Tag Archives: David Stern

December 14, 2019

Carl Scheer, 1936-2019

By Dave Krieger

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For nearly 20 years, the Denver Nuggets have been owned by one of the wealthiest families on the planet.

E. Stanley Kroenke, better known for owning Arsenal of the English Premier League and the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL, ranks No. 167 in the world with a net worth of $8.7 billion, according to Forbes. His wife, Ann Walton Kroenke, is No. 224, at $6.5 billion. Combined, they would rank No. 75, in a tie with Lukas Walton, who, like Ann Walton Kroenke, is an heir to the vast fortune of Walmart founder Sam Walton.

So it’s understandable if 21st-century Nuggets fans have little or no idea what it’s like to root for a pro basketball franchise hanging by a financial thread, owned collectively by a long list of moderately prosperous basketball fans organized by one of the great promoters of the sport’s early days as national entertainment.

Carl Scheer died Friday in Charlotte, N.C., one day short of his 83rd birthday. He had been battling dementia for several years.

I knew Scheer from my days covering the Nuggets and NBA for the Rocky Mountain News. We would jog together occasionally on the Cherry Creek Bike Path during his second, abbreviated stint as Nuggets general manager. He was the first person I knew to get an artificial hip. He was jogging again soon afterward.

His memory then was encyclopedic. We would debate endlessly the merits of various players. He would recount the circumstances around his many transactions as Nuggets GM in the 1970s, first in the old American Basketball Association, then in the NBA. Among them:

  • Outbidding the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks for David Thompson, the top pick in both drafts in 1975.
  • Later that same year, taking advantage of the Baltimore Claws’ inability to pay the Kentucky Colonels the $500,000 they owed in a deal for Dan Issel by trading Dave Robisch and $500,000 to the Claws to bring Issel to Denver.
  • Trading Bobby Jones for George McGinnis in August 1978.
  • Trading McGinnis for Alex English 18 months later. Mercurial head coach Larry Brown, Scheer explained, had demanded he trade McGinnis within days of his arrival.

By the time I got to know him, Scheer had been relegated to the business side, dubbed a marketing genius for his invention of the slam-dunk contest, unveiled at halftime of the final ABA All-Star Game, in Denver, in 1976. Thompson and Julius Erving put on a show that became legendary. The staid NBA would finally adopt the slam-dunk contest eight years later. Scheer and then-NBA commissioner David Stern were by then fast friends.

Scheer was a brilliant promoter, but it rankled him that nobody wanted to hear his player evaluations anymore, especially as the Nuggets devolved following the firing of his old friend Doug Moe as head coach. So he shared them with me and a few of the other media types who knew his back story. Soon after, he left Denver for the second time to return to Charlotte, where he had helped launch the expansion Hornets in 1988.

In 2005, Scheer returned to Denver for the NBA’s All Star Weekend, hosted by the newly prosperous Nuggets at their sparkling, five-year-old arena, the Pepsi Center. Carl’s old friend David Savitz, a longtime Denver attorney, invited me to lunch with the two of them. I was writing columns for the Rocky by then and I wrote one based on that lunch conversation that was published in the Rocky the Friday before the 2005 NBA All-Star Game:

Scheer persistence saved the Nuggets

Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 18, 2005

Maybe the last straw was Dean Smith calling him “the Bill Veeck of basketball.”

Obviously, the courtly Smith meant it kindly, based on the marketing genius of the slam-dunk contest.

But that single marketing invention, inspired though it might have been, is not really what Carl Scheer and his career have been all about.

“I think it was a compliment in many ways because Veeck did a lot of great things,” Scheer said over lunch Thursday. “I don’t know if I want to be remembered that way, but I took it in a positive way.”

It is somehow fitting that All-Star Weekend, which is all gimmickry and show, should overshadow the substance of Scheer’s career. But it’s not a bad idea, every now and then, to notice the substance, if only to remind us there still is such a thing.

