Denver Nuggets Get Blown Out By Bulls. Aaron Brooks Makes A Statement

What I knew about Aaron Brooks excited me to the point that the Andre Miller trade became a one paragraph footnote at the end of my last article.  What I discovered since he became a Nugget has me more intrigued about the future of this team than ever.

Aaron Brooks has played at a very high level in this league.  In fact, he played so well in 2010, he as voted the most improved player.  Scoring 19.6 pts. 5.3 assist per game and 2.6 rebound got Aaron Brooks paid and traded to the Phoenix Suns for Goran Drajic, who had also launched himself on the scene as a rising star point guard.  After a few years of exile, Houston moved to reacquire Brooks fast.

Unfortunately for Brooks, Rockets James Harden and Jeremy Lin are higher on the pecking order and Brooks had languished, through the bulk of two season, on the bench.  Don't get it twisted though.  Brooks was a bench player with a no-trade clause.  In order for Denver to acquire his talents, he had to approve of the deal.

Brooks is not only in Denver because there was an interest from the Nuggets or because he no longer had a home in Houston.  Brooks is in Denver because he needs a team of his own.  I was being a bit tongue in cheek when I first said Ty Lawson is hurrying back into the lineup as we speak, but I am not when I say it now.

Ty Lawson had better hurry back, because he might soon appear expendable.

What coach Brian Shaw attempted to accomplish with the highly capable but often maligned Nate Robinson, was inserting a backup point guard with the courage to take over scoring, indirectly pushing Lawson to do the same.  Ty Lawson seems not to have that in his natural makeup.  He can be coerced into attack and he can be aggravated into it, but his nature is to distribute the ball.  Whether this was his nature before or after North Carolina is the million dollar question.  Presently, the school is developing an image for producing system guards who lack the creativity and killer instinct to take over games.

Tony Snell of the Bulls can play ball.

Aaron Brooks is not only that, he is a one time Most Improved Player of the league who has something to prove to the league but not to himself.  He does not have an ounce of doubt about what kind of player he is and what impact he can have on a team.  When Kenneth Faried flashed back to the 80's and fouled Tony Snell of the Bulls (watch for Snell........this kid is cold), he earned a flagrant foul call and an unexpected retaliatory shove in the chest from Joakim Noah of the Bulls which sparked a small melee.

After the video tapes replayed the tapes also uncovered that our newly acquired point guard who doesn't weigh 180 pounds, knocked the 7ft. center Noah backwards with a similar shove to the chest.

Both Noah and Brooks were assessed technical's for their actions, but no one made a stronger statement in that moment than our new guy.   By the end of this embarrassing blowout, the view of the future had begun to clarify.  Coach Shaw, fed up with the lack of professional effort from his starters, benched them all and ended the game with Brooks, Quincy Miller, Evan Fournier, Timofey Mosgov and newly acquired Jan Veseley.  Brooks dominated his moments in the game and Veseley acquitted himself well by the end, showing some real athleticism for a big guy and an uncanny ability to rebound in a crowd (quick hops is what we call that).

Shaw is concerned that so many of his young players have so obsessed themselves with dictating their games by offense that they are not committing to stopping their man on the other end.  The problem with youth is that they don't often do the math; and even when they do, 2 + 2 may not equal 4 when you are young.

The Nuggets did have trouble scoring early.  The lack of familiarity among the players was obvious for a while, until Brooks was set free to be Brooks.  Once the others realized who they had acquired, some got inspired and the rest got scared and tried to prove their offensive prowess instead of playing to win.  Conversely, Chicago shot the ball with the inspiration of a team who realized that Denver could be dangerous, especially with the new acquisition.  Denver had beat Chicago several times in the past few games simply because of one reality.

Chicago can't score well.  At least not for long stretches. 

They average 92 points per game because they place so much attention on defense.  For a short blink of an eye, Denver focused on defense in this game too and closed the gap on Chicago who, as I mentioned, can't score. The Bulls added new shooters recently, but not all world shooters, just capable shooters who can knock down open shots if you play defense like Denver tends to do in stretches.

If Denver would have done the math, they would have realized that a team who scored 65 points in the first half would probably not end with 130, so long as you didn't let them. Chicago proceeded to shoot Bull in the second half and came back down to earth, but Denver did not rise to the occasion.

The math should be telling some of these players that they had better push to win games because Denver, unlike some teams out of the playoffs, does not need to tank the season for a good draft.  We have the New York Knicks doing it for us. The further we fall behind the playoff race, the more likely we are to opt towards seeing what we've got.  Any player that doesn't offer his best effort will be supplanted for question and answer basketball.

Aaron Brooks and Jan Veseley answered a couple of initial questions already. Now we have more.