

Other than Horford, PF Josh Smith was the other spectacular player in this game. The Hawks could not win it despite having the best two players on the court, because the Nuggets had all 5 of the next best players on the court: Camby, Najera, Martin, Kleiza and Iverson. Among all players who were very good or better, the Nuggets had those five, while the Hawks had four: Horford, Smith, Tyronn Lue, and Josh Childress.

Carter was only mediocre, but he made enough assists to avoid being a major drag for the Nuggets and, unlike his scoreboard goose egg in the previous game in Los Angeles, he scored 8 points in this game. Yakhouba Diawara played very well defensively in this game, and helped to make up for the absence of Nene with his high quality defending.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Yakhouba Diawara: +13
Marcus Camby: +9
Kenyon Martin: +4
Linas Kleiza: +3
Allen Iverson: +3
Eduardo Najera: +1
Anthony Carter: -2

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Diawara racked up his +13 in just 20 minutes, and Camby cleaned up against the very young Atlanta front court. In yet another small signal of the doom that awaits the Nuggets in the playoffs, assuming they make the playoffs, is the -2 for their starting point guard, Carter. Can you win a Western Conference playoff series without an above average, or at the very least, an average point guard who has playoff experience? The answer is no, unfortunately. Therefore, the Atkins “sports hernia” most likely spells a very quick out in the playoffs for the Nuggets, assuming the Nuggets get to play in the playoffs. The absence of Nene on top of the absence of Carter increases the odds to at least 50/50 that the Nuggets will fail to make the playoffs.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Yakhouba Diawara played 20 minutes and was 2/4, 0/1 on 3’s, and 1/2 from the line for 5 points, and he made 1 assist and 1 steal.

Anthony Carter played 35 minutes and was 3/8, 0/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 8 points, and he made 9 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 block.

Allen Iverson played for virtually the whole game, 45 minutes, and was 6/21, 2/5 on 3’s, and 15/18 from the line for 29 points, and he made 6 assists, 3 steals, and 2 rebounds.

Linas Kleiza played most of the game, 40 minutes, and was 9/18, 2/5 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 23 points, and he made 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 2 steals.

Kenyon Martin played 38 minutes and was 7/14 and 6/6 from the line for 20 points, and he made 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, and 1 assist.

Eduardo Najera played 17 minutes and was 2/2, 1/1 on 3’s, and 2/2 from the line for 7 points, and he made 4 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

Marcus Camby played most of the game, 41 minutes, and was 4/7, 0/1 on 3’s, and 5/6 from the line for 13 points, and he made 21 rebounds, 4 blocks, 4 assists, and 1 steal.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Friday, January 25 in Denver to play the Nets at 7 pm mountain time. The Nets will be playing on back to back nights but the Nuggets will not be. So the Nuggets will enjoy both the home court and the extra rest advantages.

The Lakers Win Big Over the Nuggets 116-99 and Carmelo Anthony Sprains His Ankle

The banged up Los Angeles Lakers blew out the banged up Denver Nuggets in LA during the 3rd quarter, and then extended their dominance in the 4th quarter, to win a convincing 116-99 victory over the Nuggets. The Nuggets played the final 2 1/2 quarters without Carmelo Anthony, who sprained his left ankle midway through the second period. Team spokesman Eric Sebastian said X-rays of Anthony's ankle were negative, meaning there was no major damage to the ankle noted. The word negative usually means positive in health and injury matters. Melo came down on Kobe Bryant’s foot and dropped to the floor, grabbing his ankle in pain. He left with 13 points and four rebounds. After the game, Anthony said "I don't like to sit out. I'm going to do a lot of rehab, but I don't really want to rush this. We feel like we can't get a break with injuries. Hopefully we can get them all out of the way right now."