There would be no All-Star Weekend in Denver if not for Carl Scheer. He saved pro basketball here. It’s that simple.

In the 1970s, this required duct tape and string. There was no billionaire owner, no Pepsi Center, no scouting staff, no money.

Look up the list of Nuggets owners. Between all the individual names, you’ll find something called “Nuggets Management, Inc.” This was Scheer’s most remarkable invention.

“When I came to Denver in 1974, the plan was to try to sell the team to local people,” he said. “After the first year, we were able to do that. The price of a unit was $17,500, and you had to buy two units. So 35 guys put in $35,000 apiece to buy in. That’s how we bought the team. We had a little operating capital, but not much.”

So little they couldn’t afford scouts. Fortunately, coach Larry Brown and his assistant, Doug Moe, were used to that. They honed their approach with the ABA’s Carolina Cougars.

“When Larry took over coaching in Carolina, he appointed Doug as assistant coach/head scout,” Scheer recalled. “This was 1970. I call it B.C. — before computers. I remember this so vividly. Larry said to Doug, ‘We’re starting the season. I want you to go scout Virginia.’ The Squires, they had Julius Erving. He said, ‘I want you to come back with a scouting report.’ Doug said OK.

“He goes to Virginia, he comes back, and he gives Larry this little yellow piece of paper. It wasn’t more than 2 inches long. Larry opens it up and it says, ‘Larry, if we can’t beat these guys, you stink. Doug.’ That was our scouting report.”

There were various times during Nuggets Management, Inc.’s seven-year run when it looked as if the franchise would not survive — first as the ABA tumbled toward extinction in 1976 and again in the early ’80s when two struggling franchises, Denver and Utah, considered merging.

In fact, Scheer believes the important thing about the 1976 ABA All-Star Game was not the first slam-dunk contest but the boost it gave Denver and the ABA in merger talks with the NBA.

“You know, in life you make plans and sometimes they go awry and sometimes they work,” Scheer said. “This was the one time in my life that everything just fit. It was a perfect night.

“It allowed us to flex our muscles and I think it had a great deal to do with the NBA deciding ultimately to take four teams in, one of which was Denver. I don’t think they would have thought of Denver as a major-league city for basketball without that.”

With the franchise again struggling to make payroll in the early ’80s and Nuggets Management, Inc. finally tapped out, Scheer went to the old Stapleton International Airport to meet Red McCombs, knowing that saving the franchise would probably cost him the job he loved, running an NBA franchise.

McCombs, Scheer knew, would ultimately want his own management team. In an act that seems stunning in its selflessness by today’s standards, Scheer stabilized the franchise by putting it in strong hands — and wrote his own pink slip in the process.

There is a special joy for Scheer now, coming back at 68, to see basketball so strong in the place where he kept it alive for so long.

“Playing a part in the changing complexion of sports in Denver was really important to me,” he said. “I’m not putting myself up as any big deal, but we were there when the face of Denver changed from a cowtown that believed in football and only football to a town that became cosmopolitan and ultimately became major league.

“I’ll tell you this: If the Nuggets win a championship someday, try keeping me out of that Pepsi Center. I’ll be there.”

The dunk contest was a fun idea, but it was only one part of a much larger, longer campaign to ensure pro basketball’s survival in Denver. That is Scheer’s legacy, and few people in Denver sports history can match it.

 

Scheer did not live long enough to see the Nuggets win a championship. With any luck, they’ll remember him when they do.

A memorial service is scheduled for Wednesday in Charlotte.

-30-

 

 

The trophy presented to Carl Scheer when he was honored by the Nuggets in January 2014.
From left, Al Albert, Carl Scheer, David Savitz and your correspondent in 2014.

 

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November 30, 2012

Pop’s protest began in Denver

By Dave Krieger

Four years ago, I was with commissioner David Stern, but he wasn’t with me.

Now that he is, I’m no longer with him.

