Born a Nuggets Fan has moved to Pickaxe and Roll
Nene is out and K-Mart is in. Well, I guess Martin was already in, but now the Nuggets have no choice. Martin has worked hard to get back form his second microfracture surgery and has looked good in limited minutes. Now that Nene has hurt his thumb (no truth to the rumor it was hurt after being stuck up his bum for the majority of his time on the court during the Celtics game) Martin has to play in both ends of the back to back this weekend.
Martin believes he is ready for it. The team now has no choice to believe him.
The good news is an injured thumb will not prevent Nene from working to return to the level of conditioning he was at by the end of the season last year.
Good luck Kenyon. May your knees match your inner strength and determination and hold up as your minutes are increased.
Update: Nene is out for six weeks with a torn ulner collateral ligament, who of us have not have had problems with our ulner collateral ligament?
Nene has only averaged 19.4 minutes in the first five games, but it is a bigger loss than the minutes would reflect. The Nuggets were hoping to slowly build those minutes up throughout November. The primary characteristic of Nene’s game the Nuggets will miss most is his post offense. Now Melo is the Nuggets’ sole source of post offense.
The Nuggets will have to count on Steven Hunter to back up Camby at center and they can absorb Nene’s minutes at power forward by using Martin and Najera. Melo and Kleiza are also capable of playing a few minutes at power forward here and there too if it becomes necessary. The Nuggets should be able to push the pace with any of those players on the floor. Nene used to run the floor as well as any big man in all of basketball, but with the extra weight he has been carrying around, he is no longer a force on the break.
I do believe there is a silver lining to this injury though. As mentioned above, Nene will have plenty of time to get into shape. He can run sprints all day long with a bandaged thumb.
Paging Mr. Hunter. Please prepare to report to the scorer’s table Mr. Hunter.
