Chauncey Billups very well may be the face of Basketball in Denver, and with that title Billups will likely be asked to give his candid thoughts about the Denver Nuggets and their current situation. Billups was asked to do just that on Thursday of last week, when he appeared on FM 104.3 the Fan. The former Nuggets and Buffs great gave his opinion on what the Nuggets should do with Ty Lawson.
Do the Nuggets have to move on from Ty Lawson?
Yes. I think so. I mean, well, one, Ty, he has not demonstrated what you want from the leader of your team and a guy who they’ve handed the keys to. He’s not demonstrated the kind of leadership that you want. And you have a young kid named [Emmanuel] Mudiay coming in who I think has a chance to be a star in this league. Right now the best player on the team is Ty Lawson. As a young player in the league, you come in 19-20 years old, you oftentimes try to emulate some of the actions on the floor and off the floor of the best player because that’s one day what you want to be. So I think just from the standpoint of the welfare of Mudiay and the well-being and the growth of Mudiay, you have to get Ty Lawson and you have to move him along.
The full transcript of this interview is available via CBS Sports.
Billups wasn’t un-fair in his evaluation of Ty Lawson, he has been given every opportunity to become the face of the Nuggets and hasn’t only squandered the opportunity, but has continually put himself in bad positions with the team, front office and fans.
It is fair to assume the Nuggets wouldn’t want their new star prospect in Emmanuel Mudiay to learn any bad habits from the teams “Best player”. Although its not a certainty that all young players are that impressionable, Ty obviously didn’t learn anything about leadership from Billups when Chauncey was ahead of him on the Nuggets depth chart for almost three seasons.
Fast forward a couple of days and leave it to Ty to make a bad situation worse.
Lawson, the supposed leader of the Nuggets, goes to twitter to ask how his own team did in Summer league. Ty takes the time to respond to this fan with a “lol” in somewhat rightfully blaming the front office for the Nuggets woes. However, the Nuggets did win their first Summer League contest, so “bad performance” isn’t exactly true, but Ty wouldn’t know that.
In another reply to the same tweet, a fan confront’s Ty about the aforementioned comments from Billups. In a very Ty like manner, Lawson takes a shot at Mr. Big Shot himself.
I don’t think a NBA Finals MVP and five time All-Star needs to rip a slightly above average point guard to stay relevant.
What seems to be the never ending Ty Lawson saga, needs to reach its inevitable conclusion in Denver. With the draft and free agency in the rear view mirror, the Nuggets may have to succumb to not getting much back for Ty, other than un-loading a bad egg from the locker room.
