It wasn't yet noon, and morning shootaround hadn't started at MCI Center. But Jeff Bzdelik had something important to tell his prized rookie, who is also his franchise player, a kid the NBA is counting on to be great for a long time. The coach pulled the kid aside and told him, "Today is the day that you have to take over this team." It's not something Carmelo Anthony was expecting to hear, even though just 13 months ago, during his freshman season at Syracuse, Coach Jim Boeheim had pretty much done the same thing.
"I told him about Magic Johnson in his rookie year," Bzdelik said. "About the times Magic scored a half-dozen points but controlled the game and led a team full of guys 10 and 15 years older than he was. I told him he has the physical ability to do it and the maturity, that maturity doesn't always correlate to age."
And while the Nuggets have been Anthony's team all season, it became official yesterday at that pregame shootaround in Washington, just down the road from where he grew up, in Towson. Given where the Nuggets were last season, no team in the league was more impressive through the first 50 games of this season. But they had collectively hit the wall lately, lost eight of nine to drop into the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. And Bzdelik, the former Wizards assistant who has done a marvelous job, though apparently unappreciated by Denver executives, knew what he had to do for the stretch run.
Asked before last night's game against the Wizards whether he's ready to handle that responsibility, Anthony answered, "Yes, I am. I'm ready to stand up to it. Coach Boeheim came to me and said pretty much the same thing in the middle of the [Big East] season last year, and yeah, I was pretty comfortable with it. But I didn't have to really say anything to lead at the college level. I know there are probably some guys who in the back of their minds are thinking, 'Damn, this 20-year-old is trying to lead this team?' "
It's fine because this 20-year-old is the best rookie in the NBA. That's right, if I was voting for rookie of the year right now, today, I'd cast my vote for Anthony over LeBron James and not spend a whole lot of time agonizing over the decision.
Okay, I'd better start by saying that LeBron has been better than the hype, which seemed impossible a year ago. No athlete in team sports history has come into a league facing bigger expectations, and he has met every challenge. LeBron has been a dream from Day 1, a great player and a better teammate. Anybody who says a single negative thing about what he has done this season is a fool.
It's just that Carmelo has been better. Last year, before he arrived in Denver, the Nuggets won 17 games. After beating the Wizards like a drum last night, the Nuggets with Anthony have won 34 games. Don't waste a lot of time with the individual numbers because little separates the two. LeBron averages 20.9 points per game, Carmelo averages 20.3. Carmelo averages 6.2 rebounds, LeBron averages 5.8 rebounds. LeBron, Cleveland's point guard, understandably averages more assists, 5.6 to Carmelo's 2.7. LeBron has Cleveland playing its best basketball of the season (8-2 in its last 10 games), and the Cavs should make the playoffs. In Carmelo's first 35 games (the same number of games he played at Syracuse last year), he averaged 18 points and 6.1 rebounds while shooting 39.2 percent. Since then, the numbers are 22.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 46.7 percent.
So all that's fairly even. Here's what isn't close.
LeBron's team, playing in the stunningly inferior Eastern Conference, is 28-36. Carmelo's team, having to slug it out in the vastly superior Western Conference, is 34-31. If Denver was playing in the Eastern Conference, the Nuggets would be the fourth-best team, behind the Pacers, Pistons and Nets.
And forget this moronic notion that Carmelo's team is somehow more talented. It isn't. LeBron has better players to run with by a mile, most notably 7-foot Zydrunas Ilgauskas (the best center in the East if you consider Jermaine O'Neal a forward), Carlos Boozer, who is averaging 11 rebounds a game, and a valuable role player in ex-Celtic Eric Williams. That's four legit players.
Carmelo has Andre Miller, who knows how to run a team, but not much else beyond that. Brazilian forward Néné is going to be a fine power forward in a couple of years, but right now he needs a translator during games. The team still can't depend on Marcus Camby, who is the epitome of a "sometime" player. And Voshon Lenard has a nice long-range stroke, but that's pretty much his only dimension.
It's Carmelo, silly.
"I think he has the passion to be a good leader," Bzdelik said. "He's coachable. He asks intelligent questions. Some players don't look at you when they're asking questions; Carmelo is locked in on you. He's all about winning." Asked about a report in Denver a few weeks ago that there was a rift between the two, Bzdelik said, "I told him my job isn't to be his friend, it's to help make him the best pro possible."
Whatever you don't attribute to Carmelo as it relates to Denver's improvement should be attributed to Bzdelik, a longtime coach and scout who has been valued by every other employer he's had, from Wes Unseld to Pat Riley. The league's general managers some years ago thought Bzdelik was the best advance scout in the NBA. He's done great work everywhere he's been, from Northwestern University to University of Maryland-Baltimore County to the Bullets to the Knicks.
But the word is out there: If the Nuggets don't make it into the playoffs -- and they lead Utah by only one game for the final playoff spot with 17 games left -- Bzdelik will probably lose his job. If this is true, it's insane and would be the most irresponsible coaching move in a season of bizarre changes. Bzdelik was the loyal soldier last year when management clearly didn't want to win, when he was given a backcourt of Vincent Yarborough, who this year is playing in Italy, and Junior Harrington, who is now playing in the Ukraine. Winning 30 games would have been reason enough to keep him as coach; if the Nuggets win 43 or 44, which is within reach despite playing with no veteran star in the carnivorous West, the improvement would be 26 or 27 games.
The last thing the Nuggets need at this critical point is change. What they need is what they've got, a coach who is smart enough to hand the leadership role to his 20-year-old star and the savvy to challenge the kid to become the great player he is already becoming.
