Strike 1: The best team in the NBA’s Western Conference got better at the trade deadline. So to – at least on paper – did some of the competition.
Should make for a spicy postseason.
The Denver Nuggets got leaner and meaner by acquiring exactly what they needed in backup center Thomas Bryant from the Lakers. If his season averages of 12 points and seven rebounds per game hold for the rest of the season, the addition will give head coach Michael Malone the ability to actually rest MVP Nikola Jokic for a reasonable amount of time each night without things falling apart while Joker’s not on the floor. At this point, a plus/minus of zero from Bryant would be a huge addition.
Denver said goodbye to disgruntled guard Bones Hyland, who lost his spot in the rotation to rookie Christian Braun. (The former Kansas Jayhawk has proven to be a far superior all-around player.) They also cleared a roster spot by sending Davon Reed to the Lakers, and then used that space to sign veteran point guard Reggie Jackson, who was bought out and released by Charlotte. That filled the other hole in the rotation, making Denver even more formidable on paper. The only additional cost for these valuable additions was the two reserves and a second-round draft pick.
Rookie general manager Calvin Booth already deserves a raise.
Equally important is the fact the Nuggets got an extra dose of motivation from the moves made by a couple WC rivals. Both Dallas and Phoenix made splashy additions to their rosters – the Mavs getting Kyrie Irving to pair with Luka Doncic and the Suns getting well-traveled Kevin Durant to add to Chris Paul and Devin Booker – in an attempt to challenge Denver for the top spot in the conference.
Rather than be fearful of their newly enhanced competition, the Nuggets should welcome it with open arms. They need it.
These Nuggets, as great as they’ve been this season, still have a maddening tendency to play with their food. Weaker competition brings out the worst in them.
Consider this: Of Denver’s five home losses this season, three have come against lowly Detroit, the lousy New York Knicks and middling Oklahoma City. They’ve also given away road games to sub-.500 outfits like the LA Lakers (twice) Utah, Orlando and Portland. No team is going to be perfect in that regard, of course. Everyone drops games they shouldn’t lose. But in the Nuggets case, it’s one of the few flaws the team has displayed. Even when they end up winning games against the lesser lights, they typically allow games to stay close with lackluster play until the fourth quarter rolls around. You can’t do that in the postseason.
With all this player movement and the glitz surrounding Durant and Irving acquisitions, the national media will undoubtedly cast Denver as underdogs again come playoff time. That’s a positive. A healthy (we hope) Nuggets squad should be fired up and ready to take on the Suns new “super team” and prove themselves the best in the west, and then some.
Strike 2: How would Denver Bronco fans feel if Von Miller got inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and was “claimed” by the Los Angeles Rams – with whom he won a Super Bowl?
Newly minted Hall of Famer DeMarcus Ware is being hailed by Denver fans as the latest Bronco to be inducted. This despite the fact that Ware played 143 of his 178 NFL games as a member of the Dallas Cowboys. Ware made the Pro Bowl nine times – seven times as a Cowboy. Just three (of 12) NFL seasons were in predominantly orange. That doesn’t really make him a Bronco Hall of Famer now does it?
Claiming John Lynch (11 of 15 seasons as a member of the Tampa Bay Bucs) was already a stretch for Denver fans (even though Lynch made four Pro Bowls in each uniform.) Brian Dawkins. Tony Dorsett. Those guys are being counted among the 14 Hall members with Broncos ties. That’s deceiving.
If we’re being honest, the Broncos representation in Canton, Ohio should not include guys like Willie Brown, Dawkins, Dorsett or Ware, who should go in as yet another Cowboy. While the Dallas contingent continues to grow – they now claim 30 HoFers – the Broncos continue to be under-represented. Officially, counting Ware, there are 14 Broncos in the Hall. But that includes nearly half that are more closely tied to other teams. Of the 30 Cowboys, you can really only make that claim for three of them.
There are eight (nine if you stretch again and count Peyton Manning) true Denver Broncos enshrined in Canton: Steve Atwater, Champ Bailey, Pat Bowlen, Terrell Davis, John Elway, Floyd Little, Shannon Sharpe and Gary Zimmerman. That continues to be not enough.
The omissions start with Randy Gradishar and include Dan Reeves, continuing all the way to the most glaring omission, Mike Shanahan. Gradishar should have been in the moment Steelers like Jack Ham and Jack Lambert were inducted since he was every bit their equal. Reeves was a standout player as a Cowboy, and participated in a total of nine Super Bowls, including four as a head coach. He clearly belongs in Canton.
Shanahan, the two-time winning Super Bowl coach, has a better resumé than several Hall members like Dick Vermeil, Marv Levy and Bud Grant, for instance. It’s a travesty that he’s been left off the list for this long.
Ironically, new Broncos coach Sean Payton is only 18 coaching wins behind Shanahan, and has one Super Bowl title already. If he finishes his five year contract in Denver and somehow wins another ring, he will have an even better resume than Shanahan. However, he will have coached 15 of what would then be 20 seasons in New Orleans, qualifying him to enter Canton as a Saint.
Let’s just hope that before Payton gets the Hall call, Reeves and Shanahan will have been in there for a good long while.
Strike 3: It’s the offseason for college football which means it’s also time to hear more about conference realignment. If you follow the Pac-12 conference, you probably don’t like what you’re hearing.
Already out the door are marquee programs USC and UCLA, both headed for the Big Ten (or Big 16, more accurately.) There’s plenty of conjecture that the Big Ten is still looking to poach Oregon and perhaps Washington from the Pac as well. What would be left could hardly be classified as a true “Power” conference, even with CU having the attention magnet Deion Sanders as their head coach (for now).
Replacing heavyweights like those two (or even four) schools can’t and won’t be easy. But if the rumblings are true regarding planned additions, it will leave the Pac-12 looking much less like a Power Five conference.
It was reported several months ago that San Diego State would be moving to the Pac-12. That’s a move that actually makes sense in an attempt to at least partially fill a gaping hole in the southern California market. The Aztecs have a formidable basketball program, and have been solid in football recently as well. Given their recruiting footprint, they should get even better.
But the other rumored addition, SMU, is a real head scratcher.
Currently, the University of Colorado is the easternmost program in the conference. Dallas is another 800 miles further east than Denver and nowhere close to any other Pac-12 program. There are no programs in the conference with any semblance of a rivalry with SMU in anything.
Yes, SMU has reasonable football and basketball programs, but lacks the cache of, say Boise State or the recent success of Air Force football, for example. Perhaps Boise gets eliminated (for now) for academic reasons, but you can’t use that excuse regarding the Air Force. Or even Colorado State, which is much closer to on par with SMU. And what happened to the Pac-12 being adverse to bringing in private, religious-based universities? BYU would probably like to know.
Other than trying to capture some small sliver of the Dallas TV market, it’s hard to see why SMU would even be part of this conversation. There are several schools that would be a better fit if the Pac-12 truly wants to maintain its “power” status. SMU isn’t a P5 quality program.
Last year, the Mustangs played seven games against teams that are or soon will be “Power Five” teams. They went 1-6.
Conversely, the Pac-12 would upgrade itself in the eyes of the rest of the country by adding Air Force or Boise State. CSU would be a good fit to pair with the Buffs, and UNLV would make more sense now that the conference title game (and bowl tie-in) are in Las Vegas.
If the Pac-12 adds SMU, Rick George and CU should immediately petition to return to the Big 12, because the western most power conference won’t hold that “power” label for very much longer.
