J.R. Smith

The Nuggets decided to postpone a press release on what had previously been reported as an announcement of J.R. Smith being suspended for conduct detrimental to the team, and while a suspension is still very possible, it is not a certainty at this point.

Smith’s behavior has grown tiresome, and something he did on the bench in Saturday’s game was the tipping point, enough for coach George Karl to say, “some guys (Nuggets) had strong opinions last night.” The Denver Nuggets are slowing their assessment of Smith’s situation, but any way you slice it he looks headed for the doghouse.

Toronto: Hedo Turkoglu drove the lane and drew a foul with 1.5 seconds left and calmly nailed two free throws to give the Toronto Raptors a 106-105 win over the Lakers on Sunday. Aside from the heroics, he didn’t look good Sunday, scoring just nine points on 1-of-6 shooting (6-of-6 from the foul line) with two rebounds, five assists, a block, and a 3-pointer.

Toronto: Andrea Bargnani (back) returned to action Sunday and scored 22 points on 7-of-17 shooting (including a three) with eight rebounds, a steal, a block, and an assist. He played a full complement of minutes Sunday, and didn’t show any signs of his back hurting him.

Los Angeles: Kobe Bryant came one assist away from a triple-double on Sunday, scoring 27 points on 11-of-23 shooting (including a three) with career-high 16 rebounds, nine assists, one steal, and one block.

Los Angeles: Lamar Odom was non-existent in the Los Angeles Lakers loss to the Raptors on Sunday, playing just 16 minutes and scoring only four points to go with six rebounds, one assist, and one steal.

Denver: Carmelo Anthony will not play Monday against the Bobcats due to an ankle sprain, and is targeting Wednesday’s game for his return. “The best bet is to wait until Wednesday’s game to get it better. It didn’t swell up, so that’s a good sign. I’ve had ankle injuries before, but this one is not as bad as the others,” said Anthony, who is wearing a protective boot to keep him from limping.

Houston: Houston Rockets center Chuck Hayes had just two points and zero rebounds in 10 minutes on Saturday, the result of tendinitis in his right knee. He started the game but was in pain and needed to ride a stationary bicycle when he wan’t playing. “As I get going, sometimes it loosens up, sometimes it tightens on me,” Hayes said. “We’re going to try to keep it loose as much as possible.” Any games or minutes he loses should directly increase the opportunities for Luis Scola and Carl Landry.

Memphis Grizzlies rookie center Hasheem Thabeet left Tuesday night’s game with a broken jaw. Thabeet collided with teammate Zach Randolph. No word yet on how long this will sideline him, but the #2 overall pick wasn’t offering much in the way of production. Thabeet, who has looked frail and lost early in the beginning of the season, appears to be the best bet for the dreaded “bust” label thus far. The Grizzlies will likely ask backup center Hamed Haddadi to log a few extra minutes per game.

Elsewhere around the NBA:

Washington: Washington Wizzards PG Gilbert Arenas (sore calf) was a surprise start on Tuesday and subsequently finished the game with 21 points, five rebounds, eight assists, three steals and set a franchise record with an amazing 12 turnovers. Arenas came into this game averaging only 3.7 turnovers per game.

Denver: With Tuesday’s win, Nuggest head coach George Karl past Red Auerbach for the eighth-most wins in NBA history.

Denver: Denver Nuggets PF J.R. Smith returned from his seven-game suspension on Tuesday.
Smith played 29 minutes off the bench, finishing with five points on 1-of-9 shooting, three rebounds, five assists and three turnovers. Coach George Karl recently said his minutes would be in the “low 20s” for a while, but it’s a great sign that he played almost 30 minutes on a rough shooting night like this.

Miami: The Heat moved to 6-1 on the season due in large part to a 41 point performance by superstar Dwyane Wade. Wade had an outstanding shooting performance 14-of-29 FGs, 12-of-13 FTs) and also chipped in five rebounds, five assists, three steals, one block and just two turnovers. Wade, who lead the league in scoring last season, is locked in for another big year.

Memphis: Memphis Grizzlies center Marc Gasol led the team with 20 points on Tuesday, going 5-of-9 from the field and 10-of-13 from the FT line. Gasol also added one steal and two blocks with zero turnovers. Gasol, who is noticeably thinner this season, is becoming a solid NBA player.

Charlotte: Bobcats C Tyson Chandler was outplayed and overwhelmed by Magic center Dwight Howard on Tuesday, struggling with foul trouble and managing just two points, three rebounds and one block. He is coming back from an injury-marred 2008-09 season and missed most of the preseason, but if you can stay patient he might pick it up as the season wears on.

Orlando: Magic PG Jameer Nelson didn’t seem bothered by the slight knee injury he sustained on Sunday, finishing a win over Charlotte Bobcats with nine points, two 3-pointers, two rebounds and three assists. Nelson hasn’t had many big games yet this season, but we’re confident he’ll get rolling as he adjusts to new teammates Vince Carter, Brandon Bass and Matt Barnes.

Technically speaking, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the newest team in the NBA. Until 2008, they were known as the Seattle SuperSonics. In a hotly contested move, owner Clay Bennett bought out the SuperSonics’ lease with Seattle’s Key Arena, and moved the team to Oklahoma City. The Thunder will play their home games at the Ford Center. Their head coach is P.J. Carlesimo.

