Power in the Paint

Randy Holtz

It was heralded as a homecoming, this past November, with the return of Denver prodigal son Chauncey Billups to a team led by Nuggets' meal ticket Carmelo Anthony. It has become more of an awakening.

When Chauncey Billups was acquired from the Detroit Pistons in trade for Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony wasn't sure what it meant. But the more he thought about it, the more he understood his team had formed a more perfect union. "I was really surprised because they kept it real quiet,'' the complex young man they call Melo says. "You never heard any rumors about it or anything, and then it just happened. My initial thought was, "˜Hey, where was I when all this was going on?'''

And his second thought? Anthony flashes his wide, toothy, knowing grin. "My second thought was, "˜Now that we have Chauncey, we can take this thing to another level.'''

And another level "” at least at this still-nascent juncture of the NBA's marathon season "” has been achieved. Before Billups, the Nuggets were 1 and 3. It had become clear the on-court marriage of Anthony and Iverson would never produce the desired end result. They tried. They worked it as hard as they could. They liked and respected each other. They made the playoffs twice. But two mega-scorers proved to be one too many for a 94-by-40 rectangle of polished hardwood flooring.

The Melo-Iverson Nuggets were fun while they lasted. Their eye-candy quotient was off the charts. But the Melo-Billups Nuggets simply play better, smarter, more sound basketball. It wasn't a coincidence the Nuggets won 16 of their first 20 games under the unwavering hand of Billups. Before his arrival, the Nuggets weren't on the same page. Sometimes, they weren't even in the same library. But with the true point guard they long lacked and the steady backcourt presence they desperately needed, things are clicking. Billups is making the same impeccable, on-the-fly decisions he made in Detroit, where he was named most valuable player of the NBA Finals in 2004 after shepherding the Pistons to basketball's promised land.

Denver gained the potential to climb out of the well-worn rut of maddeningly up-and-down regular seasons before unraveling in the first round of the playoffs. In a news conference shortly after the trade that left him staggered and woozy about his Detroit departure but thrilled about returning to his hometown, one-time George Washington High School and University of Colorado phenom Billups said, "I'm going to give every single thing that I have to this team and to this organization, as I did in Detroit. I gave my heart and soul to that city and to that organization, and I intend on doing the exact same thing with this organization."

Denver's long-suffering fans have wasted no time climbing aboard the Billups Express, and the train is picking up steam.

Looking Like a Million Bucks

It's a sunny fall Saturday in South Denver, and the Nuggets are in the midst of an exceedingly brutal stretch of games. The night before last was Milwaukee at the Pepsi Center. Last night was the Lakers in Los Angeles. Tomorrow night, it's the Chicago Bulls in Denver. Then it's right back to L.A., followed by a trip home to meet the New Orleans Hornets. But neither Anthony nor Billups looks weary at the afternoon photo shoot. They look, in fact, fantastic, wearing well-tailored suits and bright, shiny bling.

Everyone approaches this wealthy-superstar thing a bit differently. Billups, now 32 and at the apex of his burgeoning pro career, walks in with his cousin. Twenty minutes later, Anthony, not yet 25, arrives with a posse that includes a manager, an assistant and a stylist. It's instructive to note Anthony has found far less trouble off the court in recent years than in his early days with the Nuggets. He has learned to surround himself with the right people, a development that relieves and soothes his bosses. Anthony is evolving past the look-at-me stage of his professional career.

"I was 19," Anthony says of his early travails, predictable ones given the confluence of his upbringing in a rough part of Baltimore and the teenage onslaught of ridiculous fame and fortune. "When you think about it, I've gone from a boy to a man in this town. I was 19, and I was out here by myself, playing in the NBA," he says shaking his now cornrow-free head. "People say they get what it's like to make money and play in the NBA when you're 19, but they don't. I mean, think of what most 19-year-olds are doing. Nobody can understand that unless they've been through it."

Billups' emergence as an NBA star was a more gradual process. During his first stint with the Nuggets, from 1998 to 2000, he was groping through the darkness for his role, still finding his way in the league. Coaches didn't know whether to make him a shooting guard or a ball-handling point. He shuffled from Boston to Toronto to Denver to Orlando to Minnesota. Then he was traded to Detroit, and Billups and the Pistons fit like a hand in a surgical glove.

