flipcritic
05-31-2009, 04:31 AM
Late, but hell, it's Rick.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4209291
For the author, being a Denver hoops fan has meant a life full of heartache. So how about some help down here, Big Man?
by Rick Reilly
Dear God,
Need a favor.
See, I know You and David Stern and 97 percent of the cable-ready world want Kobe vs. LeBron in the NBA Finals. You want Your Nike puppets and Your Jack on the sideline and Your Chosen One. I get that.
But just this once can You think about us poor, huddled Denver Nuggets fans? Do You have any idea what You've put us through?
Moses wandered the desert for 40 years? Pah. That's Club Med compared to us. For 41 years, we've eaten sand and washed it down with tall glasses of bile. At least Moses had manna. All we ever got was crayon jerseys.
In nine years of ABA play, and 32 more in the NBA, we've never won a title. We've never been to a single NBA Finals. The Lakers have been to 29! We once lost a record 23 straight games. One year, we only won 11! In military terms, we are the Iraqi Air Force.
Maybe this will give You an idea: We have a street in Denver named for a Nuggets trainer, but none for a Nuggets player.
You think You sent Job heartache? Job was a Rothschild compared to us.
Do You remember guiding our GM to use a 1996 first-round pick on a Greek player named Efthimios Rentzias, whom he'd never had the pleasure of meeting? That became apparent when a team suit finally visited Mr. Rentzias, who was supposed to be 6-foot-11, and realized he was 6-7. Oops.
Do You remember finally sending us a big center in 1978: 6-11 Geoff Crompton? Twenty games into his career, he blew out his knee by not-quite-jumping over a two-foot-high chain in front of McNichols Arena. Never played for us again.
Do You remember Dec. 13, 1983, when You allowed us to score 184 points in a single game … and LOSE? The Detroit Pistons scored 186 that night. I know. I was there.
Being a Denver Nuggets fan means never having to say you're happy.
So here's the ask: Can You please let us win? Just this once?
Yes, people call us the Thuggets. And yes, we are the most tatted-up group since the prison carnival hit town. And yes, Nuggets players had far and away the most technicals in the league this season. But these are good boys -- a little high-spirited perhaps -- but nice to their mothers. Hey, Carmelo Anthony hasn't punched anybody this entire year!
An NBA title would mean so much to those of us who have waited in the standings basement all these years … like Nuggets point guard and Denver native Chauncey Billups.
"I think about what it would be like, and I really just can't imagine it," Billups says. "That's how bad it's been here -- I can't imagine it. I hate to say it and I hate to mean it, but it's the truth.
"When I played here the first time (1998-2000), you'd be playing the Lakers and look up in the stands and see half the crowd in purple and gold. You'd be playing the Celtics and see half green and white. It was tough, man."
But now we've come to believe there really is a You. Because You've sent us a Melo, a Birdman, and a J.R. Swish. You banished Allen Iverson and his 6-for-31s and brought us Billups, the pass-first, get-back-second, shoot-third hoops genius I used to go watch at George Washington High School. You've put us in the conference finals, a mountaintop we haven't been to since 1985.
Remember? Before that one started, our coach -- Doug Moe -- kicked off the joyous occasion by saying "We got no shot."
Hello, buzzkill.
Since then, we've run a substitution pattern of famine, plague and pestilence, the last of which was a man named Nikoloz Tskitishvili, on whom we wasted the fifth overall pick in 2002, while passing on stiffs like Amare Stoudemire, Caron Butler and Carlos Boozer. Tskitishvili was really tskitty. One time, he took a wide-open jumper and hit the shot clock.
You sent us Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. He wouldn't stand for the national anthem. You sent us Bernie Bickerstaff, a GM who could find talent the way robins find lobsters.
But now -- now! -- You've given us hope, faith and an owner who married into the Walton family. Even though nobody in America wants it to happen but us, these Nuggets actually could bring a living, breathing, holy-crap NBA title to our little flyover state. Who would have thought something so precious could come from Wal-Mart?
Lord, I've been a Rockets/Nuggets addict since I was 9, and I keep trying to picture my lovable, dog-butt Nuggets winning it all. This state would come unglued. People would paint the Front Range powder blue. Half a million fans would clog the streets. People would stand on John Elway to get a view.
"Oh, man," Billups says, a misty look in his eye. "A parade? Just get me there, man. Just get me there."
