The Nets offered Denver a package of young players (Sean Williams, Josh Boone, Marcus Williams — take your pick) and expiring contracts for Marcus Camby, but the Nuggets didn’t want salaries coming back, team officials confided. Denver settled for a second-round pick from the Clippers Tuesday night.
If the Nets were willing to put that type of talent on the table it was a serious mistake for Denver. Bite the bullet and eat the extra year of luxury tax payment. Sean Williams is a very talented young big man, Josh Boone is a functional and solid backup big, and Marcus Williams is a promising point guard. All three of those players would have walked right into the Nuggets rotation. Williams would easily win the starting job and be an upgrade over Anthony Carter. Sean Williams has so many similarities to Camby, he’s perfect for Denver, a good defensive player and rebounder with great athleticism who can run the floor. Boone adds a tough big who competes and is a very good rebounder and likely would have been a good backup big.
This Nuggets team built around Iverson and Melo isn’t going to win anything. They needed to consider how they were going to rebuild, those three Nets would have given them something interesting to develop around Melo for the future.
I tend to agree with you given Nene and Kenyon Martin’s inability to stay healthy for extended periods of time. Of the three Camby was the only one capable of consistently staying healthy the past two years. At least if you go out and get Williams and Boone you have something fall back on if and when those two end up injured again.
The way they dumped Camby simply tells me that Denver is trying to create as much cap space as possible for next summer when AI’s contract is up and they can go get someone else to pair up with ‘Melo.
Hey Eric,
Yes this Camby dump feels like a restructuring effort to place around Melo. Financially the Clippers offer makes a lot more sense, but then again, the Nets offer would add some of the young talent needed to go around Melo and new rebuilt Nuggets. They went for the money. That’s fair enough. The young talent might have been more useful, won’t know for a few years.
It’ll be really interesting to see what the Nuggets do next. Early in the summer they were reported as having negotiations with Iverson over an extension. I wonder if that’s still on the table or not. Be very interesting to see what they do next.
I’m very uncertain about that front office in Denver. Tough to read and they’re very capable of making big mistakes.