It's time to make another "point"...

I think the problem is a combination of being tired from the championships and overuse by Karl. There are numerous stats that show that Billups plays his best as the start of the first and third periods. He should be starting halves for about 6 to 8 minutes, then coming back for about 4 minutes at the end of halves, depending on how Lawson is playing.

Especially with the emergence of Forbes, we have plenty of guards with which to spread the 96 minutes for 1 and 2. J.R. has shown in the past that he can play point for short periods.

Cut back his minutes to about 25 a game and I think we’ll see a much more effective Billups.

Oh, and I’m sure someone on here will take offense to your use of “offense” to describe the nuggets offense.

He guages momentum about as well as anyone in the league, and his nickname Mr. Big Shot comes not from hitting the 3 at a higher rate than anyone else, but because he guages momentum and shoots just when a 3 would end the other team’s run or when a 3 would be a “dagger” when on our own run.

The problem is his 3 is not falling like it has earlier in his career, but he is savvy enough that if that continues to be a problem, he’ll adapt by driving and drawing fouls, or finding the hot hand at those key times.

I think he can come out of it, but lets not expect an all-star performance every night from him anymore.
I still think he is a good leader to have on the team. I think he will break out in mid-December where he is hitting at a much better clip.
Look at Lawson, he is finally starting to get out of his slump.
This indeed is an interesting season for the entire NBA. If 2011 isn’t happening we shouldn’t try to get draft picks in 2012 for Melo if we do trade him.
Still think he should realize that the West is the place to be in the future. The Heat experiment should show Melo that joining big names does not equal wins.
Also there is no guarantee that CP3 is leaving NO either.

Is the ZombieApocalypse upon us?(kidding) GoldenNuggets – is that you?

I honestly think it’s a matter of Chauncey of trying to do too much and be the savior. I think because he is one of the leaders of the team on the floor, and as a point guard…that he thinks he has to do more.

Hopefully, he’s 3’s will start falling soon. I think giving him a rest is a good idea in the short term.

But benching him for the whole season. I cannot agree with this at all.

George Karl said the beginning of the season that Chauncey is not going to have as many minutes and Ty would get more. Karl hasn’t kept up his part of the bargain. Every time Karl’s ineptitude regarding substitutions blows up and the opponent has all the momentum, Karl inserts Billups to be the clean up man.

Every time the Nuggets get offense stupid (Because of the so called random offense) Billups is thrust in to clean up.

Karl is the problem, not Billups.

He is vital to this team, regardless of shooting percentages or boneheaded plays we’ve all witnessed lately. He is the MENTAL leader of a group of headcases and has been shown to be one of the only people these Nuggets will actually shut up and pay attention to when the chips are down, even when Karl is asking them to.

I agree with reducing his minutes, but still giving him significant time. 20-25/game sounds about right.

For everyone loudly advocating his benching, the only way he’s going to get back into a good shooting rhythm is to keep shooting. As frightening as that sounds, Chauncey is still one of the vital cogs of this team and we’d grind to a halt without him. He will come out of this slump.

In any case, I feel that he understands at this point that he needs to make better decisions with the ball and that he needs to focus less on scoring – particularly with the acquisition of Harrington – and more on setting up his teammates and playing solid defense.

I trust Chauncey (still). You should too.

he’s already shown signs of breaking the slump in the past few games

Chauncey has a bit of trade value… but not for the Nuggets. Jeff, consider this – Billups was traded out of Detroit for a huge expiring contract. Has his value gone up or down since then? Yeah, there are some teams that want him – but this is a 34 year old, high volume shooting point guard. You are not getting ripe young talent or big time contributors in return.

There is only one reason teams are calling Denver about Billups. They know that once that Melo situation causes the first domino to fall all bets are off for anyone on this roster. Denver is going to need expiring contracts, trades that save money now and maybe a couple draft picks. Contenders should be lining up to jump on those kind of deals for win-now players.

This is the team we got. What a desperate, brash, and short-sighted move it would be to try to move one of core pieces for another big contract WITHOUT any guarantee it would appease Melo or make the team better. If this team has any chance of doing anything in the playoffs they need Chauncey, even at 50% as a player he can coach the team better than Karl.

Chauncey is going to bounce back mentally. That’s the problem he’s been battling all season long trying to lead this team amongst all the turmoil and get his own play in order. The weight that he bears for pointing this team in the right direction is huge, even bigger than Karl and that’s why fans are so quick to criticize him.

