I realize this is getting bad. The season that was supposed to be the magical upbringing of Nuggets Nation into the final etchings of top tier teams is slowly crumbling around us. It’s not exactly a horrible downfall of course. This is still the best start in the history of this franchise. Carmelo is still in the running for the MVP, scoring more points than even he thought he would.

But these bad losses are starting to get to the Nuggets. Tonight’s 107-96 loss to an incredibly banged up Portland team was worse than most, since it was to an obviously inferior opponent missing several of its key players, and against a hated division rival. The Blazers had as many people inactive and not playing as they actually had sitting on their bench. Brandon Roy stepped up for the Blazers with 41 points and the defense for the Nuggets was like Swiss cheese out there on the court.

So I realize this is getting bad.

Trust me, as a fan of the Nuggets I get more and more frustrated every single time the Nuggets drop a game against an opponent that we all know they should beat. But it’s time for a dose of reality. Reality bites, I know. But we all need a bit of it.

I wrote a while back about how there was apparently a movement to get the Nuggets to trade Carmelo. And that was about the dumbest prospect I’d heard in a long time. Well, apparently people often try to top themselves, because today was even worse.

Today I was confronted with the argument that George Karl is not only an awful coach and the sole reason that the Nuggets are losing so many games… but that he’s the worst coach in the NBA.

I, you…

Wow. I don’t even know where to start.

Basketball is a team sport. Team being consisted of players and coaches. Karl won’t be coach of the year any time soon, but you don’t need the greatest coach in the NBA to win a title. You need a coach that’s good enough, and Karl is plenty good enough for the Nugget’s purposes.

The Nugs are a team with holes. Holes that become obvious during games like this. They lack depth at every position. Other than at Center, there’s really no good solid men off the bench that they can call on. Anthony Carter is one of the “best” depth men, but he’s really not good at anything. If even one player is missing from the starting lineup like Chauncey has been, they look much worse than they actually are. If two men were missing, I don’t want to imagine how bad they would look.

Nuggets Nation needs a scapegoat, I’m sure. It’s not George Karl though. Blame K-Mart’s shots for never falling, blame Carmelo for holding the ball too long, blame Nene for getting into foul trouble… but if you’re going to put 100% of the blame on anybody, avoid the man who isn’t actually on the court.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 26th, 2009 at 2:10 am and is filed under Most Recommended, News Headlines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.