Image by Getty Images via @daylifeEarly Tuesday, CBS Sports' Ken Berger already had Melo leaving Denver and by Tuesday afternoon Berger's colleague (and my Blogs with Balls conference buddy) Matt Moore had Melo wearing a Knicks jersey. Not wanting to be left out in all the fun, ESPN's Ric Bucher - who confidently boasted that "Kobe Bryant has played his last game in a Lakers uniform" prior to the 2007-08 season - regurgitated what everyone else already knew, and had already reported, when citing Chris Paul's infamous toast at Melo's wedding as "proof" that Melo and the Nuggets will be parting ways.And then on Thursday, the Post's Benjamin Hochman finally got some current Nuggets to go on the record regarding the ordeal. As reported by Hochman, head coach George Karl said he hopes this Melo stuff is just "summer talk", while Nuggets power forward Kenyon Martin made a startling statement by saying: "Personally, my thinking is — I can't see where we got better this summer. Al (Harrington) is cool...but I can't see how we got better. You know, I'm going to be out and (Andersen) is going to be out...so did we get better? I can't say that we did." Gee, thanks for the confidence boost, K-Mart - it's a good thing you're not in charge of Nuggets season ticket sales.
Meanwhile, throughout the week each of the Post's three columnists offered three separate opinions. Mark Kiszla reported that Nuggets management won't get "LeBron'd" as Cleveland did in early July. Dave Krieger suggested that it's Melo himself who holds all the cards here (which I respectfully disagree with). And Woody Paige advised the Nuggets to stand pat and see how the season plays out, considering that this team is just two years removed from almost making the NBA Finals.
Boy, what a week.
So where do we go from here?
As I see it, the Nuggets essentially have three options:
1) Treat Melo like the Lakers treated Kobe Bryant in the summer of 2007. This means that the Nuggets would essentially entertain trade offers while secretly refusing to budge on any deal whatsoever while hoping that the team gets off to a good start, hoping that a Pau Gasol-esque miracle deal becomes available in exchange for K-Mart's expiring contract before the trade deadline, hoping that the team has a deep playoff run and hoping Melo ultimately stays in town because of all the good things happening here. The problem, of course, is that that's a lot of hope and the franchise would be saddled with the salaries stemming from any possible K-Mart deal whether Melo stays or not. In other words, a huge gamble.
2) Trade Melo to the highest bidder. If it's in fact true that Melo and his management team have served up four to five possible cities/franchises to Nuggets management for relocation, the Nuggets actually find themselves in an advantageous position. Simply put, in this scenario the Nuggets can take whatever the best deal is for their lone superstar player and start rebuilding for the future.
3) Trade Melo regardless of how many teams are bidding. This might sound insane on the face of it, but the Nuggets could elect to avoid the looming distraction and trade Melo for whatever they can get however paltry the return value might be.
After giving this much thought and allowing the dust to settle a bit, I'm standing by what I said on Monday which is consistent with the second scenario above: IF Melo indeed has no intention of staying in Denver (which, to be clear, no one knows for certain yet), it behooves the Nuggets to trade him now while they actually have some leverage. But, it doesn't mean they have to trade Melo no matter what. As has been reported by the New York Daily News' Frank Isola, the Knicks probably don't have enough to coax the Nuggets into a deal, meaning the Nuggets are better off waiting things out than panicking with a Knicks deal. I agree with this strategy wholeheartedly.
http://www.denverstiffs.com/2010/8/20/1632421/the-all-things-melo-week-in-review
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