NBA: The Free Agent's Confusion; Denver Nuggets & Next Season Readiness // MLB: Today's Standings

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team---milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner . . . // . . NBA: the Free Agent’s Confusion; Denver Nuggets & Next Season Readiness // MLB: Today’s Standings. . . NBA---WHERE love of the game is best served, where the opportunity for accruing better stats exists, where more money can be had---you’d think these would be enough for making a move-or-not-to-move decision when free agency is the high card that a superb athlete holds. Freedom shows its scary teeth, and there’s a ping in the belly that he or prevails against quickly and with glee thinks, “I could go anywhere, play for any team I choose to play for.” It’s to be this way for NBA star Carmelo Anthony, now of the New York Knicks, and for star Lebron James, of the Miami Heat. Both are singing “Dis-satisfaction,” and that could be the added motivator causing them to tell the wife, “Pack up, we’re moving.” Unhappy about what? The answer to that for Anthony is, “No NBA championship team yet for me.” It’s why Anthony left the Denver Nuggets for the Knicks. It’s why James left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Heat and it happened for James, but he wanted that three-in-a-row record and it eluded the Heat this year. This being the case, freedom can still be “a game of thorns” for Anthony and James, as an example there’s looking at the first and most important question that Anthony and James are already mulling, “Which team should I focus on for the next chapter in my extraordinary life as an NBA star, is it the team that I am now attached to, or is it another team?” There’s a brutal truth here, this: “There’s no guarantee that any of the 30 NBA franchises will be next season’s trophy gatherer, even with Anthony or James becoming better than ever during the NBA season’s 82 games, each player having a ppg average that exceeds 32.” This surely means that a next season could be “the big one” for the team that you say goodbye to. And, the new start is never a picnic no matter who you are and what you are capable of, it’s no comfort-zone having to once again prove that you are worth every dollar and/or the trade that brought you in. It’s a hurdle that you had to deal with before, why go that way again, all this proving that you can share the ball, do the rebound above a seven+ footer who has hands wider than a catcher’s mitt? Can you rescue the offense error by netting for three? Can you be as loyal to the coach as the last who subtly allowed you to captain your own efforts, and now the new one could be breathing down your neck? Can you be okay with this new bench over-riding a game? Ugh! The new team means all of that which when unmet could bruise the ego, expose one’s vulnerabilities. It’s been written that Anthony and James are wondering what playing for the Chicago Bulls, the Houston Rockets, the Atlanta Hawks, maybe the Lakers might look like. Make no mistake, their contributions could pull these teams up, up and up, surely to higher season rankings, but the Knicks can be stronger and better with Phil Jackson as front-office leader and Derek Fisher as Head Coach, plus Amar’e Stoudemire still on board. Besides, the Knicks weren’t anchoring the bottom of the pile during 2013/14. Regarding the Heat, not beating the San Antonio Spurs for the NBA 2013/14 Finals trophy has overshadowed the fact that the Heat’s James, Wade, Bosh and Allen getting to the 2013/14 Finals demonstrated the prowess needed to compete at the highest of skill levels next season---if not a guarantee for another NBA championship title, the Heat is certainly a contender for next year’s post-season, i.e., there were no signs during this year’s post-season that Wade, Bosh and Allen could be two fadeaways and a flake for 2014/15. In spite of the pressure of dreams and the temptations suggesting fulfillment, quite often the best move for a free agent is “No move.” However, and OMG, what if Anthony and James become a joint-venture, both playing for the same team, e.g., the Bulls? Could that be the answer for each to prevent a career dominated by an unfulfilled yearning? Then again, “There are no guarantees in the NBA.” . . DENVER NUGGETS---THIS team began preparations for the NBA 2014/15 season before the recent season ended, and with specific drivers in mind, starting with knowledge that the Nuggets are a talent-loaded franchise with a very smart head coach who won’t be the rookie HC during 2014/15. Instead of being the experimenter, a trial-and-error man working from the uncertainties as well as the strengths usually that of the rookie coach, Nuggets HC Brain Shaw will likely be the strong applicator along a meticulously developed path to follow, more the enforcer of his lessons learned, on track for a Nuggets post-season appearance. Do the math and it will be learned that had the Nuggets not experienced the injuries it had starting with the end of the 2012/13 season when Danilo Gallinari was hurt, and during 2013/14 season when Ty Lawson was injured, Shaw’s record would have included a green light for post-season play. We can say the same for Nuggets GM, Tom Connelly. Due primarily to a joint Connelly/Shaw decision, brought back to the Nuggets to undo a vulnerability is shooting guard Aaron Afflalo, who when with the Nuggets season before last remained key for that which sent the Nuggets into the post-season for the ninth straight time. The Nuggets also recently acquired from the Chicago Bulls a shooting guard, Gary Harris, and center Jusuf Nurkic, both with above-the-margin records. This fleshes our a sturdy and effective roster with much depth, including Afflalo, Kenneth Faried, Lawson, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, Randy Foye, Nate Robinson, Evan Fournier. This isn’t a team dominated by superstars with 25 ppg averages but it is an aggregate that can cause much damage to most of its competition via speed, much ball-sharing, plus patience for positioning for the right shot, this up to that 23.8 second on the shot-clock, in effect, the Nuggets reflect “team ball” rather than reliance on but one or two star players.+ a big and wide center. The theme here is that the right strategy and appropriate tactics for carrying it out can neutralize the best that a Lebron James or a Kevin Durant can deliver. Reflecting on the 4-1 San Antonio Spurs victory over the star-dominant Miami Heat in this year’s NBA Finals, there’s no reason for any team of the Nuggets style and caliber to fear a star-laden franchise. . . // . . MLB---EXCEPT for the National League East’s Miami Marlins and the American League East’s N.Y. Yankees, surely the NL and AL League ball clubs in third place or below within their divisions are too far back to rise higher before the All Star break come mid-July. The third position Marlins are but two wins behind first place team, the Washington Nationals, and the Yankees are three below first place team, the Toronto Blue Jays. The remaining third place clubs---the AL West’s Seattle mariners, AL Central’s Cleveland Indians, the NL West’s Colorado Rockies and the NL Central’s Cincinnati Reds--- are six, six, 11 and eight games behind each of their division first place clubs. Those teams that are fourth and below within their divisions are eight or more wins behind their division first placers, deepest in trouble being the AL West’s Texas Rangers, 13 back of first place. Ironically, the NL Central’s fourth place club, the Pittsburgh Pirates, they have 40 wins to date, just one win behind the NL East’s first place team, the Nationals. But no team is behind as many games from first place as are the AL West’s 34-46 Houston Astros---15 rear of first place team, the A’s. But hope floats in Texas: the Astros are on the cover of SI this week, knighted as a team that can rise up from the ashes next season from Moneyball-like machinations, which if unchecked, if allowed to be super-dominant,could literally become too much “mind over matter,” Data-thoughts the Puppet Master, and a batting order + pitching rotation + bull pen the slumping Puppets. Even the Oakland A’s know that you can’t digitize every aspect of athletic prowess, anyway NOT in baseball. Talent still prevails in the majors, and it could be proven in Texas next year if the Astros rely far too much on metrics and find themselves having to cancel their reservations for travel upward. END/ml