Notes happen. …
George Karl, on the Nuggets’ maddening inconsistencies: “The thing we see is the holes change. We’re not covering up the same weaknesses every game. It’s different weaknesses on different nights. Some nights it’s our passing, some nights it’s our run balance, some nights it’s our weakside rebounding. We just come up with different holes.” …
Sounds like the definition of a flawed team to me. Such is life when your highest-paid player spends more time on the bench than the court. This isn’t Major League Baseball, where the Yankees can keep signing free agents to overcome their flaws. They’ve got a reality check in the NBA. It’s called the salary cap. …
Normally, hitting .372 in April would be positive news. But this is Carmelo Anthony we’re talking about. That happens to be his career playoff shooting percentage. …
“Melo’s got to go through this,” says Karl. “We can’t teach it with film, we can’t teach it with words, we can’t teach it with books. He’s got to go through what he’s got to go through.
“What a wonderful year he’s had. Maybe, with the year he’s had, we have too much responsibility for him. He’s trying to become special, and that’s all we can ask of him right now.” …
One man’s opinion: It’s really not that complicated. Without a healthy Nene and Kenyon Martin, the Nuggets aren’t good enough to make something happen in the playoffs. But don’t take my word for it. Check out their record against the other Western Conference playoff teams. That would be 9-17. …
In Boston, they used to ask, “What would Johnny Damon do?” In Our Town, we need to be asking, “What would Gilbert Arenas have done?” Because, for all the flak Kiki Vandeweghe is catching for signing K- Mart, he had a contract all but done with Arenas before Stan Kroenke squelched the deal. …
Memo to lottery winners near and far: Courtside seats at the Pepsi Center, a.k.a. the Al Wilson seats, are going up to $435 next season from $350. …
Most inexplicable stat of the baseball season: The old Barry Bonds, 11 intentional walks. The new Barry Bonds (Albert Pujols), three intentional walks. …
Bonds is struggling like never before. So why do opposing managers continue to intentionally walk him? Two possible explanations. First, they remember Bonds’ ridiculous spring, when everything he hit went out of the yard. Second, many of today’s managers were contemporaries of Henry Aaron. Maybe they don’t want Bonds to break Aaron’s record. …
Coming soon to theaters near you: “A Kitchen of Their Own,” directed by Keith Hernandez. …
Add players shrinking at the scouting combine to the list of the rites of spring. To wit: Reggie Bush, listed at 6 feet by USC officials, measured in at 5-10 7/8 at Indy. …
Not that Bush isn’t big and strong enough to handle the load. He did 24 reps in the 225-pound bench press, a number some linemen wouldn’t mind. And at 201 pounds, he’s virtually the same size Terrell Davis was when the Broncos drafted him. …
By the way, welcome back to the headlines, Milan Hejduk. We missed you there for a while. …
Happens every year, doesn’t it? The White Sox, 10-19 in the Cactus League, 13-6 when it counts. …
A tale of two quarterbacks: Alex Smith, who left school early and pocketed $24 million in guaranteed money as the top pick in the draft, and Matt Leinart, who would have been last year’s top pick, but stayed at USC. He could well go No. 7 to the Raiders. If so, the going rate would be less than $10 million in guaranteed cash. …
Not that timing is everything, but Smith would have been the fourth quarterback selected in this year’s draft. And that’s
assuming he would have had a lights-out
final season at Utah.
Catch Jim Armstrong from 6-9 a.m. during “The Press Box” on ESPN 560 AM. He
can be reached at 303-820-5452 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
