Jock Itch David Stern, the antidote to Nuggets Fever

The Nuggets and the Los Angeles Lakers will face off in the Western Conference Finals starting this week. The Nuggets have no chance at all of winning. It’s not because the Nuggets don't actually have the raw ability to beat the Lakers—I do think Denver at least has the potential to win the best of seven. The Nuggets have been playing transcendent basketball for the last two months, and from the way the Lakers looked in its recent seven-game series with Houston, I think the Nuggets have the Lakers right where they want them. But it won’t happen—because the outcome has already been determined.

NBA commissioner David Stern has sunk so much money into promoting a showdown between Laker superstar Kobe Bryant and Cleveland phenom LeBron James, there is no way in hell the Nuggets will be allowed to spoil that party. To have any other players go head-to-head in the finals would be utter catastrophe for Stern and the NBA. And they have no intention of letting that happen.

I noticed while watching the playoffs that every other commercial is the trite “Where Amazing Happens” campaign used to promote the NBA. Here’s a real one:

And here’s one of the many parodies featuring the Nuggets in that controversial game in Dallas on May 9, where an uncalled foul gave Carmelo Anthony the chance to sink a winning three-pointer in the final seconds:

Since the only official ads being shown feature either Kobe or LeBron, it tells you exactly who the league expects to be there at the end. They’ve even gone so far as to make a Nike commercial with puppet versions of the two talking shit to each other!

It’s no secret the NBA wants those two marquee players battling it out. It means high ratings and a well-stocked Brinks truck making a sizeable deposit into the league’s coffers. The Nuggets, long perceived as a bunch of tattooed ne’er-do-wells, are not Stern’s first choice to be featured in the NBA’s showcase event. And that’s ironic considering Bryant has more experience with the inside of a courtroom than the whole starting lineup of the Nuggets combined.

Here are a couple other things I noticed while watching the Nuggets incredible journey to their predetermined outcome in the NBA Western conference finals:

White people love The Birdman. Chris “Birdman” Andersen is the second coming of John Elway to all the white folks in the stands at Nuggets games. Andersen gets a bigger round of applause when he comes into a game than Anthony and Chauncey Billups combined. Birdman deserves the praise for his tough play, but isn’t it a bit fishy when the almost all-white audience gives so much love to a white player? It certainly isn’t because of his faux-hawk.

I also spied a lot of brand new Nuggets shirts at the game. The store at the Pepsi Center must be doing great business. At one point during a recent televised Nuggets game, the camera showed a middle-aged white guy (furiously cheering on Birdman’s entrance to the game, naturally) whose crease in his freshly bought shirt was clearly visible. I guess there’s always room on the bandwagon if you can afford the price of admission. Or an overpriced T-shirt.

So forget the swine flu. That was so two weeks ago. The new pandemic sweeping the city is Nuggets Fever, and it’s one malady you might want to catch before Stern washes his hands of our home team and slaps a big paper mask on any chance of the Nuggets making the NBA finals.