Unless Anthony returns to the lineup immediately, the Nuggets will be the most banged up team in the NBA, and in very deep trouble with regard to whether they can make the playoffs. The Nuggets are still waiting on pathology reports regarding the Nene tumor, which was surgically removed on January 14, and they are waiting on subsequent decisions about if, when, and how much Nene can play in the latter stages of the 2007-08 season. Atkins is essentially out for the season as he recuperates from a major surgery on a “sports hernia,” leaving the Nuggets short on guards, especially since J.R. Smith is not in optimal playing form. Eduardo Najera did not play in this game due to a right elbow hyper-extension. On the plus side, Nuggets PF Kenyon Martin returned to action after missing three games with a staph infection. The Nuggets played most of this game with just one small forward, Linas Kleiza, unless you consider Kleiza to be a power forward, in which case the Nuggets had no small forwards at all. The Nuggets now have so many injuries and sicknesses that they would need the roster limit to be increased by a couple of players to be able to cope well with the situation they are in.

The Lakers were also banged up badly though. Extremely talented center Andrew Bynum has a right knee sprain, and is out until at least mid-March. PF and 3-point shot ace Vladimir Radmanovic has an ankle sprain and is out until at least late January. SF Trevor Ariza just suffered a broken bone in his right foot in practice this week and is out until at least late March. Finally, reserve center Chris Mihm has a sore achilles in his right foot that requires weekly sonar-wave treatments. He is out until at least late January.

The Nuggets were led by, in the absence of Carmelo Anthony, Kenyon Martin, Linas Kleiza, Allen Iverson, and especially Marcus Camby. PG Anthony Carter has not played well against the Lakers this year, and in this game he played poorly but not horribly. For the Lakers, PG Derek Fisher was huge. In 31 minutes, he was 10/16 from the field, 6/7 from downtown, and 2/2 from the free throw line for 28 points, one point shy of his career record. Strangely, though, he made no assists, no steals, and only 1 rebound. Kobe Bryant in 39 minutes was 5/7, 1/2 on 3’s, and 6/8 from the line for 17 points, and he added 11 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals. The Lakers also enjoyed solid performances by Lamar Odom, Jordan Farmar, Ronny Turiaf, and by, to a lesser extent, Kwame Brown.

The Nuggets had the best player on the court in Marcus Camby, but when Anthony went down and out, it ended any chance that the Nuggets could win the game, because the Lakers had most of the next half dozen best players. According to the real player ratings, the Lakers had 4 players who played outstanding or better: Fisher, Farmar, Bryant, and Turiaf, in that order. The Nuggets had just two not counting Anthony, who played just the quarter and a half: Camby and Martin, with Camby, as usual, well ahead of Martin.

The Laker’s shooting was only slightly better than that of the Nuggets overall, but they just about buried the Nuggets in 3-point shooting, once again exposing the Nuggets as dangerously and probably fatally weak in that skill. The Lakers were 11/25 or 44.0% from beyond the arc, while the Nuggets were less than half as good. They were 5/12 or 41.7%. Derek Fisher was 6/7 and Jordan Farmar was 3/8 for the Lakers from downtown, whereas the Nuggets had just one player producing threes to any extent, Linas Kleiza, who was 4/8. J.R. Smith played 16 minutes, but did not take a single 3-point shot. Iverson was 0/2 and Yakhouba Diawara was 1/2 in 16 minutes.

The Lakers had a slight edge in rebounding, but the Nuggets had a slight edge in assisting, as Anthony Carter made 14 assists and Iverson made 7 assists. In a downright bizarre result, whereas the Lakers point guard Fisher scored 29 points but failed to get an assist, the Nuggets point guard Carter made 14 assists and failed to get a score. You will probably never see that happen again in your life. Leading the Nuggets in rebounding as usual was Camby, with 12. Martin made 11 rebounds and Kleiza made 7. The Nuggets committed 16 turnovers, which sadly is not that bad for them, but the Lakers committed only 12 turnovers.

The Nuggets were called for a big number of personal fouls, 27, and Los Angeles made 25/34 free throws. The Lakers were whistled for the average number of personal fouls, 21, and the Nuggets made 16/22 free throws. Blocks and steals were almost exactly even between the two squads.

