First of all, the Lord clearly says that you should love thy neighbor. And while Nene is known to care for his teammates and help them to succeed, I'd also say that he cares more about destroying the hopes and dreams of his opponent even more. It's personal with Nene. And he knows it.
Denver's previous coach wasn't bashful about title talk.
"To win a championship, you've got to talk championship,'' Michael Cooper said on several occasions as members of the media attempted to keep from snickering.
Let's just say Cooper, who compiled a 4-10 interim coaching stint before being silenced in January 2005, didn't do much more than talk championship.
Now, the guy who replaced Cooper is doing a lot of such spouting. But nobody is snickering.
"I believe this team can win a championship,'' said George Karl, who has led the Nuggets to five straight playoff berths since taking over.
Rio de Janeiro was just named host for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Is Denver Nuggets' center Nene, a native of Brazil, expecting to then play for his home country?
"In seven years, I'm retired in seven years,'' Nene said in an interview Saturday with FanHouse.
Nene, entering his eighth season, turned 27 last month, and would seem to still have some good years left in 2016 and beyond. Is he serious about retiring before the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, when he will be just 33?
SALT LAKE CITY -- It seemed as good of a time as any to test these rookies.
Thursday's preseason opener marked the first NBA game for three replacement officials. The Denver Nuggets didn't wait long before resorting to some trickery.
Late in the first half of their 103-87 loss to Utah at EnergySolutions Arena, Nuggets forward Renaldo Balkman was fouled, and timeout was called. After the timeout, rather than have Balkman, a 53.6 percent career free-throw shooter, go to the line, up stepped Nuggets guard Arron Affalo, a 79.7-percent career marksman.
Thankfully, the replacements caught it and ordered Balkman to the line. If not, they might have been replaced.
So what's the word from Nuggets guard J.R. Smith on his seven-game suspension to start the season?
Well, actually there isn't one yet.
"The team said I'm not allowed to speak to nobody yet,'' Smith said Thursday, saying team officials have told him not to talk to the press until media day Sept. 25.
Smith was asked, though, if he at least wanted to make a comment on whether the suspension, handed down Aug. 28, was fair.
The 2002 NBA Draft is filled with what ifs. What if Jason Williams had decided not to jump on that motorcycle? What if DaJuan Wagner had been physically able to withstand the rigors of the NBA? What if NBA scouts weren't so enamored with European prospects?
This is a draft of major successes -- Amare Stoudemire, Yao Ming, Carlos Boozer -- and abject failures -- Marcus Haislip, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Frank Williams. And the 2002 class will be best known for not being the 2003 class, perhaps the best in league history. Yao was perhaps the most mysterious No. 1 pick of all time. Few knew more than he was 7-foot-6 and from China.
And what followed Yao was a bunch of question marks, kids who left school too early and unknown international players. The result was an uneven draft that will go down more for its misses than hits.
The Nuggets far exceeded expectations this season. The team ranked not as the squad most likely to scare the snot out of the Lakers, but as the old guard least likely to return to the postseason in the New World.
Chauncey Billups, Nene, Kenyon Martin, Carmelo Anthony, George Karl, Chris Andersen, J.R. Smith and Joe Dumars changed that. The opening week trade for Mr. Big Shot completely transformed the spirit of the team, as did Karl's summer decision to focus on defense, even at the expense of his stars' allegiance. Everything else went right, for the most part.
But the franchise sit has payroll cuts to consummate, and little in the way of burgeoning youth to fill the holes. By trading the promise of cap space (in the convenient form of Allen Iverson) for Billups, the Nuggets trade a minor rebuild for contention. It worked -- the Nuggets were legit contenders. But what now? How can they possibly get better?
The cynical would joke that a Denver Nuggets season wouldn't be complete without a catastrophic injury to Nene, the Brazilian big man who this year -- a superb campaign, really -- played in at least 65 games for the first time since 2004. But there you go: in the Nuggets' final game of the 2008-09 season, Nene suffered a fractured arm in the fourth quarter, according to the Denver Post. He left the gym wearing a cast.
There's no word on how long rehab will take. One would assume the injury may affect Nene's reported plans to play for Brazil in this summer's Copa America. Brazil needs to finish top five in the Copa (assuming already World-qualified Team USA also finished top five) to automatically qualify for the 2010 World Championships in Istanbul. Brazil's coach said Anderson Varejao has tentatively committed, but the Cavalier will likely enter free agency in July. Missing its two top big men could be trouble for the Brazilians.
It's pretty much put up or shut up time for Denver Nuggets coach George Karl and his team. Karl has been saying much of this Western Conference finals series that he believes his team is better than the Lakers.
Point guard Chauncey Billups maintains the Nuggets have outplayed the Lakers for most of the series except for the closing-out of games part.
The Nuggets, however, are running out of time. They need two straight wins over the Lakers or little of what they say or believe will matter. Five questions heading into Game 6:
FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.
FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.
DENVER -- It seemed an obvious enough question.
So what's the word from Nuggets guard J.R. Smith on his seven-game suspension to start the season?
FanHouse fixes a decade of draft-day blunders in Revisiting the NBA Draft.
The Nuggets far exceeded expectations this season. The team ranked not as the squad most likely to scare the snot out of the Lakers, but as the old guard least likely to return to the postseason in the New World.
The cynical would joke that a Denver Nuggets season wouldn't be complete without a catastrophic injury to Nene, the Brazilian big man who this year -- a superb campaign, really -- played in at least 65 games for the first time since 2004. But there you go: in the Nuggets' final game of the 2008-09 season, Nene suffered a fractured arm in the fourth quarter, according to the Denver Post. He left the gym wearing a cast.
It's pretty much put up or shut up time for Denver Nuggets coach George Karl and his team. Karl has been saying much of this Western Conference finals series that he believes his team is better than the Lakers.
