"Nene is a lovable, gentle giant, more comfortable wearing sandals than lacing up steel-toe work boots. He's also the Nuggets' biggest problem. On an NBA team running short on time to chase a championship, can Denver afford to pay Nene $11.36 million to be soft when the going gets rough in the playoffs? No, no, no. There can be no more Nene disappearing acts at crunch time. If there's a legitimate desire for sharper elbows under the basket and a reliable scorer in the post, the one player the Nuggets must seriously consider trading is Nene. Denver has hard work to do and tough choices to make. There must be urgency for team management to get it done, because in little more than one year, the time to win with this core group of Nuggets will be gone. What makes the clock tick so loudly? The financial landscape of the NBA and the makeup of Denver's roster seem destined for serious upheaval after next season. Although still among the five best point guards in the league, Chauncey Billups will turn 34 years old before playing his next game. More important, the NBA is staring at nasty labor strife in 15 months, and Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke has good reason to be a hawk on contentious issues of guaranteed salaries and cap loopholes, even if it means turning out the arena lights and canceling games in 2011. Nene does not add enough value to be considered essential for this team's final push at glory. During Denver's first-round flameout against Utah, far too much was made of Adrian Dantley's coaching and J.R. Smith's pouting. In truth, both are relatively minor concerns, easily corrected by Dantley sliding one seat down the bench and Smith being shipped down the road. The disappointing 11.4 points and 5.8 rebounds per game provided by Nene before he limped off with a knee injury in Game 5 is what really hurt Denver against the Jazz. Worse, Nene is writing a history of coming up small when the stakes grow large. In two consecutive years of postseason competition, Nene's production has declined when compared with his regular-season statistics. His scoring has slipped by an average of 20 percent, and even his rebounding has suffered under the duress of playoff pressure." http://www.denverpost.com/nuggets/ci_15018618
