Much of the credit for Denver's strong start goes to Chauncey Billups. George Karl wants some other guys to get noticed, too.

The Nuggets coach praised his frontcourt tandem of Kenyon Martin and Nene, who have allowed the team to overcome the offseason departures of Marcus Camby and Eduardo Najera.

"I think one of the fuzzy, good-feeling things about this team is Kenyon and Nene," Karl said. "We had four good big guys last year and we vacated, we gave two away for contractual purposes. And we still, I don't think we've lost much there."

Following microfracture surgeries on both knees, Martin's offensive numbers are far below where they were when he played for New Jersey earlier this decade. But he has fought back from the second procedure in 2006 and remains a rugged defender playing against the top power forwards in the Western Conference.

"He was good last year, he's better this year," Karl said. "And I think he's moved into an All-Defensive first team, All-Defensive type of defender."

Karl has special feelings for Nene, who went into the new year averaging career highs of 14.3 points and 7.8 rebounds while shooting an NBA-best 60.9 percent from the field.

The center from Brazil missed 37 games last season after a bout with testicular cancer. Karl is a prostate cancer survivor, and son Coby has had two cancer-related surgeries.

"I just admire the kid," George Karl said. "I know the cloudiness that comes into your life when you are diagnosed with cancer and you have to go through surgery and the kid has never, never given in to the dark side of what's going to happen or the negative part of what's going to happen. And I think we believed with him, but he's probably believed more than anybody that he was going to come back and be a player.

"In August I went to him and kind of explained some of the philosophy changes and we had a long discussion over dinner, and from that day forward he's been a pretty seriously committed guy. And I'm sure he's probably not going to make the All-Star team, but he's close to an All-Star player."

Ring the bell

NBA commissioner David Stern will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday with the national committee on U.S.-China relations.

Stern's morning trip downtown comes as part of a 30th anniversary celebration of U.S.-China diplomatic relations, which began Jan. 1, 1979.

Also scheduled to participate are former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; Zhang Yesue, China's ambassador to the U.N., and Peng Keyu, China's consul general.

The NBA enjoys great popularity in China, where it estimates 300 million people play basketball. The league formed NBA China about a year ago to oversee its business interests and perhaps to partner with the Chinese Basketball Association toward creating a new league, or strengthening the domestic one.

In 2004, the NBA became the first U.S. sports league to play games in China. The Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors played two exhibition games there in October.

Timing is everything

Kevin McHale didn't mind taking over as Minnesota's coach. He just didn't care for the timing.

"I would have preferred not to take over at that time, that's for sure," McHale said last week. "I would have preferred to take over in about five days, six days from now (for) some time to practice. But the owner asked me if I'd do it, so I did. And I'm just trying to get the guys to play hard and trying to get them slowly to get into a little bit of a different system, and it's hard."

McHale was reassigned from vice president of basketball operations to coach when the Timberwolves fired Randy Wittman on Dec. 8, right as Minnesota was about to hit a treacherous portion of its schedule.

The Wolves played Utah the next night in McHale's season debut, followed by Denver, San Antonio, the Lakers, Sacramento, Cleveland, Houston, and the Spurs again. Those opponents were winning at a .629 rate through Christmas, four of them were division leaders, and only the Kings were below .500.

But the quality of opponents wasn't necessarily the problem. The quantity was.

Only twice in that stretch did the Wolves have consecutive off days, limiting the amount of time they could practice. McHale said he only had four from the time he started through Christmas, adding "it's hard to reinforce stuff in the games."

"Anytime in the middle of the season, it's very difficult because practice time is limited and then I think half the time you confuse the kids more than help them adding stuff," McHale said of a coaching change. "And they're like shaking their heads and you're like, 'Oh boy.'

"Nothing's worse than a confused player. It's a game of reaction. You've got to do all your thinking in practice so when you play it's just a game of reaction. If you're thinking out there, you're very slow, and the guys that play the best don't think, they just react."

Sun and star

The race to ensure the Phoenix Suns a starter on their home court for the All-Star game narrowed a bit this week.

Carmelo Anthony trimmed Amare Stoudemire's lead for the second Western Conference forward spot to 18,228 votes when the third set of returns was unveiled Thursday. Stoudemire had a 24,339-vote advantage over Anthony, who was voted a starter for the first time last year, after the second update.

Stoudemire seems the only Phoenix player with a realistic chance of starting the Feb. 15 game. Shaquille O'Neal was running second among West centers, but trailed Yao Ming by 668,151 votes. Steve Nash was a distant sixth at the guard spot.




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