Karl praises Martin, Nene for upsurge

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 off-season 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.

“I don’t think we’ve lost much there.”

Following microfracture surgeries on both knees, Martin’s offensive numbers are far less than 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 Western Conference’s top power forwards.

“He was good last year, he’s better this year,” Karl said.

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.”

Billups might be, for the impact he’s made since the Nuggets acquired him in early November in the Allen Iverson trade – a deal that had Denver off to one of its best starts at 21-12 and in first place as the calendar changed.