After watching the video of Melo's news conference I now believe I can attempt to break down what is going to happen with this Melo situation.
Video is here
http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_16186461
First of all, I would like to start with the video. Everyone has read the quotes and what he has said today, but you can't really judge how he's feeling unless you watch the interview for yourself. When I watched this video not only was I uncomfortable but Melo seemed it as did George Karl when he followed Melo. Melo's responses seemed script written, and not from the heart. He said all the right things, but did he mean them? I don't think so.
After shooting down the "Why do you want to be traded" questions with saying "I never asked or said anything about trades" later on a question was asked "so you don't want to be traded?" Melo was hesitant as if World Wide Wes didn't go over this question with him when they wrote the script of answers to say the other night. He smiled with an awkward delay and then said, "I never said anything about trade talk." The silence and smile says it all folks, he wants out of Denver.
With that being said, I see Melo staying in Denver on one and only one occasion and thats if the Nuggets are the 2010/11 NBA Champions. It doesn't matter if Denver makes it to game 7 of the Western Conference finals or game 7 of the NBA finals, if the Nuggets don't win it, he is gone. His excuse to leave via free agency is it has been 8 years with no championship, I need a change for myself and family. If Denver wins, I don't think there is any possible way of Melo leaving without his image being crushed and his possible secret of fame over rings being completely exposed.
Now, will Melo be a Nugget for the 2010/11 season? That's anyones guess. I wouldn't be surprised if he was traded and I wouldn't blame Ujiri for trading him either. Will he be traded? I'm not sure. It is a huge and difficult decision for Masai, Josh and Stan to make and to be quite honest, it's one I would not gamble on.
I couldn't make a strong prediction on the future of Melo and the Nuggets until I saw and heard what Melo had to say and with all that said, I still can't make a prediction. Sure, I could make a freeball guess, but an educated one? No. It all depends on what happens with the Nuggets this season unless a deal is done before the season starts. I do believe that if Melo is a Nugget after the first month of the NBA season, it will be very difficult to move him and the assets the Nuggets are going to bring in will be less than the ones they can get now.
I say this because this gives teams like Philly and NJ to see what AI can do this year after his good FIBA performance and what Favors can do in his first 20 games as an NBA player. These players could easily sway their respected organizations to keeping them after seeing what they can do after both having question marks going into the season. This also poses a problem for even the Knicks deal. If New York starts off great then New York could persue Melo even harder. If they start off sucking (which is my prediction) then they can just wait until next year and sign him while keeping all their players.
The future of Melo and the Nuggets, in my opinion, will either be settled in the next couple of weeks or after the Nuggets season comes to an end. It is tough to say but I think the chances of Melo staying a Nugget past 2011 are not good. I guess all us Nugget fans can do is watch what happens and hope the Nuggets hit the jackpot this year. Just remember Ujiri, when you hit the double 7's on a quarter credit machine sometimes it's smarter to cash out that $300 you just won with the $100 you put in instead of blowing $310 for nothing on the next 20 spins you make even though that tripple 7's peppers jackpot of 5 grand looks sooo nice.
If it was me I would take that $300 and walk out of the casino. It might not be 5 grand but it will get me a hell of a lot more than $0. So Masai, take Favors and the picks. That's all I have to say. Let me know what you guys think.