During his years in Detroit, Billups emerged to become one of the NBA's most consistent and empowering point guards. His game "” honed originally at his home gym in East Denver, the Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center "” is elegant yet understated, smooth yet dynamic, effortless yet efficient. He is the kind of player who makes everyone around him better. He is the orchestra leader, the train's conductor, the team's sharp eyes and keen ears. "Having him on the court makes everything easier for me and for everybody else,'' Anthony says. "He comes from a championship atmosphere, which is where I want to be.''

Like Iverson and Anthony, Billups and the young superstar get along well. They share a big hug when they meet at the studio, just hours after playing in Los Angeles. Each knows he's more likely to thrive on the court with the other. Basketball, they know, is a two-faced sport. It cries out for individual artistic expression while, deep down, remaining the ultimate team game.

Before Billups' arrival, Anthony's game sometimes degenerated toward selfishness on the offensive end. This wasn't his fault. The Nuggets' offense usually revolved around Anthony or Iverson making a standout individual athletic play. Not anymore. A handful of games after Billups' homecoming, the Nuggets beat the Bulls as Denver's rough-and-tumble forward Kenyon Martin scored 26 points. Three other players "” Anthony, Billups and Nene "” each scored 21.

That's the beauty of an experienced and gifted point guard. Everybody gets in on the act. Defenses can't zero in on any one player or any one area of the court. All this is fine with Anthony, who as a sixth-year player is past treasuring 40-point nights. "For me, it's all about winning. It's not about scoring and stats. I know I can do that. I want to be a winner. I want to go deep into the playoffs, and I want to win an NBA championship."

Are the Nuggets approaching that level of success? Not yet, Anthony says, "but we're making progress. We're getting better. We're playing good team basketball. This is what we were looking for as an organization for a long time, and Chauncey's been a huge part of it. His resume speaks for itself. Everybody in the NBA knows what he can do for a team, what he did for Detroit. If you're a guy like me, anybody in my position wants to play with a great true point guard, and that's what we've got now with Chauncey. Basketball is in the guy's blood. He can do whatever he wants out on that court. He's that gifted. We just have to build this cast and keep going forward."

Separate Success

Billups and Anthony admired each other's work from afar, only as occasional opponents, until the past two summers, when both were on the U.S. national team preparing for the Beijing Olympics. Ultimately, Billups stayed home from Beijing for family reasons "” he and wife Piper have three young daughters "” while Anthony was a crucial contributor to America's impressive gold-medal performance in China.

"When you just play against a guy, you don't really know him,'' Anthony says. "When you're on the same team, you kind of find out what makes him tick. When we played together on those international teams, I got to know what a great guy Chauncey is. We have some things in common. We're both all about team, and we both like football and boxing. Chauncey's a good dude, and he feels the same way about me."

So though they're at different stages of their lives, there's common ground. Anthony and wife Alani have a 20-month-old son, Kiyan. Anthony spends far less time at clubs, preferring to dote over his wife and little boy and the newest light of his life, an upscale barbershop he recently opened in LoDo, Studio 15.

Together "” the cool, easygoing veteran and the excitable young star "” Billups and Anthony form the nucleus of what Nuggets fans anticipate will be special for years to come. Anthony, team honchos hope, is a lifetime Nugget. Billups has the rest of this season and two more remaining on the contract he signed with Detroit before last season.

"Denver's home, man, and home is everything," says Billups, as understated and sensible off the court as on. "This town raised me. It means everything to me. I was very happy in Detroit, and I'll never discount that. I had some really great times there. But home is home, and you can't replace that."

So here they are "” the franchise player and his steady-as-it-goes right-hand man "” exchanging quips and looking right at home. "For his height [6'8"] and his body type, Carmelo is a phenomenon,'' Billups says, "He has things you can't teach. Carmelo is going to be a great player for the next 10 years in this league. Everybody knows that. But he knows what matters most is winning and winning championships. That's important. When your best player is playing great and playing hard and buying into the team concept, that's when you can take that next step and become an elite team. All great things take time.''

Greatness has visited both of these talented and driven men. Billups has his NBA title. Anthony has his Olympic medal and the NCAA crown that put an unforgettable exclamation point on his only season at Syracuse. It's still early; they know. Odd, unforeseen things happen in professional sports. Injuries can impact a season. Hot shooting hands can go cold. It's January, and the Nuggets are only a third of the way through a grueling Western Conference schedule, but by the look of their first two months together, this Melo-Chauncey thing could turn out to be pure NBA gold.