Johan Petro

All I have to say is "I told you so." Like I expected, Johan "butterfingers" Petro was a bad trade and has contributed nothing this basketball team except for maybe a few extra jersey sales in the popular basketball country of France. If there not selling then maybe we should do what the Rockets did with Yao and design our jerseys to suit the local Paris fashion districts and culture a bit better. Maybe Stan Kroenke should get in contact with Dolce and Gabbana or Louis Vuitton and work out some sort of business deal to make "designer" jerseys. Actually nevermind, jersey's only sell if a player is actually good and Petro is not good. Pheww, the last thing I wanted to see was the Nuggets warming-up in tear-away capri pants and cashmere V-neck windbreakers.

Back to Petro. All he does is foul and turn the ball over. That's it. Hell, I’ll suit up and do that for the small price of locker room concessions and a few autographs. Petro leads the league in fouls per minute and averages a staggering 9.7 fouls per 36 minutes. That means he is barely capable of playing more than one half of basketball before fouling out. Cheikh Samb is better than Petro and we let him walk away for nothing. Everyone used the excuse "Petro has more game experience." Sure, Petro has PLAY-ED more NBA games then Samb but Samb is a better PLAY-ER. Games played doesn't mean anything when you just plain suck. Mark Warkentein, Nuggets VP of Operations, brought in Petro because we needed size (Petro being the only 7 footer on our roster) and a shot blocking/rebounding defensive big man to back up Nene and Birdman. Well, Petro has been none of that except for the fact that he's a 7 footer. Samb could have been all that plus more. Samb is 7 feet tall, younger, cheaper, and more productive. But yet again, the Nuggets front office fucked up and let Samb go in order to trade for a less productive Petro. Here are the stat lines for both players per 36 minutes in a Nuggets unifrom:

Johan Petro: 9.5 pts, 10.7 reb, 1.9 blks, 9.7 fouls

Cheikh Samb: 6 pts, 13.5 reb, 7.5 blks (No, this is not a typo), 2.1 fouls

Of course these stats are skewed because both players don't get signficant and consistent minutes but it's pretty clear who is the more productive player. Samb has a 7.5 (!) blocks to 2.1 foul ratio while Petro has a 1.9 blocks to 9.7 fouls ratio. I got laughed at when I said Samb was better then Petro and look who is laughing now. Sigh* Good luck Samb. You were a baller and I hope you eventually get good minutes with another team.

Back to my original point, WHY DID WE TRADE FOR THIS GUY??? Not only did we trade Chucky Atkins, who was a better PG then Carter and a 6th Man of the Year candidate 2 years ago, but we also gave Oklahoma City our 2009 first round pick for there 2nd round pick! Oklahoma must having jumped to joy when they heard that proposed to them. Here is how I picture the phone conversation going:

Sam Presti (Thunder VP of Basketball Operations and GM)"Wait... So your going to give me a better player AND a 1st round pick for our bad player and a 2nd??"

Mark Warkentein - "Yes, that isindeed what we are proposing."

Sam Presti - "Umm..... well, yeah. Of course I'll accept that. Why wouldn't I?"

Mark Warkentein -"Okay, deal. Thanks for all your cooperation Sam. We plan on doing businesss with you in the future."

Sam Presti - "Definitely! My phone line is ALWAYS open. Actually, you should probably go ahead and take my cell and put it on your speed dial."

Now I'm not a big fan of the French anyways and this certainly doesn't help their case but it sucks that of all the good French players in the league (Parker, Diaw, etc) we have the worst one. Why can't NBA GM's realize that European big men never pan out? You would think the Nuggets of all teams would have learned since they took Nikoloz Tskitishvilli over Amare Stoudamire in 2002 but apparently they felt that a "talent" like Petro, who couldn't even get minutes for the worse team in the league, was a player that would fill the much needed void. Now the Nuggets are limping into the playoffs with a weak front court that will get trampled by a team like the Lakers - especially if Andrew Bynum is back because Bynum will do stuff like this to Petro: