Nene For 2009 Comeback Player of the Year

The Denver Nuggets’ Nene should be the NBA’s Comeback Player of the Year.

Ok, to be exact, the NBA doesn’t have a Comeback Player of the Year award anymore, just Most Improved Player.

The Most Improved Player should be one that had never made a splash in the league. He might have a good pass here, or a big shot there, but overall is a scrub. Basically, the winner should be a garbage time guy that has grown into a manageable player for coaches give real time to.

On the other hand, the Comeback Player of the Year should be one that has was once a good player, or even a star, that went through a major injury or illness and has fought back to play again.

Maybe the NBA thinks MIP should include Comeback Players. If so, it’s wrong.  We aren’t led to believe the Association doesn’t know what its awards mean, are we?

These have to be to distinct awards and the NBA needs both.

I know, basketball is the quintessential team game. If the players don’t play together, they will lose. One might argue individual awards are a cancer to the NBA because it encourages players to inflate their stats, and play selfishly.

That may be the case for the MVP award, however, not for the Comeback Player of the Year. When a player goes down, especially for an extended amount of time, it disrupts the team’s entire chemistry.

When the player comes back, and does well, so does the team. The Comeback Player of the Year can only be one whose team is also doing much better with him back.

Which player fits all these criteria the best? Nene.

Nene has had a career riddled with injuries, mostly on his knees, but has also shown much potential in his play.

In 2006-07 he played in 64 games and averaged 12.2 points and 7.0 rebounds a game. He seemed to be progressing.

Then last year, his production was greatly down averaging more rebounds (5.4) than points a game (5.3). After playing in only 16 games, Nene was diagnosed with testicular cancer in early 2008. He underwent surgery, chemotherapy, and lost weight.

People were questioning whether he would even live through it all, let alone play professional basketball again. While he played in the 2008 playoffs, he was rusty and underweight.

The beginning of the 2008-09 season was a different story. Nene came in back at his usual 260 pound weight and has played quicker, stronger, and better than he has ever in his young career.

Nene is currently leading the NBA in FG percentage at 61.4, and is averaging a career high in points, rebounds, and blocks at 14.7, 8.1, and 1.2 a game. Even his free throw percentage at 72.4 is a career best.

This great play even had some suggesting openly that he should have made the All-Star game.

To be fully honest, that some was really only one. It was the character, the one and only Scott Hastings of Altitude Sports and Entertainment, the Denver Nuggets’ home network. Regardless of how big a homer Hastings is, Nene truly is playing the best basketball of his life, all after coming back from a life-threatening illness.

Nene’s play this year is Lance Armstong-esk, at least in his first Tour de France after his bout with testicular cancer.

Nene didn’t get an All-Star invite, and won’t win Comeback Player of the Year either, mostly because it’s not an NBA award anymore. It will be seen whether or not he wins MIP, but I have a feeling he will be slighted on that too.

To play in Denver, is to play in a “small market”, where the spotlight seems to only have a 60 Watt bulb shining on the team.

The Nuggets are currently 37-17, a full game ahead of the San Antonio Spurs, at second in the Western Conference. Would you know so if you lived outside of Colorado? The answer is a sad but resounding, "No."

Past all that, the only thing Nuggets fans can hope for is that Nene continues to play at a high level that is comparable to any starting center in the NBA today.