So when you look carefully at the numbers, you find that the teams were relatively evenly matched except that the Lakers were much better in 3 point shooting, and better at defending without fouling. These were the main two factors that allowed the Lakers to win the game in the 2nd half going away.

The Nuggets have now been swept by the Lakers 3 games to none for the 2007-08 campaign. The teams will not meet again this season, unless they play each other in the playoffs. The Lakers have owned the Nuggets at home. They have won 15 of 17 games against the Nuggets at Staples Center since the arena opened in 1999

I now move on to the George Karl Fiasco story Part 3. To briefly summarize the first two parts, in Part 1, which is in the Hawks game report posted on January 16, I carefully described Karl’s belief system as revealed in numerous post-game and other media interviews, as well as in his decisions during games. I then showed how those beliefs have caused him to take away from J.R. Smith big blocks of playing time which, ironically, has made Smith even more impulsive and overly charged up and thus prone to stupid mistakes during games. In Part 2, which is in the Jazz game report posted on January 18, I identified the only two players who are immune from the threat of being benched by Karl for petty reasons, Allen Iverson and Marcus Camby, and I described in a new very important way the error that will be fatal to the Nugget’s postseason chances that Karl is making regarding J.R. Smith.

Here in Part 3, we take a brief look at what is at stake should the Nuggets be defeated by, in effect, Karl’s beliefs, and fail to even make the playoffs even though they have 3 superstars. Then, in Part 4, we will begin to compare Karl to other Coaches past and present.

The loss of Nene and Atkins to two illnesses may be what exposes George Karl as a poor coach to the world, because I truly believe that most other NBA coaches could get at least the 8th spot with the remaining superstar lineup. But George Karl is not "most other coaches," and he might very well fail to get the 8th spot with Nene and Atkins gone.

As you can tell by reading my lines and reading between them, I have essentially no confidence in Mr. Karl to guide his team to a playoff berth in the wake of and despite the serious roster hits. The strange thing is, the loss of Nene and Atkins, in my estimation, is the perfect scientific experiment to see whether Karl is as problematic as I believe he is.

Karl still has in Carter the point guard he would favor over Atkins even if Atkins were healthy, so the Atkins loss means surprisingly little to the Nuggets under Karl. But the loss of Nene, and the continuing reality that Kenyon Martin is not going to be back to 100% any time this season, means that if the Nugget’s coaching staff tries to get through the season on autopilot, they may crash the franchise plane into a Colorado mountainside.

If Nene and Atkins are going to be gone for most or all of the season, the Nuggets need a signing or two of available diamond in the rough replacements, or even an emergency trade, in order to get some kind of an insurance policy against Karl and his associates failing to make the appropriate adjustments and then failing to make the playoffs with a lineup that still features Camby, Iverson, Anthony, and Martin.

According to the ESPN playoff odds overseen by John Hollinger, which are based on a relatively simple and thus a relatively solid statistical framework, the Nuggets are unlikely to make the playoffs. The playoff odds, which are built on the framework of the Hollinger Power Rankings of the 30 NBA teams, are calculated by computer every night. According to the playoff odds, the Nuggets are expected to finish as either the 9th or the 10th best team in the West, just missing the 8 playoff seeds.

Were the Nuggets to miss the playoffs, it would rank as one of the truly historic franchise failures in the history of pro basketball. Other coaches are able to make the playoffs with players most of whom are not as talented or productive as the Nugget’s 3 superstars, so a Nuggets playoff miss would be a real humiliation for the Nugget’s coaches, the front office, and I guess the players themselves if you believe that they should be able to guide themselves, so to speak, into the playoffs with little strategic or tactical assistance from their coaches.

It would be a true outrage and downright embarrassing to Denver if a team that features Iverson, Anthony, Camby, and Martin could not make the playoffs. Hardly anyone outside of or in the Denver area is going to swallow a "we lost Nene and Atkins" excuse if the Nuggets do not make the playoffs.