If we’re gonna rebuild, fine. I don’t mind swapping expirings with someone and giving up Chauncey. That’s all I expect to get out of Chauncey, if we get a draft pick too then it’s a real nice find. But, as long as you call yourself a Nuggets fan and have the slightest belief this team has a chance in the playoffs this year – you should know that we need Chauncey. He needs us, and this is the team we are rolling with. If it’s not gonna work this year, then realize that fact as soon as possible and blow up the roster completely. But we are from dead yet. Reports of Chauncey’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

It would be kind of ironic b/c when he got here, he was the guy telling others how to play the right way and the calming factor, but now he seems to have become a less talented JR Smith. I don’t think he should be benched and I do feel most of this is mental, as good of a leader as he is, he’s probably affected by all the uncertainty and I think he needs to realize that he could be the key to keeping Melo, he just has to play well. No he doesn’t need to put up 20 points or 10 assists, all we need from him is to lead. A way we can fix his bad shots could be taking the ball out of his hands, Idk why but he’s been very ball dominant this year, even with Ty on the court, he’s always initiating the offense (and usually shooting). I say let Melo, JR and Ty bring the ball up more, let CB get set so all he needs to do is catch and shoot (or run him off some screens, ala Ray Allen).

I don’t think he should be traded unless we get an offer like Carl Landry and Beno Udrih, but he has to change his attitude, play style and decrease his minutes.

I think there could still be some magic left in CB’s tank, you know the kind of magic he used to lead us to the WCF.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-101123&action=upsell&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2finsider%2fcolumns%2fstory%3fcolumnist%3dhollinger_john%26page%3dPERDiem-101123

I happened to run into Chauncey last year about 3 weeks after the Utah loss. I ran into him at the WestInn by the prominad, he was saying goodbye to som family that was in town. I saw this look on his face, this look as if something was wrong. It was an uncomfortable look. He has carried this look on his face into the season. I see it on his face while he’s playing. I think that there may be something outside of basketball that possibly could be bother him and maybe taking some of his focus off. I could be completely wrong, and that look could have just been an upset expression for being bounced from Utah or something else but it just was a distinct look of uneasiness. (I know I’m weird and I pay attention to peoples body language and that type of stuff). If I was the Denver Nuggets I would send Chauncey home for a week to be with his family and let whatever it is that’s bothering him go away. Maybe time away from the game can help him figure things out and gain his focus back. Like I said, I could be completely wrong and take this for what it’s worth, but it’s my personal opinion and I really think that there could be something outside of basketball that is bothering him. Don’t give up on him just yet he means more to this team than many know.

There is kind of a misconception here that Chauncey is shooting way too much or playing way too many minutes. His 10.1 field goal attempts per game is a career low as a starter. His play in the last 2 games hint that the volume shooting is coming down and he’s beginning to do other things that help the team win. CB is also averaging 32.2 minutes, lowest since 2007 and certainly the lowest of his Nuggets career. As a matter of fact Chauncey is averaging about his career average in all categories right now (outside of really low shooting percentages through 13 games). Every bit of analytical evidence suggests that Chauncey is going to have a productive year in line with his recent career and his shooting percentages increase. This is one case where you have to look a little bit deeper at the stats and they show you that Chauncey isn’t in fact slowing down that much. This is a guy who for his career gives you 15+ points and 5+ assist, getting to the line about 6 times per game and making 90% of them. He’s still a great player, the facts don’t say he’s going to suddenly lose it anytime soon.

The big problem with Chauncey this year is the intangibles and clutch play he’s supposedly known for. CB is playing his worst at the most inopportune times of the game. He hasn’t been able to mesh his own game with the talent of his teammates and has responded by forcing a lot of poor decisions leading to turnovers and bad jump shots. If you look at the stats the problem is a lot bigger than Chauncey. The glaring weakness with this team is a soft front line. The Nuggets front court is one of the least productive in the NBA right now. There are 2 things the Nuggets can immediately do to fix both problems at once:

1) Start Al Harrington and bring Shelden off the bench with Birdman. Al Harrington is playing starter’s minutes in a non starter’s role. Shelden is playing an undetermined amount of minutes nightly in an undefined role. Basically it’s gotten so bad with Shelden you need to either get him out of the rotation completely or force feed him a role on this team. GK did this with Anthony Carter, forcing it down our throat that he was a backup PG no matter how terrible he played. As far as Harrington goes this is a no-brainer. He is the best big on the team and he needs to do a whole lot for us to win. He should start.

