The Nuggets have never decided for sure about just how much they want to worship George Karl. On the one hand they obviously worship him much more than most other franchises do. The average franchise does need to be concerned about being successful in the playoffs, so the average franchise would have let Mr. Karl move on no later than this past off season. On the other hand, Mr. Karl has never had a large amount of say over key player acquisition decisions in Denver. If Mr. Karl was always so dependent on having a good, traditional, veteran point guard who doesn't need any coaching to speak of, then why on earth did the Nuggets ship Andre Miller for Allen Iverson? They kind of pulled the rug out from under poor Mr. Karl with that move, didn't they? They left the poor man with nothing but an easy path with which to make a fool of himself with. Similarly, Mr. Karl wanted to get rid of J.R. Smith, whereas the owner and the general managers said no way Jose and gave him a very good contract and pretty much every dollar that Smith could have received if he were starting for another team rather than being vindictively prevented from starting by Mr. Karl. Yet another example of a big difference between Mr. Karl and Nuggets management would be that management was always much more keen on Nene and less keen on Marcus Camby than was Mr. Karl. Until this year, Nene could get good playing time from Mr. Karl only if either Kenyon Martin or Marcus Camby were not available. Were Karl in charge of the dismantling of the Nuggets, he would have gone out of his way to try to keep Marcus Camby. So for a franchise that worships Mr. Karl, they have not allowed him to share in the management moves anywhere near as much as you would think.
And I thought I made a thread about Billups leadership qualities, but apparently I posted about Karl vs Nuggets.
I think that teams such as San Antonio and Boston who have centers or forwards as motivational leaders are generally more successful in the playoffs than teams that have point guards as motivational leaders. I'm not sold on Billups being all that great a motivational leader. Better than average I'll say yes but not a great motivational leader like Kevin Garnett or Tim Duncan or even Dirk Nowitzki. I'd really like to see more coaches being good motivational leaders but I realize that's much more of a college thing in the modern age. To me Billups is leading more in the deciding what to do aspect but not as much on the motivating aspect. The Nuggets are motivated to win simply because they are a lot more happy than most teams are to simply be in the game. Individual Nuggets players have been hammered by injuries and other trials and tribulations over the years much more so than average. Also, the Nuggets are using "Latino spirit" to generate all this motivation and winning, which I realize I need to explain a little more than I already did, I'm working on that. I stuck my neck out there into a subject I need to raw research lol.
I don't think Detroit is worrying about not having Chauncey Billups leadership in the playoffs. They have a bunch of players all motivating each other, so they don't need it. Not to mentiion they have as many or more players who motivate themselves extremely well than anyone. Stupid sportscaster alert: if a sportscaster during tonight's Nuggets-Pistons game says something about how the Pistons "are missing Billups leadership," he is a bonafide fool for saying that. Rasheed Wallace, Prince, Dice, Stuckey, AI, Hamilton need to be motivated? Don't think so.
Also, all sportscasters who claim that the Nuggets are a better defensive team this year than last year are fools from here on out, now that the truth has been posted here at SportsTwo. lol. Remember, the Nuggets' defense is the same quality or level as last year, no better and no worse. They are trying harder, doing more, they have more defensive specialists, they have fewer players not making a good effort on defending, all of that is true. But the end result is that they are at almost exactly the same defensive level as last year.
Motivation is only one aspect of leadership. I am not sure why you keep talking only about motivational leaders. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadership]Link[/URL] That's a leadership quality, right there.
