[I'm bringing back the And Now For Something Completely Different column idea, hopefully to run every Thursday afternoon. The focus each week will be on a different unconventional player, coach, team or strategy. Want to suggest a subject, or give me other feedback? Talk to me on Twitter or by e-mail.]

This week’s subject? Nene, of the Denver Nuggets. Interestingly enough, Nene wasn’t originally his name; that was Maybyner Rodney Hilário. He picked up the nickname “Nene” (baby in Portuguese) when he was a child, supposedly because he was the youngest in his family and in his group of friends. He started playing soccer growing up in Brazil, and apparently didn’t take up basketball until he was 14. Since then, he’s rose through the ranks, playing for the Brazilian national team in the 2001 Goodwill Games and playing club ball with CR Vasco da Gama. He was drafted seventh overall by the Knicks in 2002, but was immediately traded to Denver with Marcus Camby and Mark Jackson for Antonio McDyess, Frank Williams and a second-round pick.*

*As an aside, this pre-Isiah Thomas trade is an underrated element of the Knicks’ recent failures. Jackson was waived by the Nuggets immediately, and played two more years with limited minutes, but both Nene and Camby became solid players. Over his past couple of seasons, Nene has averaged about 14 points and eight rebounds per game in extremely efficient fashion. Camby played well for the Nuggets for six years, and has usually averaged close to 10 points and 11 rebounds per season. The Nuggets wound up giving him up for not much (just the opportunity to exchange second-round picks with the Clippers this year), but he still was a very useful player for them. By contrast, McDyess never hit double digits in points or rebounds after his trade to the Knicks, and didn’t even last a whole season there before becoming part of their massive trade for Stephon Marbury; we all know how well that one worked out. Meanwhile, Frank Williams lasted less than three years in the league; he was last seen in the D-League last year. The Knicks traded him and a slew of players for Jamal Crawford and Jerome Williams, neither of whom worked out that well either. The pick they got in the Nene trade turned into Maciej Lampe, who was also part of the Marbury trade and never did much in the NBA; he’s now playing in Russia. Thus, the Knicks wound up basically giving away Nene and Camby for a declining McDyess and a side of fries; amazing when you consider that Isiah wasn’t involved yet!

One of the most interesting things about Nene is how unassuming he is. He’s quietly been a solid team player and turned into a star without a lot of hype or bragging. Looking back in hindsight, it’s fascinating how few people liked the six-year $60 million deal he got from the Nuggets back in 2006; in retrospect, that’s looking like a pretty good move. (To be fair, he’d struggled with injuries before then, but he was still extremely effective when healthy). He’s a very athletic big man and an authentic team-first player; in fact, SLAM wrote an interesting piece on him a while back suggesting that he might pass too much.

Nene’s also one of the most efficient shooters in the league, hitting 58.6 per cent of his shots from the field this year. He’s also improved his free-throw shooting significantly, averaging over a .700 clip in the past two seasons after never reaching that plateau before. Yet, he still has an extremely low profile compared to many of the NBA’s other stars, and barely gets any attention even when people talk about the Nuggets; there’s far more written about the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups and J.R. Smith than their is about Nene. In fact, searching for “Nene” in Wikipedia doesn’t take you directly to his page, but rather to this disambiguation page, featuring such illustrious Nenes as a river in England, a Rolls-Royce jet engine, an Italian movie, a short-line railway and four different soccer players.

If Nene were a Monty Python character, he’d have to be Bicycle Repairman. He may look like a superman, but he goes about his business in such an unassuming way that everyone fails to notice. When trouble strikes, though, you can count on him to get the job done. Much like Mr. F.G. Superman, Nene isn’t even perhaps the most well-known person with his name, and you know what? I have a feeling he might not mind so much.