Early Years in Seattle

The Seattle SuperSonics were born in 1967. They suffered the typical growing pains of an NBA expansion franchise, winning only 23 games in their inaugural year. Led by future Hall of Fame point guard Lenny Wilkens, the team averaged 33 wins in its first seven seasons. Their best season during that stretch was the 1971-72 season, in which they won 47 games but failed to make the playoffs.

The Seattle SuperSonics made their first playoff appearance in the 1974-75 season, Bill Russell’s first as head coach. They beat Detroit in the first round before losing to the Golden State Warriors in the second round.

Championship

The Seattle SuperSonics posted a 52-30 record in the 1978-79 season. Led by Gus Williams, Dennis Johnson and center Jack Sikma, they beat the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs, four games to one. In the Western Conference finals, they beat the Phoenix Suns in seven games, advancing to the NBA Finals. The Sonics faced the Washington Bullets (now known as the Wizards) in the Finals, defeating them four games to one. It is, so far, the franchise’s only championship.

Karl, and Payton, and Kemp — oh, my!

After enjoying moderate success during the 1980s the Seattle SuperSonics developed into one of the NBA’s best teams for much of the 1990s. Three factors are largely credited for this development: the drafting of forward Shawn Kemp in 1989, the drafting of point guard Gary Payton in 1990, and the hiring of head coach George Karl in 1992.

Karl’s hiring boosted the Sonics from a playoff contender to a Western Conference powerhouse. In the 1992-93 season, the team posted 55 regular season wins and made it to the conference finals, where they lost to the Phoenix Suns, four games to three.

After first round losses in the following two seasons, the Sonics came roaring back. In 1995-96, the team won 64 regular season games. In the playoffs, they beat the Sacramento Kings, the Houston Rockets, and the Utah Jazz en route to their first NBA Finals appearance since the 1978-79 season.

Like the Utah Jazz and the Portland Trail Blazers, the Sonics had the misfortune of going against the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls. The Bulls won the series, four games to two, and despite continued success, the Sonics never made it to another Finals.

Shawn Kemp was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1997, George Karl left after the 1997-98 season, and Payton was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in the middle of the 2002-03 season.

2007-08 Season

In 2007, Sonics star shooting guard Ray Allen was traded to the Boston Celtics for three minor players. The Sonics drafted Texas scoring machine Kevin Durant the same year. Led by Durant, the Sonics won only 20 games in their last season in Seattle.

2008-09 Outlook

The Oklahoma City Thunder may have moved east, but they are still a member of the Western Conference. As such, a playoff berth is not a feasible goal for the Thunder. Rather, a 30- to 35-win season would be considered a successful campaign for the former Seattle SuperSonics.

Greatest Players

Fred Brown, Tom Chambers, Spencer Haywood,  Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, Jack Sikma, Lenny Wilkens, Gus Williams

The Denver Nuggets first existed in the American Basketball Association, as the Denver Rockets. The ABA went under in 1976, and Denver was one of the four teams assimilated into the NBA. The Denver team name was changed to the Nuggets because Houston already had the Rockets.

The team now plays its home games at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colo. Their head coach is George Karl.

Early NBA Years

The Denver Nuggets had a successful beginning in the NBA, finishing with a regular season record of 50-32 and making the playoffs. They lost to the Portland Trail Blazers in six games, but they had quickly established themselves as a team to reckon with.

The 1977-78 season saw 48 regular season wins and another trip to the playoffs. This time they got all the way to the conference finals before bowing to the Seattle Supersonics, four games to two.

The Nuggets made the playoffs again in 1978-79, only to fall to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round. The Nuggets failed to make the playoffs the following two seasons, but made it back in 1981-82, losing to the Phoenix Suns in the first round.

More playoff appearances

The Nuggets were a perennial playoff team in the 1980s, but rarely got past the second round. In 1984-85 they got past the Utah Jazz in the second round, only to run into the Lakers in the Conference Finals. The Lakers beat the Nuggets in five games.

The Nuggets played a part in playoff history in the 1993-94 season. As the 8th seed, they drew the Seattle Supersonics in the first round of the playoffs. The Sonics were heavily favored, with some “experts” predicting a sweep. When Seattle won the first two games in the five-game series, it looked like the “experts” might be right. But the Nuggets, led by a young Dikembe Mutombo and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (formerly Chris Jackson), tied the series at two apiece by winning both home games. That set up a finale in Seattle.

The Nuggets were on a mission, and they won the final game in overtime, 98-94, beating the Sonics three games to two. It was the first time in league history that an 8th seeded team defeated a number one seed.

Denver went seven games with the Utah Jazz in the following round, losing 4-3.

2007-08 Season

The Nuggets won 50 games in 2007-08, guided by smooth-shooting small forward Carmelo Anthony (drafted out of Syracuse in 2003) and high-scoring Allen Iverson (acquired via trade in 2006). The 8th-seeded Nuggets took on the eventual Western Conference champion L.A. Lakers, who swept the Nuggets in four games.

2008-09 Outlook

The Denver Nuggets find themselves looking up at the higher-tier teams in the West (Lakers, Spurs, Hornets, Suns, Mavericks). However, Anthony and Iverson are such great scorers that they are rarely out of games. If they can acquire a reliable third scoring option (preferably a big man), the Nuggets could open some eyes in the West this season.

Greatest Players

Mahmoud Abdul Rauf (Chris Jackson), Michael Adams, Carmelo Anthony, Alex English, Allen Iverson, Lafayette “Fat” Lever, Dikembe Mutombo, David Thompson, Kiki Vandeweghe