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Kiszla: Stan's nod needed for a trade[/h1]
By Mark Kiszla
The Denver Post
Posted: 01/14/2011 12:37:15 AM MST
Updated: 01/14/2011 01:21:09 AM MST
The most feared man in the house, the lone NBA power broker possessing the strength to set Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony free and a billionaire with so much game he could shut down Miami superstar LeBron James with a nasty work stoppage next season, slipped like a ghost into the arena.
Stan Kroenke is in charge here.
The blockbuster trade involving Anthony won't be completed until Kroenke offers his blessing. There can be no endgame for the prolonged Melodrama until Kroenke gives a wink and nod.
"It stinks playing under these conditions," Nuggets guard Chauncey Billups said Thursday night after Denver beat Miami 130-102.
But nobody, not agents who smirk while pulling strings throughout the NBA, not players who smugly believe they can hijack the traditional duties of a general manager and certainly not media members who unabashedly do the bidding for a league full of self-serving agendas, is going to rush Kroenke into a deal involving Anthony.
Kroenke has more money and guts than any of them.
You won't dare hear Anthony challenge Kroenke with an outspoken trade demand, because the Nuggets forward is no fool.
Although agents Leon Rose and William Wesley fancy themselves as NBA kingmakers, the lone way for any rep to get his cut of the $65 million contract extension that Anthony desires is to sing Kroenke's song.
Whether you're New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov or New York Knicks owner James Dolan, anybody who makes the mistake of thinking Kroenke is some hick from the sticks of Missouri will stumble from the negotiating table with 10-day bruises to the ego.
From the privacy of a luxury box in the Pepsi Center, with general manager Masai Ujiri whispering in his ear and only son Josh Kroenke at his right hand, the man who pulls as many strings as any person in American sports watched the Nuggets crush Miami.
In some sectors of cyberspace, the Nuggets have often been portrayed as country bumpkins who will somehow be used and abused by the Nets or Knicks, despite the fact both organizations have done a pretty fair job of defining NBA ineptitude in recent years.
The reason no team has closed a deal for Anthony is because no trade proposal has yet met with the approval of Kroenke.
The uncertainty preys on the Denver players. "I'm pretty sure they think about it. If they tell you that they don't, they'd be lying," said Anthony, who scored 21 points against the Heat. "I told them: Whatever happens is going to happen. As long as I'm here, I just want everybody to just play and have fun."
Ask anybody who has tried messing with Kroenke on the topic of money in years past, anyone from a young, cocky Gilbert Arenas to former Nuggets general manager Kiki Vandeweghe, and they could undoubtedly tell you how cold and unforgiving a nuclear winter feels.
There remains the possibility that Kroenke will push too hard, test the limits of the league's trade deadline, until Denver allows its best chance for a decent return on Anthony to slip away.
But don't bet on it.
Kroenke has pumped so much money into the Nuggets, paying the luxury tax and forgoing profits in the pursuit of the one championship he would most cherish, that he has told folks that this NBA team has been his own private charity case.
Well, Kroenke is no longer in a charitable mood. The Nuggets, including Anthony, Allen Iverson and Billups, fell short in their pursuit to bring Denver its first league championship. This franchise is stripping payroll and hunkering down for a labor war.
Just as he shut down the NHL in 2004, seeking a new financial order that made it harder for the Avalanche to dominate on the ice, you can bet Kroenke sees no reason to spend outrageously on a Nuggets team that might not play a game for a very long time next season.
And nothing, not Melo, not a general manager looking to pay pennies on a dollar for a superstar, not even the bright lights of New York City, is going to intimidate Kroenke.
This trade might not be done 100 percent on Kroenke's terms.
But it won't be done until he says it's time.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or [email protected]
