Kiki Vandeweghe gone

Kiki did a pretty good job. I think he should have been the new Rockets GM.

 

KMart and Nene could be considered his failures, and Melo has the mentality of a failure, but this is the Nuggets we're talking about.

Kiki made a lottery dweller into a division power (with some help from the league) and playoff contender.

Not like this....

 

The K-Mart blunder cost Kiki his job and Nene's injury added to their problems. If either one of those guys had a good season, the Nuggets' record would have been much better.The silly signing of Earl Watson didn't help his cause. This season was a missed opportunity. Melo had a breakout year and hit a lot of clutch shots but it was all wasted. George Karl will be out the door after next season. He's the kind of guy who can pick up the pieces left by a sorry predecessor, but he can't lead a team to the top. He peaked out with the Sonics in the mid-90s.

 

The got lucky and got Melo with the third pick. They also got alot out of Camby. Other than those two, they overpaid for everybody else especially Kmart.

 

contender? uhm, I think that's stretching it a little.

Kiki hasn't really been anything special as a gm. He's made some solid moves, but has he really made any draft pick that was that good? He's brought in some solid players through free agency, but did he ever really make a great move? I'd say no on both accounts.

Strange as it may sound, but I think Kiki's best move was bringing in Karl to coach the team. They've been overachieving ever since.

 

I thought kiki did a lot for the Nuggets.

 

Not impressed with Kiki. It seems like he got random pieces for the team without having a clear goal of what kind of team he really wanted to build.

Case in point..

His projected starters were Andrea miller and Kenyon martin. Although both are decent players, they are TERRIBLE from outside. Considering Carmelo would have the ball in his hands most of the time, all the other teams need to do is leave Andrea and Kenyon to brick from outside.

Nene is of similar build. Camby can hit the outside shot but as a GM you have to be aware that Camby will miss a bulk of games every season due to injuries. That dude is made of glass.

He created a team with non-fitting pieces and no outside shooting!

Sure he improved the nuggets. But considering where they were, he had nowhere to go but up.

 

This sucks. Hard.

 

Still waitin' for your write-up on the Nuggets.

 

It'll happen. I'm still in mourning. Give me a few more days.

 

I actually thought about you when the Nuggets went out, Nuggets4. I felt for you.

In regards to Kiki being fired - I don't think he has done a perfect job, but it's been solid over-all. Certainly Kenyon Martin was a mistake, but I don't think drafting Nene was a mistake at all. Injuries can't be predicted. I do agree that if Melo is going to be your primary ball handler, it seems silly to have Andre Miller in your starting line-up, but regardless, Kiki transformmed a cellar dweller into a team that makes the playoffs every year. I like Kiki.

 

All right, screw it. The Avs have given up for the day, so I might as well rant about the Nugs.

First things first, I'm hardly a conspiracy theorist. That said, I firmly believe the Nugs franchise is cursed. To those that don't know (and it wouldn't surprise me if that's everyone else on this board), when the Nugs fired Doug Moe as head coach, there was a joke going around that his wife, Big Jane, put a curse on the team. "The Curse of Big Jane" was supposedly reversed when we hired him back as an assistant coach (thank you Kiki), but it's obvious that that hasn't completely reversed it. And yes, I am wearing my tinfoil helmet right now.

All right, now I'm going to address the Kiki firing. The move is actually pretty split among the Nugs fans on the message board I post on. Personally, I think it's awful. He has made mistakes. Every GM in the league has. Drafting Skita was bad. Very bad. But people forget how far he's taken this team. When he came on, he took over a team with a BLOATED cap that was winning ~20-30 games a year and that was considered a national joke. A lot of people talk about how the Clippers were the biggest joke in the NBA, but my personal thoughts are that Sterling wasn't trying to win. He was trying to make a profit. The Nugs WERE trying, and we were still finishing in the same spot as the Clippers. The first thing Kiki did was purge our waste (Tariq Abdul Wahad, Van Exel and LaFrentz to Dallas; McDyess to New York [when many thought Dice's career was over]). The Nugs record was pretty bad the next year (tied for worst with Cleveland at 17 wins), but the attitude around the franchise was changing. The Nugs were becoming more friendly with the fans. Going out in the community. Kiki was behind all of this. He changed the attitude of the franchise. That summer he signed Andre Miller (who I think is underrated, but understand why others don't like him) and tried to sign Gilbert Arenas (more on this in a minute) along with drafting Carmelo. He also was close to getting Brad Miller, but Sacramento was willing to give up more in a sign-and-trade than we were. The biggest knocks against Kiki are that he kept bringing in similar players to what we have and that he moves at a speed that makes glaciers look like F1 race cars. I can't defend the similar players -- except one. Earl Watson was signed this summer because the day we signed him, we had an agreement to send Nene and Miller to Boston for Paul Pierce. That day however, Auerbach was hospitalized and that (according to reports) put the deal on hold. Boston then changed their mind. That deal goes through, and the Nugs are still playing right now, possibly as the 2 seed in the West.