2) Don’t play Chauncey alongside Ty Lawson anymore. With the Nuggets struggling on the glass and nearly dead-last in shot blocking, GK can’t keep thinking this is good for the team. With a glut of tall, athletic guards like JR, Forbes, and Afflalo there’s no excuse for this anymore. We are already handicapped trying to rebound the ball as it is, with CB and Ty they’re both in there waiting for an outlet pass to get the break going. No one is crashing the boards and it’s not entirely clear which one is a point guard and who’s doing what when both are in. In my mind this is a huge reason why the Nuggets are struggling with point guard play. I really want Karl to explain why he’s doing this and how he can ignore the horrible results we continue to see out of it. He actually owes it to fans to explain why he does this, but he won;t cause the guy is just not a good coach.

I am currently in Las Vegas for the week on other work, and I wrote this column at the end of last week. This was prior to Chauncey’s face-plant.

I am NOT advocating Chauncey be benched. I merely said that should be an option if he continues to struggle. I am MUCH more in favor of dramatically reducing his minutes and I wish he wouldn’t take so many ill advised shots. That bugs me more than anything.

that’s just accentuating his other problems. the real problems are the lousy shot selection, the weak and sloppy entry passes, the ill-timed turnovers and most of all, the boneheaded technicals. Chauncey is supposed to be the heart of this team, but we haven’t shown much heart this year. He’s supposed to the be mental leader, but he’s had more mental lapses than anybody on this team.

The problem is he’s uncoachable. Whether it’s Chauncey’s unwillingness to deviate from what he thinks works or George’s unwillingness to tell him what to do, I don’t know. It’s probably both. But something has to change because this “player-coach” arrangement does not work. George Karl needs to start acting like a coach and leader and tell Chauncey what is expected of him and Chauncey needs to take a step back and realize he’s not the leader, he’s a soldier. And he has to sacrifice for the good of the team. Whether that means taking less shots, playing less minutes, deferring to Carmelo. Whatever needs to be done, he needs to do it.

I do think the World Championships has taken a toll on Chauncey. Never got the off-season rest that most NBA players get. Obviously this was his choice, but IMO it’s hurting the Nuggets as his normal high standard of play is just not there.
Being a Colorado native and growing up watching Chauncey play, I would love to see him end his career here…after winning another NBA Championship!

Chauncey starts & finishes, but Ty gets the bulk of the minutes. And keep in mind, as bad as he’s played to start the season, Chauncey’s had stretches like this even in his best years. The shots will eventually drop again, but his decision-making needs to get back to where it was when he first arrived. As someone remarked to me at Stiffs Night Out, while some of Chauncey’s smarts clearly rubbed off on the Nuggets, some of that patented Nuggets stupid has rubbed off on him too, and lately that’s really shown.

Bottom line? I know it’s a business, but I feel like the Nuggets really owe it to Chauncey to do right by him, whatever that entails. If the team is blown up and he wants one last shot at another ring, we should try to accomodate that; ditto if he wants to retire a Nugget. After everything he’s done and been through with this organization, he’s earned the right to go out in a manner of his choosing.

runningdonut mostly has my pov covered, but I wanted to chime in anyway, say a few words in defense of my fellow Park Hill native.

It was Melo who brought this team out of the cellar and into the middle class.

It was Chauncey who changed this team from a middle class citizen into a contender.

I certainly can’t deny he’s playing poorly to start the year, and yeah, I groaned this summer when he signed up for the FIBA thing, because I was afraid this was gonna happen.

Frankly, I am wondering if this recent minor injury, followed by this stretch of a few days with no games, will help him. Last season he got injured early on — was it in December? Then he came back in January and he was just on fire all the way through the All Star break. Not coincidentally, that was the Nuggets’ best stretch of the season. Melo was injured for some of that time, but Chauncey led the team into the Staples Center and bombed the Flakers with nine 3-pointers.

If it really does get to the point where we’re saying “Chauncey might as well be benched” or “Chauncey should be traded,” just keep in mind, it’s not just the starting point guard that needs to be replaced. It’s the team leader. Melo is the best player on the team, no doubt. But Chauncey is the leader. It’s going to take a LOT to replace what he’s brought to the team.