Cut a Little Short

(Boulder-CO) So I went down to Metro State to take in the Nuggets White and Blue scrimmage, but left a little bit disappointed. Mainly because the information I gathered on www.nuggets.com and the newspaper were only partially accurate. The scrimmage was supposed to be from 1-3 pm, but it wasn’t. The first hour of the scrimmage was private to Denver Public School District elementary students. We all love the kids and all information up to this point was perfect. The only problem occurred when the scrimmage only lasted twenty minutes past two o‘clock! There was no second hour of scrimmage open to the public. I was just lucky enough see what I saw.

And what I saw left me with some questions. Questions that could have been answered with a little bit more than a peek of twenty minutes, but here you go…

Can Carmelo actually play more two guard than we all thought? I have to ask only because of the little bit of scrimmage that I got to see. And what I saw was ‘Melo handling a lot of rock and knocking the bottom out of the basket from anywhere he let it fly from. Anthony was hitting threes, taking his man to the basket, and caught a couple of great alley-oops in the final few minutes.

Next of my queries has to do with who is going to be the starter at the two spot, (or maybe it’s Carmelo?) Lets assume for a second that ‘Melo has not changed positions. That then leaves Yakhouba Diawara and J.R. Smith in a battle for the starting role… The question is this; Why couldn’t, “The Yak”, be the starter? He plays great defense. Hit a couple of three pointers. Finished an alley-oop. Not too shabby of a showing by any means. Starter or not, Yakhouba is quickly becoming a favorite of mine if you haven’t noticed. He just has this style when he plays that gets me excited. Kind of a chip on his shoulder that lets the guy that he is guarding know that he has no fear.

The final question that I have is probably the one that matters most in the long run. While the scrimmage was entertaining and fast paced. I have to wonder what kind of tempo the Nuggets will really be most comfortable in. The Nuggets have a ton of big players, no secrets there, and it would seem to me that Carmelo is better in a half court set. Don’t get me all twisted here, Carmelo is great on the break, but I would much rather see him raining down 15-footers consistently than finishing on the push once and awhile. It just might be time for the Nuggets to think about not relying on the fast break so much. Get out and run when it’s there, but be comfortable in both situations. They have the personnel to really go either way and I think that being multi-dimensional is always a good thing.

So it wasn’t everything that I wanted it to be, but the peek that I got was worth the trip. Not much defense was played, but hey, it was for the kids. The Nuggets square off with the Efes Pilsen team tomorrow. Efes who? I better just shut up. Ask the Clippers!