The effect of not making the playoffs would go way beyond mere embarrassment. If the Nuggets do fail to make the playoffs, and George Karl does not "retire," how will they be able to get quality potential free agents interested enough in playing for Denver that they and their agents will work with their general managers to work up trades? Potential free agents and coaches the Nuggets might want would continue to look down on the franchise as a "gang that can't shoot straight.” I say “continue,” because this is already a problem to some extent, with many top players preferring the brighter lights, the more successful and glorious playoff histories, and the greater exposure that playing in a huge market either on the East coast or the West coast provides. If the Nuggets fail to make the playoffs, who will want to play for the Nuggets in 2008-09? Instead of helping or staying neutral, the quality free agent players and their agents would be stopping trades and signings where they would go to the Nuggets. Moving J.R. Smith for just compensation would be much more difficult. The situation would be really horrible in my opinion, and could easily lead to the Nuggets failing to make the playoffs again in 2008-09, this time by a wider margin, with them falling to .500 or even worse. .

So it is crucial that the Nuggets make the playoffs, even if they are quickly eliminated. If the Nuggets do fail to make the playoffs, it will set the franchise back and endanger the immediate future. Charles Barkley's derogatory views of the Nuggets will be considered gospel. And failing to make the playoffs could possibly set off a chain of events that leads Iverson to decide that he made the wrong move in his mission to win a ring. He might look for another team.

We shall see. Unless one or two Western teams collapse to some extent, there are going to be two West Conference teams that finish with winning records but do not get a playoff spot. Meanwhile, for the umpteenth straight year, the East Conference will most likely feature at least one team with a losing record that gets a playoff berth. Sports can be just as unfair as life sometimes. Whether the Nuggets make the playoffs in the West is most likely going to be an extremely close call. In fact, which team gets the last Western playoff spot may very well be determined by a tie breaker.

PLAYERS WHO WERE NOT AVAILABLE

NUGGETS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Carmelo Anthony: suffered a left ankle sprain during this game and left half way through the second quarter.
Chucky Atkins: He was diagnosed with a right groin/abdominal strain (Sports Hernia) on 1/9 and underwent successful surgery on 1/11. He is expected to be sidelined a minimum of eight weeks.
Nene: underwent successful surgery to remove a testicular tumor on 1/14. A timeline for his return is still unknown.
Eduardo Najera: did not play in the Lakers game due to a right elbow hyper-extension. His status is considered day-to-day.

LAKERS INJURIES AND OUT SICKS
Andrew Bynum: Right knee sprain, out until at least mid-March.
Vladimir Radmanovic: Ankle sprain; out until at least late January.
Trevor Ariza: Foot injury, out until at least late March
Chris Mihm: A sore Achilles in his right foot that requires weekly sonar-wave treatments. He is out until at least late January.

ALERT STATUS PROBLEMS
As of January 22, 2008

The Nuggets are under an ORANGE ALERT, on account of the following problems.

INJURIES & SUSPENSIONS
1. Carmelo Anthony injury (1/2 of this game) 17 points
2. Chucky Atkins injury 18 points
3. Nene illness 14 points
4. Eduardo Najera injury 12 points

SEVERE AND UNEXPECTED PLAYER PERFORMANCE PROBLEMS
There are none at this time: 0 points.

BAD OR INADEQUATE COACHING
1. George Karl has completely benched one or more players who should not be benched due to his incorrect calculation of the benefits and costs of that player, his hatred of the player, and/or his having the ulterior motive of forcing the player off the team. The problem points would be the points you would have if the player were injured.

No one is currently completely benched who should not be: 0 points.

2. One or more players are partially benched; their minutes are being artificially limited due to abstract and subjective factors that the Denver Coaches believe are more important than performance on the court.

J.R. Smith was partially benched: 5 points.

