His name means baby in Portuguese. I had to write a negative headline so you'd read. Worked didn't it! Didn't it...?

A few things on this big man and I'd love to get your comments on who is and what he has meant to this team and city.

Pros:

Aside from loving his goofy smile on the pregames for nationally televised games, I love his athleticism, size, and touch.

He is the most efficient scorer in the league and number 4 in PER (Howard, Horford, Duncan, Nene). When we feed him the ball, good things usually happen. Also, his wins above replacement is 8.5, just .5 game below Melo (if anyone has a better advanced statistician to use than Hollinger, I'd love to take a look)

Pass first. This will also be a con, but too many bigs become black holes down low when they get and force bad shots. AAA has hit many an open three in the corner off a pass out from Nene.

He wants to be here. In light of recently departed star, Nene actually wants to play, build, and live here in Denver. It has been fairly well documented that his wife is from Fort Collins/Loveland and loves it here.

He takes good shots: Kind of obvious, but I did here one guy complain on 104.3 that "anybody could shoot a high percentage if they only took high quality shots." Yeah, no ish Sherlock. That should never be a knock on the guy. He knows his game and plays within himself.

Finally, the center position is so weak in the NBA right now. Nene is of incredibly value to this team in the same way Roberto Alomar was as a second baseman. Not that either were the GREATEST players in the league, but to be a high performer on an under performing position brings a ton of value. That's why it would be incredible if Mozgov develops into a legit center and we can run him and Nene in the front court with Gallo.

Cons:

He's not a killer: I was so pumped to see him get a technical and almost kick Pierce in the face. He seems like the nicest guy in the league sometimes and forgets that he's a 6'10 man beast who is quicker than almost anybody else down low

Pass first: as mentioned above, all too often he gets to the rack only to look to kick it out to a shooter. Bro, you're at the rim, SEND IT IN, JEROME! I hope this had more to do with Melo's screaming at him and will go away once AD or Plastic Man starts screaming at him to dunk it.

Finger roll: the butterfly, huh uh, that's old, stop that crappy Finger Roll! (OK, the quad city DJ's reference was unnecessary, but I couldn't go George Gervin). I think we can all agree. Power it up, put it off the glass with two hands or dunk it. I'm a 5'10 white kid and I know the basics of post play.

Anybody else have any thoughts here?