In a game where true team chemistry is at a premium, the Nuggets may already have exactly what they need to win an NBA Championship.
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The trade deadline came and went without a move for the Denver Nuggets last Thursday.
While other contenders made big trades for high-value players, the Nuggets favored the group they have in place to get them to the NBA Finals. The Denver front office may be on to something…
Cleveland lost three games out of the gate after trading considerable assets for Power Forward Antawn Jamison of the Washington Wizards. Their first loss was to Denver at home.
The Cavs dropped that game in OT while big-time trade deadline acquisition Antawn Jamison watched from the stands. The next night Cleveland travelled to Charlotte and Jamison saw his first action as a Cavalier. Antawn went 0-12 from the floor, good for the worst debut with a new team in the history of the NBA. Jamison would score 19 points as a starter two nights later in Orlando.  He filled in for usual starting PF JJ Hickson who sat out with a flu. Despite a better effort from Antawn, Cleveland still lost, raising questions about Jamison’s ability to fit in with his new team.
The Cavaliers gave up a lot to get Antawn, most notably Center Zydrunas Ilgauskas. While better days may be in store for Cleveland down the road, so far Jamison has been a bad omen and a chemistry killer for the Cavs.
The Dallas Mavericks went out of their way to pick up Brendan Haywood. In what has become an annual tradition for Dallas, the Mavs dumped a handful of players in return for a handful of replacements. Each year the big roster shakeup smells of two things: desperation and the barely-concealed meddling of owner Mark Cuban. This time the Mavericks gave up Josh Howard and Drew Gooden for Haywood and Caron Butler.
Just like Cleveland, the Mavs’ trade partner was the house-cleaning Washington Wizards. The Wiz seemed more than happy to exchange their best players for expiring contracts, and both the Cavaliers and Mavericks were happy to oblige. But the Wizards are perennial disappointments. Even before Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton turned the Washington locker room into an Old West Showdown, the Wizards were the model for team dysfunction.
Bringing in good players from bad teams has only worked once in recent years: when the Lakers grabbed Pao Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for peanuts and a Clippers jersey. But the Lakers’ more recent contract swap, allowing Trevor Ariza to head to Houston while bad-boy Ron Artest joined the Lakers, has seen little effect.
The young, athletic Ariza was a game-changer. His timely plays on offense and defense were a huge part of the Lakers’ defeat of the Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals last season. Artest is a brawler brought in to improve a so-so defense. To date, the Lakers’ D has not improved, and the aging Artest only slows down a big, lumbering behemoth of a team. (Kobe is slowing down too… just a thought…)
The Portland Trailblazers picked up ex-Nugget Marcus Camby from the LA Clippers and lost the first two games he started. Now Camby has joined a laundry-list of big-men to fall to injury (ankle) this season while wearing that hideous Trailblazers jersey.
Tracy McGrady went to the New York Nicks in a three-team deal that swapped six players between the Nicks, the Sacramento Kings & the Houston Rockets. Houston has lost five of six, the Kings have lost all six, and the Nicks have dropped their last eight.
In a league that see more trades for salary cap reasons than for player value, the Nuggets were wise to stick to their current roster. For all their troubles against bad teams this season, the team’s natural chemistry shines through when it comes to playing clubs with a .500 or better record. Instead of playing to the media or complaining fans, the Nuggets stuck with the team that made the West Finals in ’09 and has matured since.
In the end, Denver decided that the players they had were much better than the players that other teams didn’t want. And in a game where true team chemistry is at a premium, the Nuggets may already have exactly what they need to win an NBA Championship.