2. George Karl over relies on his starters and won’t play the non-starters enough: 1-12 Points. The severity varies depending on the circumstances, mainly Karl’s beliefs and moods, and whether the other team is playing well enough to take advantage of the Nuggets playing with not enough breathers, with too many fouls, and so forth. The current points reported are for the use, or should I say the misuse, of the reserves for the most recent games, with the most weight being given to the game being reported on here.

The bad use of reserves score for this game is 0 points.

3. The Nuggets have extreme inconsistency and a truly excessive number of turnovers because they have neither a system nor even a partial system on offense. The damage caused by this would be up to 20 points, except that Iverson reduces the damage. In broad terms, the team has failed to decide whether it wants Melo alone, Iverson alone, Melo and Iverson together, or neither of them to be firstly responsible for scoring enough points to keep the Nuggets in games. If it were neither, I call the name of that strategy the "share the wealth" strategy. More specifically, the Nuggets lack enough tried and tested offensive plays that they can run game after game, perfecting them as they go, and having everyone automatically on the same page for those plays.

Lack of an adequate number of offensive plays and schemes: 7 Points

INTENSITY, HUSTLE, AND HEART
1. The Nugget’s intensity, hustle and heart are lacking: 0 Points. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some fans sometime think it is.

TOTAL PROBLEM POINTS: 73, which constitutes ORANGE ALERT.

ORANGE ALERT (55-74): Moderate damage is occurring to the season. The entire season is under serious threat, and you can just about forget about beating quality teams. About 3/4 of all potential wins against good teams will now be losses. Beating mid-level teams is much more difficult. About 1/2 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Even poor teams can often beat an otherwise good team that is under this alert. Close to 1/4 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. A good team has been reduced to being a mid-level team, at best, when it is under this alert.

Since the Nuggets are just about at RED ALERT, let’s check out how dire the situation is if you reach that:

RED ALERT (75-99): Serious damage to the season is occurring now. Beating quality teams is almost impossible. Beating mid-level teams is extremely difficult and will be unusual. About 3/4 of games against mid-level teams that would have been won will be lost if there is a RED ALERT. The result against low-level teams is on a case by case basis. Close to 1/2 of games against low level teams that would have been won will be lost under this alert. Essentially, a RED ALERT means that an otherwise good team has been reduced to being a poor or low level team.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE ALERT STATUS
Injury and illness disaster has once again struck the Nuggets, with Eduardo Najera, Chucky Atkins, and Nene all out. Making matters much worse, Carmelo Anthony went out half way through the 2nd quarter of this game with an ankle sprain. The recent losses to the Bobcats and the Hawks, and the extremely close call against the Wolves, in games that should have and probably would have been relatively easily won had the alert status been green, grey, or even yellow, illustrate the usefulness and accuracy of the alert system. When you reach ORANGE ALERT, you start losing a substantial number of games that you would normally win. It’s that simple, and there is little anyone can do about it.

RESERVE WATCH
Number of Players Who Played at Least 6 Minutes: Nuggets 9 Lakers 9
Number of Players Who Played at Least 10 Minutes: Nuggets 8 Lakers 8

Nuggets Non-Starters Points: 28
Lakers Non-Starters Points: 45

Nuggets Non-Starters Rebounds: 14
Lakers Non-Starters Rebounds: 12

Nuggets Non-Starters Assists: 1
Lakers Non-Starters Assists: 6

Notice that the Laker’s non-starters made 6 of their total 29 assists. A hallmark of a well coached team is non-starters getting assists. This shows you that the non-starters gained possession of the ball enough times to make those assists. Poorly coached teams generally have the problem of non-starters being starved for possessions of the ball, which in turn makes those teams easier to defend, because the opponent doesn’t have to worry very much about the non-starters.

The reserve watch feature is under development, and it will be gradually expanded. The complications involved explain why there are no formal statistics anywhere on the internet on the subject of how much non-starters contribute to different teams, and also why coaches are not compared statistically the way players are. There are a lot of variables that come into the use of reserves that interfere with the objective of judging their use. Statisticians call this “statistical noise,” and if you have a substantial amount of it, then what you are trying to do with your statistics becomes very difficult or next to impossible.

