NUGGETS

The Denver Nuggets finished the 2003 season with a 17-65 record, tied for worst in the league with the Cleveland Cavaliers but while the Cavs ended with the #1 pick and LeBron James while the Nuggets took Carmelo Anthony with the third overall pick. The team, led by Anthony, Marcus Camby, Andre Miller, and the enigma simply known as “Nene”, finished a whopping 26 games better with a 43-39 record and the #8 seed in the West. The team played valiantly but eventually fell to Kevin Garnett and the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games. Coach Jeff Bzdelik has been on the hot seat for a while now, but if he can keep this team near the top of the dominating Western Conference, he could receive the contract extension he’s been looking for.

Last year’s team was led by the rookie Carmelo Anthony who finished the season with 21 ppg, 6 rpg, and 3 apg while still acclimating himself to the NBA game. Andre Miller was among the league leaders with 15 ppg and 6 apg and Marcus Camby nearly averaged a double-double throughout the season. Nuggets general manager Kiki Vandeweghe has pulled all the right strings since taking over the job a few years ago and had stockpiled six first-round draft picks over the 2004 and 2005 drafts and managed to set up a trade with the New Jersey Nets for power forward Kenyon Martin in exchange for three of those draft picks. Last year, Martin averaged nearly 17 ppg and 10 rpg while having to do a lot of the dirty work down low for the Nets but he could easily be a 20-10 guy in the fast paced play of the Denver Nuggets. The team also resigned Camby in off-season to give the Nuggets arguably the best frontline in all of basketball with Nene, Camby, Martin, and Anthony who can play the two or the three.

The Nuggets only had one draft pick in the 2004 draft and with that pick they selected Jameer Nelson, a point guard out of St. Joseph’s. Nelson was a player of the year last season in the NCAA and was widely regarded as a top point guard in the draft and many draft watchers were stunned to see him slide all the way to the 20th pick. Many other fans couldn’t see the logic in the Nuggets drafted a player like Nelson when they had Andre Miller as an established point guard but the Nuggets soon traded Nelson to the Orlando Magic for a future first round pick. The Nuggets didn’t make any additions through the draft but they have to feel great about their chances next season with the addition of Kenyon Martin and the resigning of Marcus Camby to play alongside a young superstar like Carmelo Anthony.

The Nuggets will be playing in the new Northwest division along with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Seattle SuperSonics, and the Utah Jazz. The Timberwolves have the trio of Garnett, Sprewell, and Cassell while the Trail Blazers have Zach Randolph and newly acquired Nick van Exel. The Utah Jazz might have had the best off-season of any team in the league after they acquired Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur and Seattle will still have Ray Allen to lead their squad. The Nuggets have made 24 playoff appearances over their franchise’s history and are likely to make many more in the coming years, even though they play in the ridiculously tough Western Conference. The team has won four division championships since moving to the NBA from the ABA in 1977, but their last division championship came all the way back in 1988. The Nuggets made back to back playoff appearances in 1994 and 1995 but didn’t make the postseason again until last season’s playoffs. The Nuggets are a youthful bunch and they love to play an upbeat style of basketball that’s fun to watch and difficult to stop in the mountain air. The Nuggets will have to take down the big guns of the West like the Spurs, Timberwolves, and Kings if they want to show how far they’ve come in recent years, but this team did lose 65 games in the 2003 season so they’ve come a long way in a very short period of time.

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