Back then, on Feb. 3, 2009, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich brought his team to Denver on a red-eye out of Oakland, Calif., for the second of back-to-back games, a circumstance that infuriates coaches throughout the National Basketball Association.

Between the late departure, the time change and the length of the flight, the traveling team in this situation seldom gets to bed in Denver before the sun comes up. Before Miami squeezed out a win a couple of weeks ago, visitors were 2-26 in such games dating back roughly to Pop’s 2009 protest, when he left his top stars — Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Michael Finley — on the bench throughout the game in Denver.

The circumstance that night was exacerbated by the fact that the game in Oakland had gone to overtime, meaning the Spurs departed even later than usual and their stars played even more minutes than usual — 43 for Parker, 42 for Duncan, 36 for Finley, 35 for Ginobili.

It was also the second contest of an eight-game, cross-country road trip, which might have made Popovich even more ornery than usual, if that’s possible.

The Nuggets beat the Spurs bench (just barely, 104-96). In the late, lamented Rocky Mountain News, I railed against Pop’s decision on behalf of Denver fans who had shelled out big money to see the Spurs stars only to be treated to a development league cast instead. It was enough of an issue, even then, that Sports Business Daily reviewed the available commentary.

From the fan’s point of view, this argument is still valid, and it’s purportedly the one Papa Dave, the commissioner, has quite suddenly adopted. NBA ticket prices are ridiculous as it is; the value proposition only works if fans get to see the stars they’ve paid to see.

At the time, Papa Dave did nothing. As recently as last season, NBA brass said it would be a mistake to infringe on a coach’s right to deploy his players as he saw fit. After all, coaches routinely rest star players in the spring as the playoffs approach.

Evidently, in his waning days as commissioner — Stern plans to retire Feb. 1, 2014 after 30 years on the job — it suddenly occurred to Papa Dave that this is, in effect, a rebellion against his gravy train. Everyone in the association knows it plays too many regular season games too close together. Players are much more likely to get hurt when they’re tired, and certain machinations of the schedule — four games in five nights, for example — make it almost inevitable that players will be tired.

But this is what fuels a money-making machine that Stern estimates will generate $5 billion this season. Alone among coaches, Popovich is willing to stand up on behalf of his players and call out toxic scheduling in a highly visible way.

In the latest instance, he didn’t merely hold his stars out of the game, he sent them home. Duncan, Ginobili, Parker and Danny Green were on a commercial flight to San Antonio before the Spurs and Heat tipped off in a nationally-televised game from Miami. It was the Spurs’ fourth game in five nights at the end of a six-game road trip.

Pop’s ploy could not have been entirely unexpected. He has done this on a semi-regular basis since that protest in Denver four years ago. He held his big three out of three games last season, including a game in Utah in which Duncan, Ginobili and Parker were not present.

For some reason, Stern chose this instance to change the association’s position. He issued this statement before the game:

“This was an unacceptable decision by the San Antonio Spurs and substantial sanctions will be forthcoming.”

Keep in mind that Stern’s heir apparent, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, said this just last April:

“The strategic resting of particular players on particular nights is within the discretion of the teams. And Gregg Popovich in particular is probably the last coach that I would second-guess.”

True, last season’s schedule was even more cramped than usual because of the lockout that delayed it, but this Popovich tactic goes back well beyond that and it never prompted league action before.

“If I was taking my 6-year-old son or daughter to the game, I would want them to see everybody, and if they weren’t there, I’d be disappointed,” Popovich acknowledged before Thursday’s game. “So I understand that perspective. Hopefully, people in that position will understand my perspective. My priority is the basketball team and what is best for it.”

The subtext may be what bothers Stern more than the offense to fans at a handful of games. Each time he holds out his headliners, Popovich is signaling his disdain for toxic scheduling. In truth, it is this scheduling, not Pop’s response to it, that undermines the integrity of NBA competition.