Help an ex-altar boy out?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=4209291
For the author, being a Denver hoops fan has meant a life full of heartache. So how about some help down here, Big Man?
by Rick Reilly
Dear God,
Need a favor.
See, I know You and David Stern and 97 percent of the cable-ready world want Kobe vs. LeBron in the NBA Finals. You want Your Nike puppets and Your Jack on the sideline and Your Chosen One. I get that.
But just this once can You think about us poor, huddled Denver Nuggets fans? Do You have any idea what You've put us through?
Moses wandered the desert for 40 years? Pah. That's Club Med compared to us. For 41 years, we've eaten sand and washed it down with tall glasses of bile. At least Moses had manna. All we ever got was crayon jerseys.
In nine years of ABA play, and 32 more in the NBA, we've never won a title. We've never been to a single NBA Finals. The Lakers have been to 29! We once lost a record 23 straight games. One year, we only won 11! In military terms, we are the Iraqi Air Force.
Maybe this will give You an idea: We have a street in Denver named for a Nuggets trainer, but none for a Nuggets player.
You think You sent Job heartache? Job was a Rothschild compared to us.
Do You remember guiding our GM to use a 1996 first-round pick on a Greek player named Efthimios Rentzias, whom he'd never had the pleasure of meeting? That became apparent when a team suit finally visited Mr. Rentzias, who was supposed to be 6-foot-11, and realized he was 6-7. Oops.
Do You remember finally sending us a big center in 1978: 6-11 Geoff Crompton? Twenty games into his career, he blew out his knee by not-quite-jumping over a two-foot-high chain in front of McNichols Arena. Never played for us again.
Do You remember Dec. 13, 1983, when You allowed us to score 184 points in a single game … and LOSE? The Detroit Pistons scored 186 that night. I know. I was there.
Being a Denver Nuggets fan means never having to say you're happy.
So here's the ask: Can You please let us win? Just this once?
Yes, people call us the Thuggets. And yes, we are the most tatted-up group since the prison carnival hit town. And yes, Nuggets players had far and away the most technicals in the league this season. But these are good boys -- a little high-spirited perhaps -- but nice to their mothers. Hey, Carmelo Anthony hasn't punched anybody this entire year!
An NBA title would mean so much to those of us who have waited in the standings basement all these years … like Nuggets point guard and Denver native Chauncey Billups.
"I think about what it would be like, and I really just can't imagine it," Billups says. "That's how bad it's been here -- I can't imagine it. I hate to say it and I hate to mean it, but it's the truth.
"When I played here the first time (1998-2000), you'd be playing the Lakers and look up in the stands and see half the crowd in purple and gold. You'd be playing the Celtics and see half green and white. It was tough, man."
But now we've come to believe there really is a You. Because You've sent us a Melo, a Birdman, and a J.R. Swish. You banished Allen Iverson and his 6-for-31s and brought us Billups, the pass-first, get-back-second, shoot-third hoops genius I used to go watch at George Washington High School. You've put us in the conference finals, a mountaintop we haven't been to since 1985.
Remember? Before that one started, our coach -- Doug Moe -- kicked off the joyous occasion by saying "We got no shot."
Hello, buzzkill.
Since then, we've run a substitution pattern of famine, plague and pestilence, the last of which was a man named Nikoloz Tskitishvili, on whom we wasted the fifth overall pick in 2002, while passing on stiffs like Amare Stoudemire, Caron Butler and Carlos Boozer. Tskitishvili was really tskitty. One time, he took a wide-open jumper and hit the shot clock.
You sent us Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. He wouldn't stand for the national anthem. You sent us Bernie Bickerstaff, a GM who could find talent the way robins find lobsters.
But now -- now! -- You've given us hope, faith and an owner who married into the Walton family. Even though nobody in America wants it to happen but us, these Nuggets actually could bring a living, breathing, holy-crap NBA title to our little flyover state. Who would have thought something so precious could come from Wal-Mart?
Lord, I've been a Rockets/Nuggets addict since I was 9, and I keep trying to picture my lovable, dog-butt Nuggets winning it all. This state would come unglued. People would paint the Front Range powder blue. Half a million fans would clog the streets. People would stand on John Elway to get a view.
"Oh, man," Billups says, a misty look in his eye. "A parade? Just get me there, man. Just get me there."
Help an ex-altar boy out?