The Nuggets won a game. When is the parade, and what’s the route?
Pshaw!
Brian Shaw should be a fired coach walking.
Go, Coach, and take JaVale McGee with you.
Everyone else seems to be afraid to declare out loud: Stan and Josh Kroenke must cut their losses, and the team’s, by discharging Shaw now, not by Christmas or at the end of another sickening season.
Look at the schedule objectively, and the Nuggets probably will own a 7-22 record Dec. 25.
When the Broncos were 11-17 under their Josh — McDaniels — in his second year, they got rid of him. Shaw is in his second year.
How low must the Nuggets go before they admit they made an awful mistake hiring Shaw, who has a 38-52 mark? The year before he got here, the Nuggets were 57-25.
McDaniels’ and Shaw’s winning percentages in Denver as head coaches are similar — .393 and .422.
Unless the Nuggets are frothing to finish worse than the pathetic Philadelphia 76ers and the pitiful Los Angeles Lakers, they have to be proactive, not inactive. With the exception of freaky Friday against the wounded Indiana Pacers, the players haven’t been inspired by Shaw. The Nuggets are a cluster muck. Ownership can choose to dump (A) 15 players or (B) one head coach — and a couple of assistants.
Not only have the Nuggets lost all but two of their games, they have lost all but a scattering of jeering spectators. Despite what the organization claimed, the Portland game didn’t attract 12,611. More like 4,611. It was a 1-degree night, and the Nuggets were below zero.
The Portland Trail Blazers, in a back-to-back predicament, scored 84 — 84! — points in the first half, wound up with 130 and were unguarded on 14 of their 16 accurate 3-pointers.
Immediately, Shaw was on his players like a bill collector. Then, the coach acknowledged that he is to blame, and his head “is the one on the guillotine,” not quite as literally as Maximilien de Robespierre’s in 1794.
Shaw’s predecessor had 10 winning seasons, nine playoff appearances (he missed one playoff because of cancer) and five 50-victory seasons. Karl reached the second round only once, the reason the coach of the year in his final season was canned from The Can. Karl says now the Nuggets “lack direction.”
On the day Shaw was introduced as Denver’s coach, he said he would concentrate on defense and a half-court game. The latter was distressing.
Having covered this team since 1974, I, like the rest of you, know that the Nuggets must run, run, run opponents breathtakingly out of the gym. They did successfully under Larry Brown, Doug Moe, Dan Issel and Karl.
Shaw wanted to slow down the Nuggets, which allows visiting teams to breathe at altitude. That was a serious strategic faux pas.
The offense this year is neither fish nor fowl. Instead, the Nuggets are chum and foul. Kenneth Faried looks disoriented, McGee is a waste, and Danilo Gallinari couldn’t shoot a scintilla until Friday night. As always, Ty Lawson is a Yo-Yo. The three centers combine for single-singles every night.
On offense, the Nuggets are last in the league in field-goal percentage. On defense, the Nuggets rank 28th of 30 teams in points permitted.
This is the least entertaining, exciting and enthralling team since the 2002-03 Nuggets, who won 17 games.
Under Shaw, the Nuggets won’t win 17. This is a chemistry project that should be blown up. The Nuggets also should deal McGee and Wilson Chandler ($18 million in salary).
If the Kroenke Father & Son Corp. don’t do something soon — how about right after the Nuggets play Carmelo’s Knicks and the Broncos play Stan’s Rams? — The Can will have no fizz or paying clientele left.
And all will understand the Nuggets are playing solely for a high lottery pick.
Who’s available to take over as the Nuggets’ coach?
David Fizdale, associate head coach of the Miami Heat; Miami assistant Keith Smart, one of the smartest head coaches I ever met; Mark Jackson, who was fired by the Warriors; Avery Johnson, who coached Dallas and New Jersey (and spent one season with the Nuggets); Robert Pack, Oklahoma City assistant (and Nuggets guard for four seasons); and Conner Henry, D-League coach of the year with the champion Fort Wayne Mad Ants.
And, yes, George Karl is still here.
Woody Paige: woody@woodypaige.com or