As for the slow comment, we're starting to hear rumblings that make me think that Kiki wasn't the one holding up these negotiations. In a newspaper article that when I read it, it made me cry, it was revealed that Kiki had agreed to a contract with Gilbert Arenas and everything was a go (along with signing Andre Miller -- Gilbert would be our 2) until our owner, Stan Kroenke, decided against it. Kroenke is a "basketball guy" who married a Wal Mart heiress. Some believe that the reason we got Linas Kleiza was because Kroenke wanted it -- and considering his son was playing basketball on the same college team as Kleiza, it's a possibility. So, in other words, our front office is a mess. It appears that we have an owner that wants to be a GM -- and now has his opportunity. Kroenke has done a few moves that have concerned me as a fan. The first was starting his own TV network because he didn't think Fox Sports was offering enough for hte right to Avs and Nugs games. I know it sounds stupid, especially considering he's married to a Wal Mart heiress, but that channel HAD to have lost serious money its first year, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's still in the red. I just remember the first month, every commercial break was EXACTLY the same. We saw a lot of commercials for PartyPoker.net. The second was leaving Kiki as a lame duck this past summer by not extending his contract or terminating him then. He had already brought in George Karl (who was supposedly the "chosen" pick of Kroenke from the moment he bought the team), and now he was putting Kiki in an even weaker position. So now we have a GM vacancy and it appears that there are three obvious choices for the position. Forgive me because I'm drawing a blank on first names, but Bearup, Wartentien and Weltman are those three. Bearup is a shady character, and a Kroenke puppet. Wartentien is a Karl puppet. Weltman was Kiki's second in command, and I honestly think he has no shot at the job.

So now that I've rambled on for WAY too long about the disaster in the front office, I'll just give a few short statements.

* Melo -- He was absolutely incredible this season. Call me a homer if you want, but I think he played at a "Top 10 Players in the NBA" level most of this season. Sadly this didn't get shown in the playoffs. There were two reasons for this IMO. The first is that I think Melo is feeling a LOT of pressure and was forcing it a little too much. The second was that the Clippers game planned us brilliantly. I know during game 4 (before it reached blow out levels), Melo was being double teamed even when he didn't have the ball at times. When he would touch the ball, he had at LEAST 2 guys around him. At one point, I saw 4 guys on him at once. This isn't surprising because Greg Buckner is our best long ball threat and I believe he's still out there shooting trying to make his first three pointer of the playoffs. If we had ONE good shooter on the team, Melo's assists would have risen by at least 2 a game this year. He's really becoming a complete player. Hopefully the team can get some help around him.

* K-Mart -- Na na na na. Na na na na. Hey hey hey. GOOD BYE! He's gone. Period. Reading in between the lines on a lot of "anonymous comments" in the paper recently, Camby and Melo hate him. That's it. We're already hearing some crazy rumors. Troy Murphy. Q Richardson and Mo Taylor. Zach Randolph (although this one scares me -- that's like dumping Kate Moss because she's too crazy and then going out with Courtney Love). Personally, I'm hoping that David Aldridge convinces Billy King that he's right and we get the K-Mart & Miller for AI & Korver deal done. Let me dream.

* I'm officially off of the "Karl Is Great" bandwagon (and in record time). He got schooled by Dunleavy this last series. Just awful. It honestly looked like he stopped caring before the regular season was even over. You could tell he was already planning in his head what moves he was going to make as GM (even if it's not official, you know Karl's making the calls next year). Just awful. The only plus side is that Karl has fully admitted we need to bring in someone who can shoot, if not 4 players that can.

* I really hope that Earl Boykins has played his last game in a Nugs jersey. I'm tired of his act. I still remember against Portland this season (I believe the third game of the season...it was early), when he pulled a "Moochie". That's right -- he took an entire 24 second possession and didn't pass or shoot the ball once. Just dribbled. And ran around. He doesn't pass. He kills the flow of the offense. He's just plain awful. And Shawn Livingston made Boykins look like the second year vet all playoffs (but we all know what a big Livingston fan I am).

So to sum up this ridiculously long post....the team was a disaster this year. Except for Melo, Camby, Dre, Kleiza and Najera, not one player on the team busted ass every game this season. They all took long stretches off and appeared to not want to be there. So hopefully, they get their wish. I think we're going to see a LOT of movement out of Denver this off-season. Gut instinct -- Everyone not named Carmelo will be mentioned in trade talk. K-Mart's gone. Nene will re-sign. Ruben Patterson's going to have to register in another state. DerMarr Johnson's gone. I personally would like Elson and the Nut Grabber to be back, but won't shed tears if they're gone. I think one of them will be back, but that's it.

Three years ago, when Kiki was just getting started, he encouraged fans to e-mail him if they have any ideas/suggestions/questions. He would end each e-mail with "We're going to have a fun summer" (this was the summer with tons of cap room). I'm not so sure this is going to be a fun summer for Nugs fans.

 

Because I haven't typed enough yet, I just discovered this on the Nugs site and thought I would share.

http://www.nba.com/nuggets/news/nugg...on_050606.html

The Nugs are telling us that they are professionals and to just trust them and not the evil media. They also directly attack the Arenas was supposed to be a Nug report. It almost feels like the Nugs are building a front office full of yes men, who will kiss Kroenke and Karl's ass. Now they're trying to portray the media as evil (at least they didn't accuse them of being liberal).

 

It sounds like it was almost as hard to be a Nuggets fan this season as it was to be a Rockets fan. In fact, I think I might even prefer my position as a Rockets fan because I personally prefer the core of Yao and McGrady to rebuild around to that of Camby and Melo.

Thanks for your thoughts on the Nuggets season and organization, Nuggets4. It was a very interesting read. Much more interesting than most things I read in publications.

 

i think i've found her

no wonder the nuggets are cursed , imagine trying to lift her off your team.