The ghost of an empty Nuggets stadium to come
Christian Petersen
A half-filled arena and a scattering of depressed fans watching a bumbling display of basketball—this could be the Denver Nuggets in a few years. With the Nuggets falling flat on their faces in the first round of the NBA playoffs, it certainly seems plausible, and I caught a glimpse of that future last month.
Right as the NBA regular season was winding down, I took in a Minnesota Timberwolves game at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Having not been to a basketball game in a city other than Denver, I was looking forward to comparing the fan experience between here and there. What I found was a brutal cautionary tale of a franchise in decline that no amount of T-shirts shot from a cannon could alleviate.
The Target Center is a nice building, wedged right in downtown Minneapolis. It was built in 1990, and the box office looks like a futuristic terminal. On this night, the lowly T-Wolves took on the Golden State Warriors in a clash of bottom-feeding, clown ball (granted this wasn’t a marquee game to attend). There were so few people walking around the upper part of the stadium that as I walked to my seat about five minutes before tip-off, I didn’t see anyone in the hallway for a good minute and a half. It was so quiet in the arena—aside from the promotion crew’s constant cajoling and launching of T-shirts—that it was as if the T-Wolves fans had their life force sucked out of them by years of bad basketball, leaving unsmiling husks in their place.
Earlier in the night I had grabbed some food at an Irish bar near the stadium, and the bartender had commented to me that if the T-Wolves don’t soon pick up another player like Kevin Garnett (traded to Boston in 2007) that he didn’t think the team would be around for much longer. Later, I overheard some depressed fans bemoaning the departure as well. Sad pining for a player that left three years prior is never something you want to hear from the fan base; nor do you want to witness a mildly enthusiastic ovation for marginal players like Darko Milicic. Both happened at the game, and if that’s not a testimony that Minnesota fans have given up all hope, then the fact that the Timberwolves dancers got a bigger round of applause than any of the players should be.
I’m not being overly dramatic by saying the Nuggets are in trouble. Getting bounced in the first round by the Utah Jazz is not only shameful for a team predicted to make a run at the championship, but it also signals that some serious changes are in store. Chauncey Billups is showing his age, Carmelo Anthony is frustrated and may want out, and J.R. Smith should get a realtor on the phone pronto. If the same Nuggets team you watched stumble down the stretch is around next season, it could spell end times. I’ve seen one possible future, Nuggets fans, and if the team doesn’t get things right soon, it may just become a reality. Free T-shirt anyone? Anyone?
