ORLANDO, Fla. — While other Western Conference teams continue to stockpile talent through trades, Nuggets coach George Karl hopes his organization does it through healing.
“Our hope is our move is health,” Karl said Wednesday. “Our hope is that Nene and Chucky (Atkins) will get into a position where they can play for us. I think we’re pretty confident that Chucky will get on the court sometime in mid-March. And if Nene would get back on the court and was able to play 20 minutes for us by the end of the season, I think that would be a (good) move on our part. We’re always going to listen to things. But, my gut says we’re hoping to get healthy.”
The Dallas Mavericks’ attempted acquisition of New Jersey guard Jason Kidd is the latest blockbuster possibility in the Western Conference this month. Already, Phoenix traded for Shaquille O’Neal and the Los Angeles Lakers traded for Memphis forward Pau Gasol.
The Nuggets shrugged off the potential trade in terms of tipping the scales in the West.
“I think it’s still the same because nobody’s pulled away,” guard Anthony Carter said. “We’ll have to see the second half of the season if somebody pulls away with their trades. But everybody’s kind of even.”
Said Karl: “It’s not my job to worry about that. It’s my job to worry about winning. We like our team. We respect what is happening. But let them beat us before we think they’re better than we are. I think we’re doing some pretty good stuff that’s kind of being under the radar.
“We’ve beaten Dallas. We’ve beaten San Antonio. We’ve beaten Houston. We’ve beaten Utah. We haven’t played Phoenix once. The team that’s dominated us is the Lakers, and we’re done with that. We’ve kind of handled the teams above us and we think we have room to improve.”
Footnotes.
Steven Hunter (knee) did not play, missing his fourth consecutive game. . . . Karl said after the Lakers trade he wouldn’t oppose some sort of trade oversight committee, but acknowledged it isn’t a viable reality. “The owners, it’s their business, and how they run their business, I don’t know that you can have that type of control over them,” Karl said. “But when I was told of that trade I was like, ‘There’s no way that trade can go down.’ Two hours later, it went down.”
