The inmates are running the notes column. …
Suspensions, coaches battling cancer, players refusing to enter games, even a drive-by shooting. Despite all the chaos, the Nuggets might have avoided a one-and-done in the playoffs if they could have hit an occasional jump shot.
“They’ve got seven guys on their team who could get 30 on any night,” Nuggets coach George Karl said when asked about the Clippers. “How many guys on our team, if you left them in the gym all day, could get 30?”
Would Karl like to have another shooter to take the pressure off Carmelo Anthony?
“How about four?” he said. “Can we get a big man who can make a shot? Can we get a true shooter on the 3-point line? Maybe a scorer and a shooter, and maybe a penetrator.”
That, in the end, is what Karl is second-guessing himself on more than any other issue. No, the Nuggets didn’t always come to play, but many times they competed but couldn’t win because they couldn’t hit wide-open shots.
“We had some names of shooters we could have picked up,” he said. “We went with Vo (Lenard) and stayed with what we had. Even at the trade deadline, we had the chance to pick up Ronald Murray and we decided to go with the energy guys. It was very hard watching your team basically be controlled because you couldn’t make shots.” …
Karl on the Nuggets’ season: “Every week we had a different detour. One week we played with three guards, one week we played with Carmelo at five. I don’t think you’re going to build great chemistry in that situation. It was a year of surviving, and I think we did a darn good job of surviving.” …
Oh, and let’s not forget the other guys were getting paid, too. Said Karl: “I think time will show the Clippers are a darn good basketball team. We were too short-handed to beat them.” …
Must be the new math: The Nuggets in the past two seasons are 30-11 without Kenyon Martin in the lineup, but Ruben Patterson says things would have been different if K-Mart had played the final three games against the Clippers. …
Mike Bianchi of The Orlando Sentinel on Tiger Woods’ 440-foot bungee jump: “What did he do, jump off Mel Kiper’s hair?” …
Why would the Yankees be interested in a 35-year-old backup catcher hitting a buck-82? They weren’t. But they talked to the Padres about Doug Mirabelli anyway to drive up the price for the Red Sox. “I wanted it to hurt,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman told The New York Times. “I want to make sure (it) was going to hurt as much as possible. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t a one-horse race.” …
This much we know: If Clint Barmes is going to stay at or near the top of the Rockies’ batting order, he’ll have to lose that .274 on-base percentage. …
Michigan had three players selected in the NFL draft. Ohio State, meanwhile, had five taken in the first round. And you thought the price of gas was a major issue in Ann Arbor. …
Go figure: Greg Maddux, 5-0 in April; Carlos Zambrano, 0-2 in April. …
Talk about a wild man. Only John Daly could go to Las Vegas and get a free $60 million cheeseburger. …
How much did Matt Leinart cost himself by not declaring for the 2005 draft? Alex Smith, the No. 1 pick in ’05, received $24 million in guaranteed money alone. The No. 10 spot, where Leinart was selected by the Cardinals, was good for a five-year, $13.5 million contract last year. …
So anyway, what do you figure the odds were that a guy named Ernie would have been drafted ahead of Leinart? …
Stat du jour: Three. That’s how many 20-plus-carry games Reggie Bush had during his days at Southern Cal. …
The Big East, your basic BCS conference, had 11 players drafted. The Mountain West, on the outside looking in at the big boys from the BCS, had 12.
Catch Jim Armstrong from 6-9 a.m. during “The Press Box” on ESPN radio 560. He can be reached at (303) 820-5452 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
