I know it's been reported that Clutch is in LA to see the summer league games. My sources tell me he went to Denver to tryout for the Nuggets. He's just using the LA story as a cover in case he fails. Here's a good story from USA Today on the Nuggets tryouts. By Vicki Michaelis, USA TODAY DENVER — Charles Junius arrived at the Pepsi Center parking lot at 7 a.m. Sunday with basketball shoes in his backpack, a sleeping bag under his arm and die-hard dreams as his compass. A 30-year-old junior college student who last worked as a grill man at Checkers, he had traveled 24 hours by bus from Sacramento and slept overnight at the Denver bus station. Within five hours, he would be joined by 204 others, all in various stages of hoops reverie. Some hadn't played on a basketball team since middle school. Some were Division I collegians, such as former Temple forward Lamont Barnes. Some were the kind of guys always looking for a game. Some had played professionally, including former University of Michigan Fab Five guard Jimmy King, who was briefly with the Denver Nuggets in 1996. One already was working in the NBA, but in ticket operations. They ranged in age from 19 to 35. Many had day jobs: insurance salesmen, Web designers, recreation center directors. On this day, when three were guaranteed an invitation to the Denver Nuggets' summer-league training camp, they all were equal in one way. "Everybody out here's a dreamer," said Nick Mohr, 22, who played guard at the University of Colorado. They came from more than 30 states. They came in many shapes (from muscular and athletic to leave-on-the-shirt, please) and in many sizes. They came and they played for hours in near 100-degree heat because of the tantalizing possibility rising off the blacktop. A shot at the NBA. One of the day's big winners was guaranteed a place on the Nuggets' team in the Rocky Mountain Revue summer league in Utah. After that, anything might happen. "You turn a certain age," said Jim Stella, 26, a customer representative for John Hancock Financial Services in Boston, "and you've just got this thing to come out and try it. You don't get too many opportunities to try out for an NBA team." 'Why isn't that guy in the NBA?' Kiki Vandeweghe, going into his second year as the Nuggets' general manager, may well become the Pied Piper of the pickup-game crowd. He hatched his idea for an all-comers tryout in recent months, then announced it on TNT during its NBA draft coverage. The Nuggets did no further advertising other than providing information on their Web site. "I always saw players on the playground," Vandeweghe said, "and I'd think, 'Why isn't that guy in the NBA? Wouldn't it be great if they had an opportunity again?' " Vandeweghe said he remembers ABA teams holding open tryouts, but he knows of no other NBA teams that have held them. He is considering making it an annual event. "From a team standpoint, it's a great way to involve the community," said tryout participant Eric Lynn, 24, who works in ticket operations for the Houston Rockets. "If you find one guy that people can relate to and be that bridge to the community, maybe you'll sell some tickets." The Nuggets, one of the NBA's worst teams in recent years, could use a community-relations boost. But that's not what sent players across the country searching the Internet for facts about the tryout. "It sounded kind of sketchy," said Matthew Murray, a Cheyenne, Wyo., resident who played at Minot State in North Dakota, "but it's real, and I'm having a good time." On asphalt that 24 hours earlier had been host to a used-car sale, the players dribbled and banged and dunked on portable rims. With Nuggets team officials watching from every sideline, they put up air balls and sweet shots. They began with drills, then were split into teams for pickup-style games. They brought their wives and kids, their girlfriends, their friends, their parents. The onlookers sat on coolers, using umbrellas for shade and buying into the raffle for free Nuggets season tickets. A local disc jockey pumped rap music through several speakers set up around the parking lot. "Come on, punkin!" Murray's mother, Veronica, shouted to him from the baseline as he dribbled upcourt. "We're here to support him," she said, "because this has been his dream since I don't know how long." She later confided: "This wasn't our dream for him. We wanted him to go to college, get a degree and a good job and get a nice family. I want to be a grandma." Hope remains for four players As the afternoon wore on, the hopefuls were trimmed from 205 to 50 to 14. At the end, the Nuggets didn't just choose three. Four will be in camp this week, playing with Denver's recent draft picks and some veteran free agents who already are on the Nuggets' summer-league roster. Several of those players watched Sunday's tryouts. "We're all chasing the dream ourselves," said Carlos Daniel, a former Washington State player who has been to four NBA training camps but has yet to make a regular-season roster. "I'm just a step above some of these guys." King was one of Sunday's final four and the only member of the quartet with post-college playing experience. But he was humble about getting another chance at the NBA. "I'm honored," he said. "It feels good. There are a lot of people who deserve it." Mohr, a graduate of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and a lifelong Nuggets fan, also made the cut. They were joined by 23-year-old Ben Adams, who played at the University of New Orleans, and Denver native Jermaine Mason, 22, who played at the University of Southern Colorado. "Going in, I didn't think I had a chance," Mason said. "I was shocked (to make the cut). I was standing there thinking, 'Give it a try again next year.' " Some of the hopefuls brought résumés, handing them to Vandeweghe after they were eliminated from consideration. "I'm in town," one told Vandeweghe, "if you ever need an extra player." Others said they'll be back if the Nuggets hold tryouts again next year. Among them was Eugene Edwards, 34, of Colorado Springs, who had to write the parole board before he could come. He is under supervised parole after serving time for four felonies, including drug charges. "I expected to be standing at the end," said Edwards, who played his college ball a couple hundred yards from the Pepsi Center at Metro State. "I'll never give up my dream."
