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KRIEGER: Billups eventually will be steady hand Nuggets need

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 8, 2008 at 12:11 a.m.

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Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups touches the ball for the first time in a game since being traded to Denver from Detroit. He scored 15 points on 5-for-17 shooting and had three assists in more than 30 minutes of court time Friday during a 108-105 win against the Mavericks at the Pepsi Center.

Photo by Barry Gutierrez / The Rocky

Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups touches the ball for the first time in a game since being traded to Denver from Detroit. He scored 15 points on 5-for-17 shooting and had three assists in more than 30 minutes of court time Friday during a 108-105 win against the Mavericks at the Pepsi Center.

"Let's do this game right for Chauncey," a voice said from deep inside the huddle as the Nuggets gathered to welcome Chauncey Billups back to Denver on Friday night at the Pepsi Center.

Photo by Barry Gutierrez / The Rocky

"Let's do this game right for Chauncey," a voice said from deep inside the huddle as the Nuggets gathered to welcome Chauncey Billups back to Denver on Friday night at the Pepsi Center.

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Two days before Christmas 2006, Allen Iverson's arrival on the Pepsi Center floor was pure Hollywood -- all cameras flashing and fans screaming his name.

A.I.'s star power obliterated dispassionate basketball evaluation. For fans, the math was simple: Two stars were better than one.

For a while, this calculation seemed true, too. The NBA is about winning, of course, but it is also about entertainment, and A.I. is nothing if not an entertainer.

Not quite two years later, Chauncey Billups' arrival on the same floor as Iverson's replacement was less Hollywood and more high school reunion. The greeting was warmer and less hysterical, a town welcoming home its own.

Even in his hometown, Billups is not the celebrity Iverson is, but basketball fans who watched him grow up seem to agree it is only fitting that he finish his basketball career where it started.

Colorado doesn't produce basketball players of Billups' talent every day . . . or every decade, for that matter. Having shared its best hoops export with the world for so long, Denver finally felt a little possessive.

"I'm going to give every single thing that I have to this team and to this organization, as I did at Detroit," Billups promised. "I gave my heart and soul to that city and to that organization, and I intend on doing the exact same thing with this organization."

But just as Iverson's celebrity distracted from the ability to evaluate whether a team built on two one-on-one scorers could contend for a championship, the sentiment surrounding Billups' return has the same effect.

Watching him match up with veteran Mavericks point guard Jason Kidd on Friday night offered a sobering reminder: Success is guaranteed no one in the NBA, even veteran point guards with impeccable credentials.

Kidd's arrival in Dallas last season was supposed to give the skilled but disorganized Mavericks the floor leadership they needed to make the most of their individual talents. Instead, it just seems to have made them older and slower.

There is little doubt Billups will bring leadership and organization to the athletic but often clueless Nuggets. Many of their fans have been pining for a traditional point guard since the club traded Andre Miller as part of the Iverson deal back in '06.

What many fans don't seem to remember is the Nuggets traded Miller because they were approximately then what they are now - pretty good, but not good enough. The theory at the time was that a big-time star would do more good than an understated facilitator. The theory now is the opposite.

Billups was not sharp in his debut, but that should come as no surprise. Between the whirlwind of his last few days and a lack of familiarity with the teammates he is supposed to enable, he will be feeling his way for a while. If any point guard can take over a team without benefit of a training camp, Billups is the guy.

The assets he brings are what the Nuggets have lacked - leadership, basketball IQ and court discipline. Whether basketball's answer to stream-of-consciousness poetry can turn into a disciplined outfit in a single season is an open question, but Billups' influence in that direction can only help.

"I think a lot of times some of the players lack some self-discipline out there as far as bad shot selection and turning the ball over," Billups said. "And I think it's really a thin line when you want to run and gun, run, run, run, you still got to try to take care of the ball. You got to try to get stops. And it's hard. It's extremely hard."

Billups will also help the organization in a less tangible but potentially more important way. It is no secret that the club's band of rebels without a cause has not made a uniformly positive impression on the community. Billups is the consummate community guy, taking it upon himself even while playing in Detroit to lend a hand to Regis University basketball coach Lonnie Porter's leadership academy for at-risk Colorado kids.

Billups has a lifelong stake in the youth of this town, and I'm guessing his community involvement will cause a sea change in the image of the Nuggets organization.

But making over a team's identity on the basketball floor is harder than making over its image, and there is something disconcerting about the regularity with which the front office shuffles the deck. For all the emotion associated with Billups' return, there remains a suspicion that for the front office, this move was more about dollars and cents than reloading the roster.

The team's apparent indifference to adding Antonio McDyess, ostensibly obtained in the deal, only adds to that suspicion.

This much we know: Billups' return cannot be a disaster because of his character. He will bring to the Nuggets exactly what he has promised.

But it can be a disappointment, just as Iverson's tenure was, if the Nuggets don't go any further than they did before.

His debut ended in victory, more because of center Nene, who was a beast, than Billups. That will be the formula for success going forward. If Billups brings out the best in his young teammates, his return will be more than just a feel-good reunion.

Comments

  • November 8, 2008

    7:16 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    ColoradoSportsFaninTexas writes:

    Krieger...You forgot one other positive about Billups, and that is his Defense...His size and desire is what sets him apart from other point guards around the league...

    Billups is a proven winner, and he likes the challenge of playing good defense, and he likes to have the ball in clutch time, and will often hit the big shot...Hence his nickname...

    Billups will provide what the Nugs have been missing for soo long, and that is leadership, defense, sharing the ball, and hitting the clutch shot...These are all things which the Nuggets needed and have now gotten all in one player...

    WBCB....Welcome Back Chauncey Billups....Its good to have you home....

  • November 9, 2008

    3:32 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    anugsfan writes:

    Texas fan you are pretty dead on with your thoughts. The clutch shot has been hit a few times by other guys on the Nuggets though (namely Melo but others as well), so I will disagree when you say Billups brings that as something the Nuggets didn't have before.

    Very solid column as usual by the best columnist in town. Hopefully your son is over A.I. heading for Motown Dave! It works out for everyone, but I'll lay money on it working out better for the Nuggets.

    Too bad about McDyess. Whatever the reasons behind it, you have to trust that management has a plan (more or less). This trade tells me they are on the right track.

    Hopes are high in many corners of Nugget fandom. With a small splash of adding another solid veteran (big), this team could be not only fun to watch, but a legitimate threat in the big, bad Western Conference!

  • November 9, 2008

    1:48 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    LarryB writes:

    I hated it that Chauncey was a Piston instead of a Nugget.

    Now, I don't have to hate that anymore . . .