November 25, 2008 10:34 PM

Nene, Martin fill Camby void

By Aaron J. Lopez

Darn media. What do we know?

In trading center Marcus Camby four months ago, the Nuggets gambled on Nene and Kenyon Martin to fill the void in the middle. As Denver prepares to play the Camby and the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday night, the reward has validated the risk.

Though the Nuggets rank lower overall in points-in-the-paint, team rebounding and blocked shots in the Postcambian Era, the dropoff has been negligible considering their 9-5 start to the season.

``You all made it a question,'' Martin reminded us knuckleheaded reporters this week. ``Guys here didn't make it an issue. We miss Marcus and the things he brought to the table, but we're professionals. We get paid to do a job. There was no question in our mind, no doubt in our mind, that we were going to do the job.''

Martin and Nene are averaging a combined 29 points and 14 rebounds per game to help offset the nine points and 13 rebounds they lost when Camby was jettisoned in a fiscally motivated move.

Watching from afar, Camby has been impressed with how the oft-injured Martin and Nene have protected the interior through the first month of the season.

``I'm glad to see it's all coming together for those guys because when I was there, I never really had the opportunity to play a lot of games with either one of those guys,'' Camby said. ``Now both those guys seem to be relatively healthy and they're having big, big years thus far.''

The operative words being ``thus far.''

It's one thing to stay healthy for four weeks. Quite another to stay healthy for six months.
Then again, we're the media. What do we know?

Posted by Aaron Lopez at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)