Looking forward to a golden year from the Nuggets
The A.V. Club's weekly sports infection
As October’s icy tendrils advance into November, it’s absurd to think that the NBA season—which starts tomorrow night for your Denver Nuggets—will be wrapping up just around the time that shorts and flip-flips are acceptable daily wear again. The season lasts an astonishing eight months, including the playoffs and the crowning of a champion. I say this year’s kings will be the Nuggets.
Lest we forget, the home team last season was a few bad calls and coaching blunders away from ascending to its first ever NBA finals appearance. There’s a towering mountain of games (and some particularly good teams) to get through first, but I believe that the Nugs will be even better this year and, for the first time in the franchise’s history, will come out the other end of that eight-month death march with a golden trophy in hand. San Antonio Spurs and Kobe Bryant, be damned—this will be the Nuggets’ year.
Kobe’s tread is wearing thin: In the last two seasons, Bryant has been to the finals twice and also played in the summer Olympics. He may be young still (barely 31), but no other player in the NBA has played as much ball as he has in the last two years; he may just be too tired to get in the way.
Chauncey B-B-B-Billups: He has done nothing but win since being released from the losing ways of the old Denver Nuggets. And since his return last year, he’s brought a little of that magic back to the Mile High City, navigating the Nugs deep into the playoffs. Now Billups will have an entire season to work his wizardry knowing full well that he will be exalted as a god in Denver should he take the Nuggets even further this year.
Melo’s ascenscion: He has to break out sometime, right? We’ve been patiently waiting for Carmelo Anthony to take his rightful place alongside greats like Bryant and LeBron James. It hasn’t happened yet, but if the preseason was any indication, this is looking like the year. At the very least, he’s proven to be a much better draft choice than Darko Milicic, who was picked before Anthony and is currently working at a gas station in Serbia. Actually Darko’s playing for the woeful New York Knicks, so pumping gas might be a better option at this point.
This guy:
He might still be able to play, but Shaquille O’Neal is an aging lead guitarist vying for the spotlight on a team that already has a Jimmy Page. If the Nike puppet ad campaign told us anything, it’s that the basketball-viewing public demands that James and his Cleveland Cavaliers win it all this season. But teammate Shaq will be the egotistical, twittering turd in LeBron’s punchbowl, and for that, the Nuggets won’t even have to worry about meeting them in the finals.
Khloe Kardashian: When your claim to fame is that your sister made a sex-tape and your step-dad is the mannequin formerly known as Bruce Jenner, you need to take every opportunity that comes your way. Khloe, the far less compelling Kardashian sister (which is saying a lot), married Lakers power forward Lamar Odom in the offseason. If sister Kim’s effect on Saints running back Reggie Bush is any indication—it was a historic bust… I mean, he didn’t pan out—Odom’s reality-star wife will run his career into the ground, too. A non-factor Odom and a worn-out Bryant make for good timing for the Nuggets come next June.
And who will the Nuggets beat to win it all? The Boston Celtics. Get ready to break out those flip-flops for the victory parade.