GEORGE KARL CONFIDENCE IN HIS TEAM RATING (Scale of 0 to 10)
3: He's hiding under his seat on the sidelines

PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
You can tell how well every player played at a glance. Of the advanced statistics I have seen on the internet, this one seems to have the best balance between offense and defense. Many other advanced statistics are biased in favor of good defenders, and do not reflect the heavy importance of offense in basketball. Here is the formula for the ESPN rating of a player:

Points + Rebounds + 1.4*Assists + Steals + 1.4*Blocks - .7*Turnovers + # of Field Goals Made +1/2*# of 3-pointers Made - .8*# of Missed Field Goals - .8*# of Missed Free Throws + .25 *# of Free Throws Made

All players on each team who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The number after “game,” is how well the player did in this game, whereas the number after “season” is that player’s overall average for the entire season.

NUGGETS PLAYER RATINGS
Marcus Camby: Game 46.2 Season 33.5
Kenyon Martin: Game 34.6 Season 20.3
Allen Iverson: Game 32.0 Season 41.2
Linas Kleiza: Game 29.2 Season 18.7
Anthony Carter: Game 18.0 Season 21.0
Carmelo Anthony: Game 16.5 Season 38.0
Yakhouba Diawara: Game 5.7 Season 5.3
Von Wafer: Game 5.0 Season 1.3
J.R. Smith: Game 0.8 Season 15.0
Steven Hunter: Game -0.6 Season 1.2

Chucky Atkins: Did Not Play-Injury
Nene: Did Not Play-Illness
Eduardo Najera: Did Not Play-Illness

LAKERS PLAYER RATINGS
Kobe Bryant: Game 39.0 Season 42.6
Derek Fisher: Game 37.0 Season 21.0
Lamar Odom: Game 32.9 Season 28.0
Jordan Farmar: Game 26.7 Season 17.4
Ronny Turiaf: Game 25.6 Season 13.2
Kwame Brown: Game 19.7 Season 12.7
Luke Walton: Game 11.9 Season 15.6
Sasha Vujacic: Game 10.6 Season 9.7
Javaris Crittenton: Game 6.4 Season 5.4
DJ Mbenga: Game 4.2 Season 4.2

NOTE: these stats do not correct for the big differences in playing times. Players with small minutes would get a higher rating if they had more minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON RATINGS:
The extra step-up effort came much more from Marcus Camby than from Kobe Bryant in this game; Bryant only coasted for the win, while Camby played his guts out for a badly banged up and poorly coached team. Martin played very well, but the Nuggets needed even more from him defensively than he could provide. Iverson’s shooting touch was off, but at least he limited himself to just two three-point attempts for the Nuggets, or else his shooting would have most likely been even worse. The Nuggets are foolishly putting too much pressure on Iverson regarding 3-point shooting, by refusing to give the best 3-point shooters on the team, J.R. Smith and Diawara, much playing time. Iverson has responded by having one of his best years ever for 3-point shooting, but some nights, the 6 foot tall dynamo guard is just not going to be able to make them.

Following the best game of his career 4 nights ago against the Magic, and then one of the worst games of his career 2 nights ago against the Wolves, Linas Kleiza was back to normal, very good but not spectacular, for this game. At the opposite extreme, J.R. Smith was back into disaster form for this game. Not only did Smith have no points in 16 minutes on 0/1 shooting, but he also committed 2 turnovers and 3 fouls.

Anthony played less than half as much as usual, so his performance was perfectly good considering that.

The Laker’s dominance in this game was such that they didn’t have any player whose performance was much below normal, whereas the Nuggets had 3: Smith, Iverson, and Anthony due to the ankle sprain.

