Carmelo Leaving the Nuggets

I’m not surprised that Carmelo may be looking to leave the Nuggets, especially after the LeBron hype this summer. I’m more surprised that he stayed here this long. He’s a Baltimore guy, a guy that seems like he likes to party, and he held his wedding in NYC, not Denver. Denver isn’t necessarily a party town, it’s more a wonderful place to live and have a family.

I was surprised that Carmelo stayed here beyond the minimum time he needed from the draft. We’ve had a good team the last few years, but I think we’d fundamentally built the team wrong. We don’t have a great set of big men, despite the big season a couple years ago where we got to the West finals. I think that to keep ‘Melo, you’d need to trade off Martin and Nene, get someone else that is strong, and rebounds well, and then add a better shooter than JR.

And do that in the next year while Billups can still go hard.

My thought is that Denver ought to really blow this up. Trade Carmelo, get a player or two and some draft picks. Build this back up. The Lakers are still tough for the next year or two, so play for the future.