Don't mess with the Johan

The Nuggets had already played in Miami a month earlier. Why in the world was Johan back again when the team was getting ready to wrap up a road trip in Detroit?

“They thought I got cut,” Petro said.

Given his minimal playing time and ambiguous role on the team, Petro pretty much felt like someone in danger of being released. In need of a break, he bought a ticket from snowy Detroit to sunny Miami as the Nuggets took a day off after back-to-back games on the East Coast.

“Detroit was kind of when I quit on myself this year,” Petro said. “I went back home because I couldn’t do it anymore. I was tired of it. Mentally, it was hard to just be in a situation and not knowing what to do to get out of it.”

When Petro returned to Detroit, teammate Carmelo Anthony called him to his hotel room for a pep talk.

The message was cliché, but apropos: Keep your head up. Keep working. Stay ready.

“He was so depressed,” Anthony said. “I just let him know that everything would be all right. It was early in the season, so we were still trying to figure out what we wanted to do as a team with our rotation. It paid off. He’s our starting center now.”

Patience, perseverance and hard work were rewarded when Nuggets power forward Kenyon Martin was forced to the sideline by chronic patella tendinitis in his left knee. The French-born, Caribbean-raised Petro stepped into the starting lineup March 7, and the Nuggets proceeded to win six of seven games.

In his first seven starts, Petro averaged 5.7 points and 7.0 rebounds in 21.3 minutes. He also recorded two double-doubles and shot 67 percent from the field.

“Frenchy can play,” Nuggets shooting guard J.R. Smith said.” Everybody knows he can play. It’s just that he was sitting behind some great guys. I’m happy with his performance and I’m proud of him.”

When Petro – a former first-round draft pick by Seattle – arrived in a trade from Oklahoma City on Jan. 7, his new Denver teammates asked him if he had a nickname (with guys known primarily as Melo, Birdman, K-Mart and Ace, the Nuggets are big on nicknames).

Petro lacked a catchy moniker, so then-Nuggets guard Dahntay Jones dubbed him Frenchy. While the name might have offended some Paris-born people, Petro embraced the nickname, going so far as to have it embroidered on the back of his shoes.

“Why not?” he explains. “I can’t go around with ‘Big Sexy’ every day.”

Given his practice routine, Petro might want to steal Tim Duncan’s nickname of the Big Fundamental.

In the days before and after the All-Star break, he sat down with Nuggets assistant coach Jamahl Mosley and came up with a routine aimed at minimizing the mental peaks and valleys that Petro was wrestling with early in the season.

“I asked him to put together some things that he felt he needed to work on consistently,” Mosley said. “Every day, he would come in – whether it was before practice or after practice – and he would work on that routine.”

A mobile 7-footer, Petro worked on getting comfortable with the pick-and-pop – setting a screen and then rolling for on open jumper. He worked on his low-post game and finishing around the rim.

Mosley and the rest of the Nuggets coaching staff can’t help but smile when they see the work translate during a game.

“When I did talk to him before the All-Star break, it seemed like it was frustrating because he wasn’t playing but he knew that he was good enough to play,” Mosley said. “That’s why you like to see his spirits up, and he’s making a major contribution. For him, it meant more because he knew what he was capable of.”

Petro’s emergence hasn’t gone under the radar in the world of social networking. While teammates Anthony, Smith, Arron Afflalo and Ty Lawson battle for Twitter bragging rights, Petro puts them all to shame with more than 319,000 followers as of March 19.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” said Anthony, who had about 91,000 followers. “He’s a computer geek, so I’ve got to find out exactly how he did.”

Smith believes Petro benefits from Twitter followers in France – “He’s got a whole country behind him.” – but Petro said Twitter hasn’t caught on as quickly among the French. He playfully dismisses his teammates’ theories as the products of jealousy.

“It’s hard for Melo to understand that people just like me,” Petro said. “Melo doesn’t have even 100,000 (followers), so it’s still hard for him to admit I’m (popular) right now.”

If Petro can stay productive while helping the Nuggets make another playoff push, his Twitter numbers certainly will continue to soar.

And the next time he visits family in Miami, they won’t have to fear the worst.