For the Lakers, Bryant coasted and Odom was right on his average. Farmar and Brown were substantially above normal, while Turiaf and especially Derek Fisher led the Lakers by being way above normal.

REAL PLAYER RATINGS EXPLAINED
The Real Player Rating reflects reality better than the gross player rating, since it washes out differences in playing times among the players. The straight up player rankings are obviously heavily affected by how many playing minutes the various players get. With many teams, you can rely on the coach to give his various players roughly the playing time that makes the most sense for his team. Unfortunately, some coaches bring other factors besides actual performance into their rotation decisions. Therefore, it makes good sense to introduce a new and extremely important statistic that Nuggets 1 calls the Real Per Minute Player Rating. As the name implies, this is the gross ESPN player rating divided by the number of minutes. The statistic is called Real Player Rating for short.

This statistic allows anyone to see whether or not players who play only a small number of minutes are doing better than their low gross rating will indicate. You can spot diamond in the rough players who are not getting all the respect and playing time due to them. At the same time, it will allow anyone to see whether players with a lot of minutes are playing worse than, as well as, or better than their gross rating shows.

In summary, the Real Player Rating allows the reader, at a glance, to see exactly how well each player is doing without regard to playing time, which is subject to coaching error and subjective and less important factors such as a player's personality. The Real Player Rating provides the real truth-pure knowledge not available anywhere else.

SCALE FOR THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
1.80 More Amazing Happens, but only certain players can ever fly this high
1.60 1.79 Rare Superstar Plus-Above Normal Even For Michael Jordan
1.40 1.60 Superstar Performance Plus-A Michael Jordan Type Game
1.20 1.40 Spectacular Performance-Star Plus
1.05 1.20 Star Performance
0.90 1.05 Outstanding Game
0.80 0.90 Very Good Game
0.70 0.80 Good Game
0.60 0.70 Mediocre Game
0.50 0.60 Poor Game
0.40 0.50 Very Poor Game
0.25 0.40 Bad Game-Near Disaster
Less 0.25 Total Disaster

NUGGETS-LAKERS REAL PLAYER RATINGS
All players who played 5 minutes or more are included. Any player who played only 5-9 minutes is noted.

1. Marcus Camby, Den 1.249
2. Derek Fisher, LAL 1.194
3. Carmelo Anthony, Den 1.179
4. Jordan Farmar, LAL 1.161
5. Kobe Bryant, LAL 1.000
6. Ronny Turiaf, LAL 0.985
7. Kenyon Martin, Den 0.961
8. Lamar Odom, LAL 0.844
9. DJ Mbenga, LAL 0.840…Mbenga played only 5 minutes.
10. Linas Kleiza, Den 0.834
11. Kwame Brown, LAL 0.821
12. Allen Iverson, Den 0.780
13. Javaris Crittenton, LAL 0.711…Crittenton played only 8 minutes.
14. Sasha Vujacic, LAL 0.663
15. Von Wafer, Den 0.625…Wafer played only 8 minutes.
16. Anthony Carter, Den 0.563
17. Luke Walton, LAL 0.458
18. Yakhouba Diawara, Den 0.356
19. J.R. Smith, Den 0.050
20. Steven Hunter, Den -0.120…Hunter played only 5 minutes.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE REAL PLAYER RATINGS
Marcus Camby was the best player on the court, rated as star plus. Two Lakers, Fisher and Farmar, and one Nugget, Anthony, were stars, but Anthony played only 14 minutes due to the ankle sprain. Kobe Bryant for the Lakers and Kenyon Martin were outstanding, but they did not rise to the star level in this game. Martin has rarely been at the star level or better this season so far, while for Bryant, of course, it is very common for him to play at the star level or better.

The Lakers had 7 players who were at least very good, while the Nuggets had just 4. You are hardly ever going to win a game with that kind of a performance deficit. Iverson was merely good in this game, which is poor for Iverson and was very bad for the Nuggets, because Iverson would have had to have been huge for the Nuggets to have had a chance. Anthony Carter played poorly on the road against a good team as usual, although quite honestly it could have been worse. His 14 assists partly made up for his total lack of scoring.