Let’s face it: The NBA regular season means next to nothing. It is almost entirely for the purpose of generating cash. Every decent team (16 out of 30) makes the playoffs, which is when the actual competition for championships begins. That’s still five months away.

What Stern is basically saying is, “How dare you interfere with our raking in the cash!”

What Pop is basically saying is, “How dare you interfere with my pursuit of a championship!”

Duncan is now 36. Ginobili is 35. Even Parker is now 30. If Popovich and the Spurs have any hope of winning a fifth NBA title before this great combination is finished, they must allocate their time on the floor wisely. Truth is, Pop could sit them for the rest of the season and San Antonio would still qualify for the playoffs.

There are those who say he should rest them one at a time so as to be less obvious about it. But the truth is that certain games pose the greatest danger because the schedule makes it inevitable a team’s big-minute players will be exhausted for those games. Popovich does not want to risk any of his main guys in those circumstances.

So I’ve come around to Pop’s point of view. I get that it’s unfortunate for the fans who buy tickets to those particular games, but that’s on the association for squeezing every dollar from them that it can.

The issue is indeed the integrity of competition, but it’s not the small picture of a single night. It’s the big picture of the integrity of NBA competition as a whole. Coaches must be able to deploy their players in the best long-term interests of their championship aspirations.

Pop is making a statement not just about rest and recovery here. He’s making a statement about the integrity of the game. And he’s right.

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May 13, 2012

NBA put its thumb on the scale for the Lakers

By Dave Krieger

From the beginning, it was a strange suspension.

For one thing, former players who often take players’ side in these things were surprised it wasn’t longer.

“I think he deserved more . . . maybe ten games,” said TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal.

For another, the number was an odd one, and not just in retrospect. When NBA commissioner David Stern announced on April 24 that Metta World Peace, formerly known as Ron Artest, would serve a seven-game suspension for a vicious elbow to the head of Oklahoma City’s James Harden, the Lakers had one regular-season game remaining. You didn’t have to be Albert Einstein to do the math.

“I knew it was going to be the first round of the playoffs,” TNT’s Charles Barkley said that night. “I don’t think that’s a fair or unfair suspension. If it was ten games, that would’ve been fair. I knew it was going to be between five and ten, but I’m surprised they didn’t make it just the first round of the playoffs because he could come back for a Game 7.”

My memory is by no means comprehensive, but I’ve been covering the NBA since 1988 and cannot remember a previous instance when a disciplinary edict from the league office suddenly injected a significant player into a playoff series that was even through six games.

And make no mistake: Artest’s return Saturday night tipped the balance of this first-round series the Lakers’ way. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to his coach.

“We all played well, but I’d be remiss if I did not talk about Metta,” Mike Brown said after the Lakers’ 96-87 victory dashed the Nuggets’ hopes of a first-round upset.

“He was huge tonight. We put him on (Danilo) Gallinari, we put him on Andre Miller, we put him back on Gallinari, we put him back on Andre Miller, and his presence helped out a lot. I didn’t realize that Andre Miller and Gallinari were a combined 2-for-19.

“He’s long, he’s physical. He knows how to play different positions defensively, whether it’s the pick-and-roll, post-up, pin-down game. But he made some plays tonight. He went in for a steal or something like that, he was out of position, and then he sunk back into the paint and tipped the ball away. I mean, he made plays tonight that won’t show up in the stat sheet that were absolutely freaking amazing for us defensively. Just his presence alone helped us out. And that’s what we missed the first six games.

“Having said that, you’ve got to give our guys credit because they stepped up and found a way to win those games without him. But he was monstrous for us tonight. Monstrous, on both ends of the floor.”

Monstrous. Interesting choice of words. Imagine how history might have changed if Stern had done what Barkley and many others expected, ruling Artest out for the first round of the playoffs. The Nuggets had won Games 5 and 6. The momentum seemed to be flowing their way.

