I would love to have Nene. He’s a beast and would become a frontcourt player the Bobcats could build around. In short, he’d replace Emeka Okafor.

I’d take the deal based on the talent upgrade but not without concerns. In the short term, the Bobcats would miss Diaw’s passing and shooting. A frontcourt of Hilario and Chandler would put even more pressure on the backcourt to create offense. Hilario is a great fit in Dener because the Nuggets have so many other gifted scorers to space the floor. The Bobcats would need to look for a better shooting frontcourt match for Nene.

But I really can’t see Denver going for this deal. Nene is still young and has a reasonable contract. Denver probably expects him to anchor their frontcourt for many years to come. Nene helps Denver match up better with the big men from other top contenders than Diaw would. Diaw and K-Mart are strictly PF’s, and Birdman is best used off the bench.

Denver will shed salary to re-sign Carmelo when Kenyon Martin’s awful contract finally expires after next season. If for some reason like Billups and Carmelo both go down for the season and the Nuggets want to blow up the team, than a Chandler for Nene swap would set them up with real cap space in 2011. I can’t see that deal happening, but I wouldn’t have ever expected a Chandler for Okafor trade either.

I would love to have Nene. He’s a beast and would become a frontcourt player the Bobcats could build around. In short, he’d replace Emeka Okafor, and this would be a move toward long term rebuilding, which probably means the current regime wouldn’t be interested.

I’d take the deal based on the talent upgrade but not without concerns. In the short term, the Bobcats would miss Diaw’s passing and shooting. A frontcourt of Hilario and Chandler would put even more pressure on the backcourt to create offense. It’s true that Hilario is a great fit in Denver because the Nuggets have so many other gifted scorers to space the floor. And the Bobcats would need to look for a better shooting frontcourt match for Nene.

But I really can’t see Denver going for this deal. Nene is still young and has a reasonable contract. Denver probably expects him to anchor their frontcourt for many years to come. Nene helps Denver match up better with the big men from other top contenders than they would with Diaw and K-Mart, who are strictly PF’s, and Birdman, who is best off the bench.

Denver will shed salary to re-sign Carmelo when Kenyon Martin’s awful contract finally expires after next season. If for some reason, such as Billups and Carmelo both going down for the season, the Nuggets want to blow up the team and rebuild, than a Chandler for Nene swap would set them up with real cap space in 2011. I can’t see that deal happening, but the Nuggets are the team that gave Marcus Camby away, too. Still, this is probably more of a possibility for next year, when Chandler will be an expiring contract, and Nene would have to do something to land himself in the doghouse.

Those that dimissed the Bobcats as hapless were mistaken. Even this early on the Cats have shown that on any given night they can give teams the fits. But there are multiple problems we’re facing and some could possibly be addressed before we find ourselves in March once again counting our potential wins as we try to scrape our way into an 8 seed.

We can’t do anything about the schedule – we play a brutal number of back-to-backs this year and close out the season with home/away bounces in 6 of our last 8 games. That won’t be pleasant and if we’re trying to climb our way into the post season or desperately gripping to the 8 slot, those games are going to be a brutal factor in the equation.

The two big things we CAN do something about though are Coach Brown’s complete lack of interest in developing our rookies off the bench and our low post game.

It doesn’t matter how good our outside shooters are, if we can’t keep the defenses honest by being a threat in the paint we simply aren’t going to get open looks from long range. If our big men are unable to do anything but kick the ball back to the perimeter when they get their hands on the rock, we’re also going to continue to eat up most of the clock and wind up chucking too many desperation shots or committing turnovers on clock violations. If we can pick up even a semi-strong power forward or center to either start or bolster our bench, we’d be crazy to ignore the opportunity. As someone else said, we’re one strong player away from being solid playoff contenders instead of hopefuls trying to slide in during the last week of the season. We’re at least 2 solid players and a utility reserve away from joining the elite teams of the league.

Larry Brown is a great defensive coach, but our offense is still sputtering – as the 20-2 run by the Bulls in the last game bears out. He refuses to rest our veterans by using the rookies and bench efficiently and asking Wallace, Chandler, and company to play 70 plus in 48 hours is expecting a lot. Asking them to do it 22 times in a season is at best forcing us to look at the Cats falling apart in exhaustion during the 2nd game and at worst begging for injuries.

I like our chances for the playoffs this season. But I’m selfish. I don’t want our first trip to the playoff to end up being a first round sweep and a long vacation. That’s an empty victory, although it will fill a few more seats at Time Warner and could conceivably open the owners’ pockets a bit. I’d love to see us get at least into the second round of the playoffs in our first visit.

Right now, another season with us finishing in the 9 or 10 spot in the conference means more lottery purgatory. We can’t improve well from that position – we simply don’t pick high enough to trade the pick for a veteran or pick up a top rookie in the draft. If we’re going to make it, we either have to develop a winning strategy now or bag the entire season in the hopes of snaring a top 3 pick in the lottery that we can explore our options with. I don’t believe the Bobcats will last many more seasons with the status quo.