Nuggets searching for NBA gold at the end of the rainbows

DENVER (AP) —At times, the Denver Nuggets were easy – sometimes, too easy – tolove, with their rainbow uniforms, their rumpled grumposaurus of acoach and a defense-optional game plan that kept the scoreboardclicking into the 120s and 130s night after night.

At othertimes, loving them was more difficult, say, during those 50, 60 and70-loss seasons in the ’90s that installed a revolving door on thecoach’s office, or even during a decade-long resurgence in the2000s when they were led by a fickle superstar who ultimatelybailed for New York City.

And even now,with the Nuggets the top seed in the Western Conference, Denver hasyet to be mistaken for much beyond an NBA novelty. Such is life ina league driven by superstars who are on a first-name basis withfans — Magic, Michael, LeBron and Steph — but never by a team thatdoesn’t win titles, doesn’t even play for them, and doesn’t getmuch love even whenthetwo-maybe-three-time MVPis on its roster.

And yet, asany Denver fan of a certain age will tell you, there is somethingspecial about the Nuggets. While Denver may obsess over theBroncos, love the Avalanche and tolerate the Rockies, only one teamreally placed this dusty old cowtown on the map. That’s thebasketball franchise the NBA plucked from the dying ABA in 1976 toofficially turn Denver into not just a major-league city, but awinning one.

“There wasalways a sense of pride that that was the other professional sportsfranchise in town,” said Ron Zappolo, the longtime Denver sportsand news anchor, in recalling a long stretch when Denver’sbig-league teams were the Broncos and the Nuggets. “And they nevertook a back seat to too much. And, yeah, they weren’t champions,but they won a ton of games in the ’80s, and they made itentertaining for everybody.’”

Their welcometo the NBA came a year before the Broncos — still B-listers at bestand seven years from landing John Elway — made their first SuperBowl. Denver’s biggest sports star at that time: a gap-toothedundersized center with an awkward-but-effective head fake named DanIssel.

Issel, BobbyJones and the Skywalker, David Thompson, lost to the Blazers andBill Walton in the conference semifinals that season. Ever since,part of the price of loving the Nuggets is that the fun always endsearly. The Nuggets have been to the playoffs 29 times in their 47years in the league. They have never played in the NBA Finals.

The playerwho could change that is Nikola Jokic, a 6-foot-11 force of naturefrom Serbia who finished 0.2 assists short of averaging atriple-double this season – something only guards Russell Westbrookand Oscar Robertson have done.

Yet, thenational debate this season centers around whether the Lakers,Warriors or Denver’s next opponent, the Suns, will win the West.Those discussions feel more like a rite of passage than a trueinsult in Denver.

“I’ve beenhere since the ’70s, and there’s always been a national feelingthat what happens in Denver, it’s in the Rocky Mountain time zoneout there, it’s kind of quirky, it’s kind of crazy, but, ehhh,”Zappolo said.

By 1980, DougMoe had returned to Denver to take Larry Brown’s spot on thesideline. He, along with high-scoring Alex English and KikiVandeweghe, made the Nuggets eminently watchable. They averagedmore than 120 points a game for five straight seasons. They tradedin their ’70s logo — a gold-digging mountain man named Maxie Miner— for those multi-colored rainbow threads with the outline of theDenver skyline. Today, those are among America’s favorite throwbackunis.

Moe was worthwatching all by himself — a coach whose wry basketball brilliancewas on par with his need of a good dry cleaner for his sports coatsand a bar of soap for his mouth. Ten years into the gig, he poppedchampagne at the news conference on the day he was fired. He isstill the team’s most successful coach, with 432 wins.

What his teamcould never overcome was the unfortunate fate of sharing theWestern Conference with the Lakers. The best Denver team of thatera was the 1984-85 squad that fell 4-1 to Magic and Showtime inthe conference finals.

Moe’s firingled to the indignities of irrelevance that, it could be argued,have bled into today.

There were 12coaches over the next 14 years. Twice, Issel manned the bench. Thefirst time, Dikembe Mutombo helped the Nuggets rally from 0-2against Seattle to become the first 8 seed to beat a 1.

George Karl,like Moe and Brown before him a product of the Dean Smith-NorthCarolina motion system, coached the Nuggets from 2005-13 and madethe playoffs every year, including in 2009. That season, they lostto the Lakers and Kobe Bryant in Denver’s third trip to the Westfinals.

Karl’s tenurewas marked by an uneasy alliance with Carmelo Anthony -- withKenyon Martin, Chauncey Billups and even Allen Iverson makingappearances in attempts to get the Nuggets over the hump. Thatgroup made news, but not the finals, and ’Melo eventually forcedhis way to the Knicks.

What put theNuggets in the headlines again is a second-round draft pick whoseselection barely registered across basketball or in Denver.

Title or no,the selection of Jokic — a two-time league MVP and a finalist for athird award — alreadygoesdown as one of the best personnel moves in the history of theleague. Still, the Nuggets have won five and lost four playoffseries since Jokic started taking the Nuggets to the playoffs in2019.

So, as Denverprepares for Kevin Durant and Phoenix, some Colorado natives mightbe bracing for the worst. Few, however, will turn their backscompletely.

“There hasalways been a soft spot for this team,” Zappolo said.

And if, afterall these years, there really is gold at the end of all thoserainbows, a real Nuggets fan would have to see it to believeit.