Chauncey Billups leading the Denver Nuggets into the Western Conference Finals is an accomplishment for a franchise that has not advanced this far since 1985.
What makes it even more of an accomplishment is that this is the 7th consecutive Conference Finals that Billups will be participating in - making him arguably the most consistent winner in professional sports during his era.
Tom Friend wrote a good piece in ESPN - Outside the Lines on Billups, who remarkably has been dubbed 'the Disposable Superstar' by Friend - Billups mid-season move to Denver is his 6th different team he has played for.
DENVER -- One of Chauncey Billups' ex-teammates -- and there are about a hundred of them -- has his nose pressed against a TV set. The Denver Nuggets have just called time, in the middle of a tight playoff game, and the ex-teammate can't help but notice Chauncey rounding up all the players, all the misfits and flakes, and poking a finger in their chests.
If only these Nuggets understood the history behind this -- because there are pieces of Chauncey Billups strewn all over the league. He might have just rescued George Karl's job and Carmelo Anthony's résumé, but don't be fooled: Billups was once a mystery himself. His eyes are wiser now and his scars are healed, but no elite player in these NBA playoffs has been kicked to the curb as often as he has. None spent their first five seasons on six different teams. None has suited up for 10 different coaches. None has been forced to spend a 12th NBA season revalidating himself.
In a league obsessed with LeBron, Kobe and D-Wade, Chauncey might actually be the one to emulate -- a sturdy playmaker who, mid-career, asked to be taught how to make plays. But now the journey ends where it began, a mile above sea level, with Chauncey teaching his own mercurial team how to pay attention to detail. It's why a zoo of an arena chants "MVP, MVP" in his direction. And it's why his former teammate from Minnesota, a friend he used to call "Unc," wishes he could jump through that TV screen, into that huddle … and tell the Nuggets the whole story. The whole story of "Smooth."
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