yeah, yeah, he's not a Knick, but this is what they will miss:

NUGGET UPRISING

My 19 year old can dunk on your 19 year old.

And vice versa.

The Nuggets and Bulls went at it Tuesday at the Rocky Mountain Revue, featuring last year's 19-year-old sensations Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler matched up against this year's 19-year-old sensations Nikoloz Tskitishvili and Nene Hilario, in his American debut.

That's 28 feet between them and a whole lotta blacktop pride.

For the record, Eddy started it.

Curry dunked on Hilario in the first quarter. Hilario dunked on Curry in the second. To be exact, Nugget power forward Chris Andersen dunked to open the game but he doesn't count seeing as he's dunking on everyone at will these days.

Eventually, 6-foot-8 Donnell Harvey of Denver dunked on 7-foot-1, 290-pound Dalibor Bagaric before 6-foot-5 Trenton Hassell of Chicago flushed on 6-foot-11, 255-pound Peter Cornell.

And let's remind everyone before we go any further. Denver won a total of 27 games last season. Chicago won 21. There were seven teams in the NBA who more games than both of those trainwrecks combined. Something had to give.

Jay Williams was on the floor. So was Jamaal Crawford, Curry and Chandler for Chicago. On the other end, Tskitishvili and Hilario had already replaced Raef LaFrentz and Antonio McDyess. Kenny Satterfield was spelling Nick Van Exel. Add in two Fab Fivers (Jalen Rose for the Bulls and Juwan Howard for the Nugs) and we could have counted this game in next year's standings.

By the time Crawford fed Lonny Baxter for yet another dunk right before the half, you would have thought they already had . . . Denver 42, Chicago 40.

The fans were taunting the players, the players the refs, the refs the coaches and back. Sixty-nine total fouls by the end. Twenty-four of them by our 19-year-old quartet. A 40-minute game stretching into 1 hour and 50 minutes with the bleachers screaming for more. Summer, summer, summertime.

Then guess who started the second half with another dunk . . . Andersen.

Chandler then went monkey bar on a Curry shot that hit the heel of the rim and shot straight up. That may have been the only bucket he hit all day but it was the only one you're probably going to remember. Until . . .

A couple of Nuggets and Bulls scrapped over a loose ball at half court. Junior Harrington tipped it downcourt to Harvey for another slam. A Francisco Elson dunk made it 59-58 before Carlos Arroyo tossed up an alley oop from 20-feet out.

Andersen jumped from the front of the rim.

Hilario jumped from the side.

Four hands, one ball, 10 feet up in the air. You do the math. A 100 frenzied fans ready to spill onto the court and start dancing Brazilian style. Andersen has gone cult. Get his bobblehead ready. Nene grinned and waved those long of arms, looking as though he could tie his shoes without ever bending over. He's bigger than advertised. Stronger. And a whole lot ****ier. Seemed more than willing to strap his interpreter on his back if it meant he'd get more offensive sets called for him. He would finish with six points on 3 of 6 shooting to go along with two boards and six personals in 16 minutes of NBA debut.

The smoke cleared in time for Satterfield to loft one more up to Harvey, who went reverse alley for the final dunk of the game, 87-69, and bragging rights throughout sixth period.

In the end, hustle beat hype and the much more heralded Bulls were humbled by the Nuggets, who polished their Revue record to 3-0. They meet the Suns and 19-year-old Amare Stoudemire Thursday at noon (MST) on ESPN in a battle of the only two undefeated teams in the league.

"Summer league is summer league," said Denver assistant coach Jarinn Akana. "We understand that we're a very young team and it's going to be tough at times. We're going to make a lot of mistakes. The good thing is that these guys are full of enthusiasm, they work hard and listen. But make no mistake about it. We're going to take our lumps this year."

But not before handing one out today.

"We'll see them again," said Akana.

Use you imagination: We trade sprewell & 2nd rd pick to l.a. for odom. Then kt & ward for van exel.::::: The east would easily be ours with::: c=nene pf=camby sf=odom sg=houston pg-van exel !!!

Posted by fishmike:

whatever...if you want to know how great young superstars play watch Memphis. My friend has a dish and for some reason (I hope besides the fact that he's a short pot smoking white boy) he love Jason Williams, so I see some of those Grizz games. Pau Gasol is lost 80% of the time. Stromile Swift (2nd pick overall) is lost. You see highlights on ESPN and think "we need some of those guys" I see 23-59. Hops alone doesnt do it, neither do highlights. Even Shaq had to learn to play before he could take his team to the next level. Its a good thing the Knicks got Denver's second round pick, as they will no doubt have the worst record it could be a high pick for us. I am sorry your upset about adding all star bigmen in their prime. As for the trade why not trade Spree for Duncan? Then we have our center of the future...

it'd be money for us to get odom. 3-way:

odom to ny
houston to cavs
miller to cavs
keyon dooling to cavs

Posted by BigSm00th:

The Cavs don't want Miller because they don't want to pay him the maximum extension. So why would they want Houston, who gets paid the maximum.

true.

As for the trade why not trade Spree for Duncan? Then we have our center of the future...

Why would the Spurs do this trade?

Posted by K9:

Use you imagination: We trade sprewell & 2nd rd pick to l.a. for odom. Then kt & ward for van exel.::::: The east would easily be ours with::: c=nene pf=camby sf=odom sg=houston pg-van exel !!!

you need some sleep, my friend. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

IMO this deal was a slam dunk!!!

True. Unless. I'm almost afraid to say it but...unless this the "break-out" year for Camby.