Nuggets’ winning ways: Fluke or trend?
By Chris Tomasson 
| July 2, 2009 | 4:00 PM
The Denver Nuggets will enter next season with their starting lineup under contract, but have to deal with the free agency of Chris Anderson and Linas Kleiza. (RMI photo illustration)
Mark Warkentien claims “nobody knows who I am.” But does that give him the ability to quietly sit back and listen to what locals are saying about his Nuggets?
“It’s neat when you’re sitting at a restaurant or wherever,” said Warkentien, the team’s vice president of basketball operations. “You’re sitting out in public and you hear people talking about it. You’re in a waiting area at DIA or on a plane and you hear other guys talking about it.”
It’s been an extended curtain call for the Nuggets after 2 1/2 decades of fans usually wanting to throw tomatoes after a season’s final act.
Finally, playoff success
The Nuggets, who hadn’t won a playoff series since 1994 and hadn’t been to a conference final since 1985, won two playoff series before falling to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the Western Conference final. The Nuggets gave the Lakers a better battle than the Orlando Magic did in falling 4-1 in the NBA Finals.
Eventually, though, all the adulation the Nuggets are receiving will dissipate, and fans will want even more. Karl knows that next season, the Nuggets will have to show it wasn’t a fluke the way they dispatched New Orleans 4-1 in the first round and Dallas 4-1 in a West semifinal before playing the Lakers so tough.
“We’ve got to come back better and come back prepared and more ready to go,” Karl said. “We realize that the expectations are going to be harder and higher.”
With point guard Chauncey Billups entering his first full season with the Nuggets and forward Carmelo Anthony expected to take yet another step toward superstardom, indeed they will be. Part of Karl’s charge will be getting his players to believe even more in themselves.
The Nuggets had the Lakers on the ropes in Game 5 in Los Angeles. They led by seven points late in the third quarter and had designs on taking a 3-2 lead with a chance to clinch their first-ever NBA Finals berth at home in Game 6.
But the Nuggets faltered late and lost Game 5 103-94. Then they were blown out 119-92 in Game 6.
“There’s part of me that didn’t think we thought we could do it as much as we probably should,” Karl said of his players not being fully convinced they could slay the mighty Lakers.
Who’s staying, who’s leaving
Karl believed his team had the personnel to give fans who chanted “Beat L.A.” what they wanted. He’s optimistic that next season they again will have what it takes to challenge for an NBA crown.
No, Karl wasn’t too thrilled when West rival San Antonio beefed up recently by acquiring talented forward Richard Jefferson from Milwaukee for next to nothing. But Karl doesn’t think the Nuggets need to get into an arms race this summer.
“My gut feeling is just to try to get better and solidify the roster with a positive energy and trying to get the free agents feeling good about coming back,” Karl said. “I don’t think we’re in the mode to make a trade.”
When Karl discusses free agents, he’s primarily talking about wanting back center Chris Andersen and guards Anthony Carter and Dahntay Jones. All have said they hope to return, with Andersen the team’s top priority.
After earning the minimum salary of $998,398, Andersen, who met with Warkentien in Los Angeles on the July 1 start of the free-agency period, is seeking a deal starting at around the midlevel salary-cap exception of about $5.5 million. That’s the most the Nuggets can offer since the “Birdman’’ has no Bird rights (an NBA rule would allow the Nuggets to pay even more had Andersen played three years for them rather than just one).
“We were one series away from getting to the big show, and I think next year we would be very capable, if we had the same squad, very capable of making our way there and possibly even winning the championship,” said Andersen, who surprisingly was second in the NBA in blocked shots after sitting out two years because of an NBA suspension and then playing sparingly in a late 2007-08 stint with New Orleans.
It sounds as if Andersen and Karl have compared notes in their desire to keep the team intact. Then again, Karl realizes there could be one key free agent the Nuggets might have to sacrifice after players can start signing contracts July 8.
Forward Linas Kleiza, the only key Nuggets player to have slippage in his game during a season in which they went 54-28 and won the Northwest Division, is a restricted free agent. One option is for Kleiza to return for Denver’s one-year, $2.7 million qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent next summer. If the Nuggets don’t tender a longer and more lucrative offer, Kleiza could look to sign with another team, with Denver having seven days to match the deal.
“L.K. is a guy that I think we’re both in position of trying to figure out what will work,’’ said Karl, acknowledging there’s a chance Kleiza might not return to Denver. “I could see (Kleiza) being on the team next year. But I think (during the) free agency (period), everybody is going to be trying to figure it out.’’
Once again, Denver will flirt with the dollar-for-dollar luxury-tax line, which should be set at about $70 million. In addition to having money still on the books involving the since-waived Antonio McDyess, the Nuggets are committed to nine players for next season for about $71 million. And they still have at least four roster spots to fill.
From cost-cutting to excitement
Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke last summer sought to cut costs, and amazingly got his team, which had been staring at being $15 million into tax territory, under the tax threshold. But Karl hints that Kroenke could be a bit more free-spending this time.
“(Kroenke) had a lot of fun with this year’s team,” Karl said. “I think he’s excited about (next) year’s team. I think he’s committed to still being financially responsible, but, in the same sense he wants to win like we won this year and try to make this a three-, four-year, five-year window of having good seasons and great playoffs.”
Warkentien doesn’t discount the Nuggets possibly spending more money this summer, saying, “You’re always looking for good investment opportunities.” And Warkentien didn’t rubberstamp Karl’s statement that a trade of note isn’t necessary.
“When you’re going good, you’ve got to try to get better,” Warkentien said.
Still, Warkentien has no problem with Karl liking the makeup of the roster.
“It’s a good thing you don’t feel like you have the gun to your head,” said Warkentien, named NBA Executive of the Year for 2008-09 primarily for the trade last November that pried Billups away from Detroit and turned around Denver’s season. “It’s not often that your coach is real happy with your roster. He’s way happy with this roster. It makes it an easier game to play when you’re not coming from, ‘Oh, my goodness, the coach hates this guy. We’ve got to move him somehow.’ ”
Stability at the top
There’s plenty to be happy about. The Nuggets have their top five players under contract next season in Anthony, Billups, center Nene, forward Kenyon Martin and guard J.R. Smith, whom Karl expects to become a starter after finishing second last season in voting for the NBA’s Sixth Man Award.
Anthony, after averaging 27.2 points during an impressive postseason run, will get some much-needed rest this offseason after playing for Team USA the previous three summers. Billups, who turns 33 in September, looks to have a few more good seasons left, although Karl, on the heels of the Nuggets landing rookie point guard Ty Lawson on draft night, wants to slightly reduce his minutes.
“Experience is the best teacher,” Billups said of what the Nuggets learned during a playoff run that followed five straight seasons of losing in the first round. “Now, these guys have been through a lot in just one season, grew up a lot. . . . There are a lot of good teams over here in the Western Conference. We proved to be one of the best ones. But, when you get to this point, you can’t take steps back because there’s always somebody right on your heels to take that leap as well.”
The Nuggets are determined to show that 2008-09 wasn’t a fluke. You better believe Karl won’t mind if meals next summer are again interrupted by well-wishers.
