Nuggets expect big things, but they're not there yet

Allen Iverson is still a force, but he's slowed down a bit at age 32. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

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DENVER -- George Karl bounded into the Pepsi Center 2½ hours before Wednesday night's opener against the Seattle SuperSonics. Two years removed from prostate cancer surgery, Karl looked like a happy and healthy man.

"Of course I'm healthy," he said, patting his midsection. "Look at me. I'm fat."

He was also overjoyed that his son, Coby, himself a veteran of two cancer operations, had seen action in the backcourt the previous night for the Los Angeles Lakers in their season-opening loss to the Houston Rockets at the Staples Center.

"Thirty-seven seconds," said Karl, referring to Coby's playing time. "I didn't even know he had been activated."

Karl was even happier after the game, a 120-103 victory over the rebuilding Sonics that, according to the excessively optimistic blogging prognostications of star forward Carmelo Anthony, leaves the Nuggets with 59 more wins to go. Karl himself has set 55 as a goal, one more than the 1987-88 Nuggets, who hold the franchise's record in the NBA. Other more objective prognosticators also see a team that can challenge for a top spot in the loaded Western Conference, one capable of even making the Finals.

To be blunt, I'm not sure I agree.

The optimism about the Nugs is based on several factors, two in particular: the continued maturation of Anthony, who by the end of last summer had changed the minds of almost everyone associated with USA Basketball who had doubted his commitment, game and maturity; and the return of power forward Kenyon Martin from microfracture surgery on his right knee that cost him all but two games of the 2006-07 season (he also had the same surgery on his left knee in May 2005). It was Martin who welcomed the home crowd with these words: "We hope to bring you our first championship." Bounding around the court, hanging on the basket and pumping up the noise, Martin has always been All-Pregame, no doubt about that.

In my view, though, the question marks outweigh the optimistic exclamation points for this team, which finished 45-37 last year. Here are a few:

• For all the growth in Anthony's game, the concomitant decline of Allen Iverson's must be considered. He's still terrific, still one of the 10 or so players in the league you'd pay to see. (That is, if you're not a freeloading sports writer.) But at age 32 after what seems like a lifetime spent hitting the deck, he has clearly lost a step, which in his case is a major loss as his game is predicated on quickness. And if he loses a step, his ability to get calls on his freewheeling forays to the basket will also go down. That's what happened on a number of occasions against Seattle when he failed to get a whistle.

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