I jinxed J.R. Smith, because last game report (the Wolves game) I said that Smith for once stayed above the disaster zone even though his game was off, so you could not have blamed Smith for losing the game had the Nuggets lost, which they should have by the way. But here in this game, Smith sunk right back down into the disaster range. Had this game been a real contest instead of an obvious Lakers win, and had Smith played as he actually did, he probably would have cost the Nuggets the game.

NUGGET’S PLUS—MINUS
This tells you how the score changed while a player was on the court. All Nuggets who played at least 10 minutes are shown.

Anthony Carter: -3
Kenyon Martin: -5
Linas Kleiza: -6
Carmelo Anthony: -9
Yakhouba Diawara: -9
Marcus Camby: -14
Allen Iverson: -16
J.R. Smith: -23

OBSERVATIONS ON PLUS—MINUS
Anthony racked up a large negative considering he was injured and out of the game about half way through the 2nd quarter. Whenever you see all negative numbers, as in this case, you know that the Nuggets did not really have a prayer to win this game. The only reasonable conclusion is that the team they had available to play was substantially inferior to the Lakers who were available to play. Since both teams were badly banged up, roughly to the same degree, you can conclude that the Lakers most likely would have won this game had there been no injury and sick outs for either team. The Lakers, who are now 3-0 against the Nuggets this season, are clearly superior to the Nuggets this year, and lord help the Nuggets if they ever meet up with the Lakers in the playoffs.

Even though Camby played extremely well, his plus-minus was unimpressive to say the least, especially compared to the four Lakers whose plus-minus was +20 or better, Ronny Turiaf, +30, Jordan Farmar, +28, Kobe Bryant, +21, and Lamar Odom, +20. Kleiza and Martin were no where near enough to stop the onslaught of these four, especially since Anthony was out for the whole 2nd half.

The J.R. Smith offensive no-show was accompanied by the J.R. Smith defensive no-show. Critics of Smith would say that he was zoned out to the point of being a basketball zombie for this game. Smith played so poorly that I decided it was appropriate to put that normally biased evaluation out on the table. I don’t want to be accused of being biased in the opposite direction from the way many fans are biased regarding Smith, so there you have it. The guy was apparently a zombie in this game. Word up.

NUGGETS MADE WHAT?
All Nuggets who played at least 5 minutes are shown. The order is from lowest to highest in real player rating.

Steven Hunter played 5 minutes and was 0/1 and 0/1 from the line for 0 points, and he made 1 rebound.

J.R. Smith played 16 minutes and was 0/1 for 0 points, and he made 3 rebounds.

Yakhouba Diawara played 16 minutes and was 1/2 and 1/2 on 3’s for 3 points, and he made 2 rebounds and 1 assist.

Anthony Carter played 32 minutes and was 0/5 for 0 points, and he made 14 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 rebound.

Von Wafer played 8 minutes and was 1/2 and 2/2 from the line for 4 points, and he made 1 rebound.

Allen Iverson played most of the game, 41 minutes, and was 8/23, 0/2 on 3’s, and 8/11 from the line for 24 points, and he made 7 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal.

Linas Kleiza played 35 minutes and was 7/15, 4/8 on 3’s, and 3/4 from the line for 21 points, and he made 7 rebounds.

Kenyon Martin played 36 minutes and was 8/11 for 16 points, and he made 11 rebounds, 2 steals, and 1 block.

Carmelo Anthony played 14 minutes and was 5/11 and 3/4 from the line for 13 points, and he made 4 rebounds and 1 assist.

Marcus Camby played 37 minutes and was 9/16 for 18 points, and he made 12 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks, and 3 steals.

NEXT UP
The next game will be Wednesday, January 23 in Denver to play the Hawks at 7 pm mountain time. Neither the Nuggets nor the Hawks will be playing on back to back nights.