The Nuggets Stand At The Peak

This One’s For Fat Lever

It only took 47 years, but the Denver Nuggets finally became the second former ABA franchise to win an NBA championship. Throughout most of their history they had been a reliably exciting team to watch, often featuring some of the greatest pure scorers the league has ever seen.

When the merger took place, David Thompson was still at his peak and he lit up the scoreboards. In those early years, particularly once Doug Moe took over as coach, the likes of Dan Issel, Alex English, and Kiki Vandeweghe put up points like it was going out of style, and the tradition continued with gunners such as Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Michael Adams; if you want to extend that litany you can also include Carmelo Anthony. It seemed appropriate that Moe’s replacement as head coach was Paul Westhead, bringing his high octane Loyola Marymount off sense with him. Have I mentioned how great their classic uniforms were? Well, they were.

A lot of their offensive success was aided by Denver’s high altitude. It had to have been tough for visiting teams to keep up with that pace as they were adjusting to the thin air. But they were never really able to make a title run; despite the eventual presence of Dikembe Mutombo, the Nuggets rarely made much of an effort on the defensive side of the floor, such a weakness stood out come playoff time.

And then Nikola Jokic came to town. So much has already been said about how otherworldly his game was during this playoff run. He wound up falling a few assists shy of averaging a triple double throughout the playoffs, but he did become the first man in league history to tally the most total points, rebounds, AND assists in the same year. It’s already become legend that not only was he a second round draft pick, but his selection came at the point of the telecast where ESPN a stopped airing each selection live - Jokic was picked as a Taco Bell commercial aired. History often repeats; keep an eye on which man will be the first selection made during a commercial break in next week’s draft. That man is certain to become a future legend.

A couple of quick notes about the Miami Heat. They have nothing to be ashamed of. To go from the play-in tournament to the NBA Finals is quite an accomplishment. Jimmy Butler didn’t have a great finals, but he emptied his tank as he carried his team to get this far in the first place. It’s hard to blame a guy for being exhausted. And the conclusion to Udonis Haslem’s career needs to be acknowledged. He is retiring having played 20 seasons for only one franchise - the only other two men who can make that claim are Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki. For some time he has essentially been an assistant coach who happens to wear a uniform; it’s been 7 seasons since he’s played more than 20 games in a year. But he has long been the heart and soul of a perennial contender.

Finally, the coaching carousel has come to a close. As had been mentioned earlier, some of the winningest teams in the past few years fired their coaches. A win-now team obviously wants a coach with a proven track record to lead them over the top, so the recently fired coaches were at the top of many wishlists. In the end, the results didn’t turn out to be as incestuous as they might have been. No team hired Mike Budenholzer or Doc Rivers, and Monty Williams wound up being hired by the rebuilding Detroit Pistons. The only recently fired coach who landed on his feet with a championship contender turned out to be Nick Nurse with the 76ers.

In Defense Of Traditional Stats

The biggest drawback I’ve seen as a result of the information revolution in baseball is that it almost seems to be an institutional requirement that any analyst needs to be all-in on advanced metrics or all-in on favoring old timey analytics with no inbetween. But allow me to at least acknowledge that some of the simpler data points do have their place.

The stats that have largely fallen out of favor have done so either because there are similar stats that better tell the story of a player’s value or because they don’t mean much without better context. No matter how good of a hitter a guy may be, he won’t produce big RBI numbers if he’s in the middle of a poor lineup and therefore doesn’t often step to the plate with runners in scoring position. RBI totals tell you something, but not as much as the stat’s defenders claim it does.

A more dramatic example is pitcher wins. As much as we love to believe that a team’s success or failure is solely dependent upon the man on the mound, there are 9 men on the field. Obviously, having a great pitcher is crucial but if he’s backed up by fielders that don’t make outs and/or a lineup that can’t score runs, even the best pitcher can only do so much. Once again, a pitcher’s won-loss record tells us something, but far from everything.

Which brings us to batting average. I can’t add much in defense of batting average as a statistic. At its most basic form there’s nothing a batting average can tell us about a player’s skill that on base percentage doesn’t tell more accurately. Batting average tells us something, but what it tells us is far from a complete story.

We’ve long since moved past the time when the chyron on a telecast would simply show a hitter’s BA/HR/RBI line and a pitcher’s W-L/ERA, but as I said there is still a place for them. The simple stats are a nice gateway to help a young fan understand the game. Let a youngster learn the meat and potatoes stuff first, and he or she can eventually graduate to understanding more advanced metrics. It’s also helpful that batting average is so easily understandable. As a kid calculating batting averages was a great way for me to practically apply what I was learning in math class; it was even better practice to work on more complicated formulas and calculate ERA’s and slugging percentages. Young fans nowadays don’t have the same access to the formulas and therefore don’t have the ability to calculate WAR.

And it is still cool to see players approach specific milestones. With modern bullpen usage, 20 game winners are nowhere near as common as they used to be, but to use an example I still get a kick out of seeing how many victories Shane McClanahan already has this season. Despite his early pace, 20 wins still sounds like a longshot, but if he’s got around 17 or 18 wins on Labor Day, everyone will eagerly follow his starts. Also, there is no way that Luis Arraez will hit .400, but the further into the season his average hovers in that vicinity the greater the intensity of the focus on Miami will increase.

