This might be the first time something that happened at the Pepsi Center affected my opinion about what the Rockies should do.
When the well-heeled and previously aggressive Stan Kroenke, owner of the Nuggets and Avalanche, is part of salary dumps, doesn’t that tend to make you even more pessimistic about the Rockies’ chances of re-signing Matt Holliday?
Just . . . get . . . it . . . over . . . with.
Trade Holliday before July 31. Not in the offseason. Not next season. Soon.
Spare us from a year of off-and-on posturing, selective leaking, updating, number crunching, and carrying on a Holliday Watch that will at least last longer than the infamous Elway Watch both Denver newspapers conducted when a certain Broncos quarterback was a rookie. (I know; I had to write it sometimes. It gave “overkill” a bad name.)
This all evokes a feeling of inevitability. It was building as super-agent Scott Boras lingered around Holliday during media availabilities at the all-star festivities and as the Rockies outfielder homered in the National League loss.
Then the Nuggets hand over Marcus Camby to the Clippers, a few days after they waved goodbye to Eduardo Najera (who wasn’t asking for the moon).
There is no direct linkage. But if Kroenke has come to consider the Nuggets’ free spending as madness — especially in the wake of the team’s inability to do anything but sneak into and ignominiously sprint out of the playoffs — don’t you wonder if the Monforts are nodding about the need to draw the line somewhere?
And beyond the ownership issues, I’m saying it all adds to the foreboding around here.
Granted, Camby is nowhere near Holliday, in stature or effectiveness. But Camby at least gave the Nuggets one committed defender as others watched him trying to impede the often otherwise free runs to the hoop. It’s going to be more difficult than ever to get the holdovers on the Nuggets to buy into defense as more than an occasional responsibility. And Nene’s health issues and injury-riddled past make it at the very least perilous to assume that he can play major minutes, and play them effectively.
The move wouldn’t have been as galling had Nuggets management not lamely tried to justify it as a gambit Bobby Fischer would have made early in a match in Iceland before punching the timer, challenging Boris Spassky to counter, and leaving chess experts scrambling to document it as innovative genius.
Admit what it was: a salary dump.
Give the Colorado constituency credit for knowing it’s ridiculous to scream “cheap” at the Nuggets when the franchise is still in the upper third of NBA player payrolls; or to portray the Kroenke Sports operation as having a track record of relative stinginess in the high-stakes world of franchise ownership. The Nuggets went over the salary cap and Kroenke was writing luxury-tax checks — that approach failed by any reasonable standard.
I’m convinced the first-wave reaction of derision for the Camby giveaway isn’t so much for the move itself, but the ridiculous attempts by the Nuggets to over-spin it. Citing a one-year trade exemption — such contrivances are another reason the NBA salary cap system is a mess not worthy of emulation by any other sports — rings hollow.
And Holliday? Short of an unlikely paucity of legitimate offers, the Rockies should crank this up to go beyond listening and assessing, to a determination to get it done with a team desperate to add power at the deadline, whether it’s the Yankees trying to get back in the hunt or anyone else. If the Rockies get a significant return, whether prospects or players, it’s not just a salary dump; it’s an acknowledgment of reality.
Holliday leaving is inevitable, anyway, unless both sides budge more than is likely — Holliday to accept less than he could get on the open market to back up his talk about affection for the market; and ownership to convincingly confirm that its on-the-table parameters aren’t just for show.
Don’t subject us to the soap opera any longer than is necessary.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
