Denver getting better of big trade so far

The biggest trade of the NBA season is looking a bit lopsided so far.

Allen Iverson thought he was going to a championship contender when the Nuggets sent him to Detroit for Chauncey Billups. Six weeks after the blockbuster deal, it’s his former teammates in Denver who are enjoying a resurgence while his current team is struggling on many nights to fit him in.

With Billups at the helm, Denver is off to the best start in franchise history, spawning talk that the Nuggets could reach the conference championships and maybe challenge the Lakers for Western Conference supremacy.

The Pistons are playing around .500 ball, a team of aging veterans led by a rookie coach searching for answers now that he has The Answer. Most notably: Can a player of AI’s unique skill set fit into Detroit’s ultimate team concept?

The Nuggets unequivocally loved Iverson, who helped them win 50 games last season for the first time in 20 years despite playing with a broken finger on his shooting hand.

The Pistons absolutely adored Billups, who helped them win a title and led them to the conference finals six years in a row, the longest streak in the NBA since Magic Johnson’s Showtime Lakers of the 1980s.

But it was a deal neither team could resist.

“We had what they needed and they had what we needed,” Nuggets executive Mark Warkentien said.

The Nuggets not only coveted a pure point guard, but also some salary cap relief. The only person at the Pepsi Center who has a bigger smile than Coach George Karl these days is owner Stan Kroenke, whose front office has pulled off the unimaginable feat of shedding salary while getting better.

And what corporation wouldn’t love that in these trying economic times?

After trading Iverson and his $20.8-million salary to Detroit and buying out Antonio McDyess, who re-signed with the Pistons, Denver saved $6 million in salary and another $6 million in luxury tax.

Combined with the $20 million they saved in dumping center Marcus Camby’s contract on the Clippers in the summer, the Nuggets have trimmed $32 million off their books, putting them only about $500,000 over the luxury tax threshold of $71,150,000.

The Pistons, hoping to keep winning while retooling, desired an All-Star caliber player with an expiring contract so they could open up a ton of cap space -- as much as $22 million -- by season’s end. At the minimum, they’ll rent a superstar for this season while putting themselves in position to make a splash in the offseason.

Billups has enjoyed a wonderful homecoming in his hometown of Denver, where he’s hailed as a returning hero and a fabulous face for the franchise, getting as many accolades for his work in the community as for what he does on the court.

“I’ve never seen the spirit of a town rally around a player,” Karl said on ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” earlier this month. “Chauncey is not a spectacular player. He is not even a statistically special player. He is just, his presence, his character, his leadership, his locker room demeanor, all these little things that coaches love to talk about and drink beers over Chauncey has and now gives to us, and I think gives us an opportunity to be a great team.”

It’s those intangibles the Pistons are trying to replace.

Iverson has already had two embarrassing episodes in Detroit. After skipping practice on Thanksgiving, he was fined by the team and benched for the start of Detroit’s next game. Then, he was docked $25,000 by the league for making inappropriate comments toward a fan in a win at Charlotte last weekend.

Billups is the classic “play through” guard who makes everyone around him better, opening up space on the court for superstar Carmelo Anthony, who isn’t double-teamed as much anymore, and who can burn teams with a long-range jump shot himself if he has to.

“We gave up a great offensive scorer that can play the point for a great point guard who can score,” Karl said.

Iverson is the prototypical “play to” guard who stops the ball and looks for his shot, because that’s what he does best. On a team of selfless players who are accustomed to winning, he’s still finding ways to fit in with an offense that runs through Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince.

“I have never been on a team where you start five guys and the coach calls plays for all five guys,” Iverson said. “That says a lot about our offensive abilities, but it’s different for me and it’s just something that I have to get used to and something I am willing to get used to because I see the big picture.”

Detroit Coach Michael Curry recognizes it’s been a fitful adjustment for Iverson.

“Allen has always been No. 1 on his team. The only time he was 1A was when he was with Carmelo in Denver,” Curry said. “Allen has probably stood more on the weak side in 20 games here than he has his whole career. So that’s a little adjustment for him.”

It’s been a big adjustment for the rest of the Pistons too.

“When you’ve been THE scorer, you don’t become that guy by deferring all the time. They haven’t deferred a lot in their careers,” Curry said. “At the start of the season we asked Rip to defer some to Tayshaun because we needed Tayshaun to become more of a go-to guy and not just a complementary guy. And just as Rip was adjusting to that, we bring in the leading scorer in the NBA and say, ‘Now you’ve got to adjust even more to that.’ That’s a hard adjustment for guys that are used to scoring.”

The Nuggets, on the other hand, have had a seamless transition in soaring to the top of the power-packed Northwest Division.

Warkentien said the factor that’s lost on most observers is the terrific job Karl’s done in putting the pieces together, as he did earlier in his career coaching Gary Payton and Nate McMillan in Seattle.

“Pair George with a great point guard and good things happen,” Warkentien said. “We got a world-class jockey and a world-class horse, I’ll say that.”

Karl’s job is at once easier and more complex with Billups. He doesn’t have to call as many timeouts anymore, but he has vastly more plays he can call.

“I’ve never believed in micromanaging. I’m more of a coach that believes there’s more overcoaching than necessary. I think players, good players, need freedom to be who they can be,” Karl said. “Chauncey helps us accentuate our strengths. He knows that J.R. Smith hasn’t gotten a shot or Kenyon Martin needs a touch; he has a feel on the court that I have a little bit from the bench, but he has a better feel. I think he makes the team function.”

The offense’s efficiency is better, the execution of players out of timeouts is crisper, the ball distribution is better, the scoring is more balanced with Billups.

“The biggest thing right now is we feel if we play well, we can beat anybody,” Karl said.

“We’re not all the way out of the woods,” Billups cautioned recently. “But we’ve made a lot of strides in such a short time and the thing that’s really been impressive is that we haven’t had a lot of practice time. A lot of times, we’re practicing during games.”

So are the Pistons.

“We didn’t have the opportunity to play in training camp or anything like that, so now this is pretty much our training camp and we are learning on the fly,” Hamilton said.

Iverson said he’s starting to find his place in the Pistons’ lineup.

“I’m definitely getting comfortable because I understand my role, understand when it’s going to be time for me to try to dominate games and when it’s time for me to sit back and let somebody else do it,” he said. “But I think over time it is going to get better and better.”