Who’s Overdue?

We’re now in a quiet period with regards to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. There has been enough time since the announcement of this year’s class for everyone to make their observations, complaints, etc. & the inductees have had their opportunities to make whichever public comments they wish to make. The ceremony is months away and producers are spending their time lining up the presenters and performers for the evening. One additional twist this year is the fact that the Hall’s contract with HBO to air the ceremony has expired. It remains to be seen which outlet will broadcast or stream the event going forward.

This seems like as good a time as any to start considering the makeup of future induction classes. Looking at previous nominees can serve as a starting point, keeping in mind that there have been plenty of out of left field names that were nominated once and unlikely to find themselves on a future ballot. It would be a shock to see, for example, Conway Twitty or John Prine get another shot. But if you look at the artists with the most total nominations that have not yet been inducted, it’s striking to see how unlikely inductions would be for any of them. There are currently 7 artists that have been nominated at least 4 times that are still waiting their turn. Let’s take a look at them.

I’ve heard some observers propose that there be some sort of Veterans Committee. That might be a good idea to serve as a final chance for some that are still on the outside looking in. For example, one of the two artists with the second highest number of nominations is Chuck Willis with 6. The nomination committee has moved away from the 50s, & I can’t imagine there’s anyone still lobbying very strongly for him. His chances, barring a major change in the process, appear done. The MC5 also have 6 nominations in their past. By this point any future nominations are unlikely, but as precursors to punk rock, an eventual induction in the Musical Influence category is only a matter of time.

2 artists have 5 nominations, and the book appears to be closed on each of them as well. Joe Tex and The J. Geils Band share the same disadvantage in that so many artists similar to them are already in that nothing would be gained by inducting either. That really hurts because I’m a huge Geils fan, but their era has been well covered; there are other ores that the voters should mine instead.

As for the 4-time nominees, The Meters were a fantastic band, but yet again as we’re moving further away from their era the less justifiable their induction seems to be. Because they were also a prolific backing band, any possible induction for them would likely be in the Musical Excellence category. The other 4-time nominee comes with an asterisk. Rufus has been nominated 4 times as part of the nominating committee’s constant indecision as to whether they should honor Chaka Khan as a solo artist or with Rufus. Now that Khan will be going in this year, there’s little reason to continue to nominate Rufus.

Which brings us to the most nominated act that hasn’t gotten in. Chic was nominated a total of 11 times before the Hall decided to put them out of their misery and induct Nile Rodgers in the Musical Excellence category. Which was fine, Rodgers’s credentials are impeccable, but it’s a shame that Bernard Edwards wasn’t similarly honored. I can’t imagine there is still much interest in inducting Chic, but I wish they could find a way to induct Edward posthumously.

In a future post I’ll take a look at some of the other artists that have been nominated previously and try to figure out which ones may still have hope. I’ll also take a closer look at this year’s inductees to see which similar artists may be able to find a path into the Hall by swimming in their wakes.

Break Up The A’s

The year: 2003. The team: The Detroit Tigers. The Tigers were winding down one of the worst seasons in league history, going into the final week of the season with a record of 38-118. Surpassing the ineptitude record of the 1962 Mets was well within reach. (That Mets squad, although they have the record for most losses, technically were not the worst team of the 20th century. The 1916 A’s & 1935 Braves both had worse winning percentages but fewer losses because they played in the 154 game era. The 1899 Cleveland Spiders are in their own category.) Those Tigers missed their shot at making history. Somehow they won 5 games in that final week; they finished with a record of 43-119, still awful but not historically so. What that final week demonstrated is that no matter how bad of a team you are it’s really difficult to lose that many games. You almost have to admire the expansion Mets for committing to the bit so well.

As recently as a week ago, everyone was convinced that this year’s Oakland A’s were a shoo-in to approach the Mets record. Ownership gutted the roster so thoroughly that the level of talent is barely major league caliber. The team’s ERA has dropped to levels not seen since the 1930s and the lineup is not much better. And yet… they are now somehow on a 7 game winning streak! Their 2 most recent victories have come against the mighty Tampa Bay Rays! Somehow they even have a better record by percentage points than the Kansas City Royals! How did this happen?

No one is under any illusions that this is a sign of an immediate turnaround. This is still a terrible team; it’s merely the sort of hot streak that every team eventually goes through. They could just as easily revert right back to the mean, but at least for the moment things aren’t quite as dire. It’s nice to see that this streak coincided with Oakland fans’ pre-planned reverse boycott. The fans had set aside last night’s game to show up in droves as a demonstration to owner John Fisher that the fanbase is there & passionate and will attend games if the product is strong. Attendance at last night’s game was around 27,000; their largest crowd in some time. The fans were passionate and loud; chants of “sell the team!” were constant. Sadly it looks to be too little too late as funding for the proposed Las Vegas stadium was approved in a special session of Nevada’s legislature. That’s a huge step; the move to Vegas isn’t a fait accompli just yet, but it’s getting close.

So Long, Farewell

All this & I haven’t mentioned that a certain someone was arraigned on 37 counts. That seems like a lot, is that bad? Thank you to all for reading, & I’ll see you again on Friday.