Born a Nuggets Fan has moved to Pickaxe and Roll
I am not enthused about the potential Chucky Atkins signing. He did have a nice statistical season last year at Memphis, but it is clearly a fluke season. His Player Efficiency Rating spiked last season at 17.45. His second best PER season was 13.44. He is more of a scoring point guard than Steve Blake, but another scorer is not what this team needs. Atkins is being touted as a better three point shooter than Blake, but each of them sport a career three point shooting average of 37.0%. Blake is six years younger and entering his prime and Atkins will be 33 starting the season.
I realize that Blake may be too expensive for the Nuggets, but we do not know that for sure yet. If Mo Williams ends up signing with Miami instead of Milwaukee the Blake market will dry up. The Nuggets may be able to get him to agree to a deal at about the same salary as what they will be paying Atkins.
Blake is the superior point guard and the better fit for the Nuggets. If he signs somewhere for the full midlevel exception then so be it, but the Nuggets should not settle for less until they know they have to.
Other Developments
- I was shocked that after holding his rights for so long the Spurs dealt Luis Scola away as part of a salary dump. The fact that he never had a reasonable buy out was a contributing factor, but to use the rights to a player of his ability to get another team to swallow a player with less than three million dollars in salary (Jackie Butler) was surprising to me.
- The Nuggets summer league team had a very nice showing against Detroit last night. Von Wafer had a very nice game scoring 25 points including 11 in the first quarter. Will Blalock had another nice performance. He was very efficient scoring 16 points on eight shots, although he was only 5-9 from the free throw line, and he did not turn the ball over. Jelani McCoy had another double-double and Curtis Sumpter provided more energy and heady play. If Blalock, McCoy and Sumpter are not in camp this fall, I will be shocked.
- The Rocky Mountain Review kicks off today and rookie prospects such as Al Horford, Acie Law, Thaddeus Young, Jason Smith, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green and Morris Almond will be on display.
Update:
It is official. The Nuggets signed Chucky Atkins for $3.2 million in 07-08 and $3.4 million in 08-09. Steve Blake has agreed to sign with the Trailblazers, but the terms have not been disclosed. If he signed for $4.0 million or so the Nuggets will have made a big mistake to save about $1.5 million next season. Giving up Blake for Atkins makes no sense from a basketball perspective.
July 16, 2007 at 4:50 pm |
What are the chances the Nuggets sign Curtis Sumpter…before he gets snatched up by another team?
July 17, 2007 at 12:01 am |
The Nuggets have 13 signed players and are already $11 million over the luxury tax. A fourteenth player is Jamal Sampson and if they do not resign him, I imagine it is because they want Jelani McCoy to replace him for less money. That leaves only one spot. They may leave it open for flexibility, they may sign Blaylock, they may sign Sumpter. The luxury tax hangs over all of it. I would prefer to see the Nuggets waive Diawara to make room for both Blalock and Sumpter. Anthony Carter might be expendable as well if they bring Blalock in, but then they are paying 16 or 17 contracts and pushing themselves further over the tax limit.
July 30, 2007 at 6:10 pm |
they need to sign jelani mccoy and will blaylock, get rid of the bums demarr johnson, yakouba, jamal sampson, etc…