Even without Brown’s testimony, Artest’s influence on the outcome of Game 7 was unmistakeable. In the forty-three minutes, forty-one seconds he played, the Lakers beat the Nuggets by eighteen points, meaning that in the four minutes, nineteen seconds he didn’t play, the Nuggets won by nine. Artest’s plus 18 was the best plus/minus number for any player on either team.

So the question demands to be asked: Did Stern purposely make the suspension seven games, not the first round of the playoffs, in order to give one of the league’s marquee teams, in one of its largest television markets, an insurance policy in case it was forced to a critical Game 7 in the first round?

Barkley wasn’t the only one who noticed the subtle difference between a seven-game punishment with one regular-season game remaining and simply ruling Artest out of the first round, however long it lasted. About ninety minutes before Game 7, Nuggets coach George Karl was asked whether the suspension that allowed Artest to jump into the series at its most critical moment was appropriate.

“I don’t know what the appropriate one is, but I just don’t understand seven,” Karl said. “Why seven? Why not the end of the series? Why seven? It really feels uncomfortable in the last thirty-six hours, twenty-four hours. We’ve spent so much time on ‘what if.’ What are they going to do? I’m not sure they know what they’re going to do with him. I know we’re going to be the reactor, which is something I’m not thinking is necessarily making me happy right now.”

For those who tend toward conspiracy theories, the officiating in the series will provide more encouragement. And frankly, the complaints are difficult to refute. The Nuggets led the NBA in free throw attempts during the regular season at 26.7 per game. The Lakers ranked ninth at 24.1.

In their playoff series, it was the Lakers who led in free throw attempts. They got 158 in seven games, or 22.6 per. The Nuggets got 142, or 20.3. That put the Lakers 1.5 below their season average; the Nuggets were 6.4 below theirs. That’s a reduction in Nuggets free throw attempts of nearly 24 percent from regular season to playoffs.

Is this because the Nuggets suddenly got less aggressive against the Lakers? Not at all. In fact, there was a strange pattern to the free throw attempts. Through the first three games, the Nuggets led, as their reliance on penetration suggested they would. They had 72 free throw attempts through three games, or 24 per game.

From there, the foul shots awarded to Denver suddenly fell precipitously. They got 70 in the final four games, an average of just 17.5, or a remarkable 9.2 fewer than their regular season average. The Lakers, by contrast, got 61 through the first three, or 20.3 per, and then 97 in the final four, an average of 24.3, which was slightly greater than their regular season average.

This difference was most noticeable in the final two games of the series, when the Lakers were awarded 53 free throws to the Nuggets’ 31. That’s an amazing differential considering the two teams split these games and the Nuggets’ aggressive style produced the most foul shots in the association during the regular season.

Karl tried not to dwell on it, but following Game 7, when the Nuggets shot just 14 free throws to the Lakers’ 23, he seemed clearly exasperated.

“The game was so physical,” he said. “I mean, it was so, bang, push, shove, grab, hold, that I think their size won over our speed.”

Do you really have to be a conspiracy nut to observe that the statistics suggest the league’s representatives on the floor tilted increasingly toward the Lakers as the series went along?

Maybe so. Call me a homer if you like. I’ve never been fond of reflexive complaints about bias in officiating. I tend to believe incompetence is a more likely explanation than conspiracy for poor officiating. In fact, I used to publish an annual list of the NBA’s ten worst referees — alongside the ten best — in the Rocky Mountain News.

But among the factors that contribute to bad officiating in the NBA is the tendency to favor stars — the Lakers have three; the Nuggets, none — as well as a subconscious tendency to favor historically successful teams over historically unsuccessful ones. You don’t have to believe in an explicit conspiracy to believe that referees subconsciously favored the Lakers, and that this tendency increased as the series went along.

Call it sour grapes if you like. I know Lakers fans will. But when you combine the strange term of Artest’s suspension with the inexplicable turnaround in the pattern of foul calls, I’m telling you, there are folks in Denver who will be wondering what happened here for quite some time.

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