The Denver Nuggets: A Romantic Comedy

Bummed out about your favorite sports team? Look to Ty Lawson and the Denver Nuggets for your feel-good sports story needs.

Today I rear ended another car. On lunch break from my job at Wal-Mart. Also, I'm sick. And the Celtics lost to the damn Bobcats, after leading by 13 in the 4th quarter. Bad times all around. I found myself pathetically nostalgically listening to "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys and latching on to random lines from the song.

"Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true" (Yeah. I'm thinking, wishing, hoping, and praying that Rondo gets himself together by the playoffs.)

"Happy times together we've been spending" (Remember January? Those were the days...)

"Wouldn't it be nice to live together in the kind of world where we belong?" (2008 was the kind of world in which I belong. Shit, 1986 would have been nice too...)

Amid all these depressing thoughts, I need a feel good story. I've watched the Sundiata Gaines video roughly 250 times. I hate romantic comedies. As a member of the Miami Heat so famously asked, "What should I do?" Fortunately for me, there is an easy answer. I have NBA League Pass. And League Pass has the Denver Nuggets.

Seriously, as a depressed Celtics fan, concerned (but not yet convinced!) that he is watching the end of the Celtics' current run of playoff success, watching Denver feels like a cold lemonade on a hot summer day. A team that cares every single night? Revolutionary! That looks like they are having fun on the court? Crazy talk! That runs their offense like a smooth machine? Impossible! A team that, instead of sulking after a trade entirely shook up their roster, made the best of it and is now better for it? Every Celtics fan reading that last sentence died a little inside.

The Nuggets are liberated, the dictionary definition of the word, "to set free, as from oppression." The oppression Carmelo Anthony held over this franchise is gone, and I'm not just talking about this year. I'm talking about Melo's (probably unintentional) stranglehold over the Denver offense, with his slow down, half court basketball, full of isolations, head-fakes, and jab steps. I'm talking about watching Ty Lawson run the floor with JR Smith, two ridiculously athletic players who thrive in the open court, one a speedy distributer, another a playground style dunker and finisher. (Seriously. Go watch that link. Your argument is invalid.) I'm talking about an incredibly entertaining team playing fast basketball because they won't beat you in the half court, so they might as well just outrun you all the way to the basket. And with the speed this team boasts, the strategy is working.

Once Anthony left, most people understandably expected to see the Nuggets fold and either drop into the very low seeds of the playoffs, or out of the postseason completely. In a brutal Western Conference, a team with no all stars shouldn't survive. It's just science. Instead, Denver has thrived. With a new offense better suited to their personnel, one of the deepest teams in the league, and that conspicuous absence of all stars (seriously, Denver's main scorers have been Danillo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler at 15.9 ppg), Denver has rattled off a 12-4 RSM (record since Melo) and pushed their record to 44-29, good enough for the 5th seed. In stark contrast, New York has dropped below .500, and after a bad loss to the Charlotte Bobcats, the Knicks are the proud owners of a 6 game losing streak and a 2-9 record in their last 10 games.

But more importantly, Denver is a team that is freed from expectations. Lakers fans, Spurs fans, and yes, us Celtics fans all feel that without a championship, this year means nothing. Not so in Denver. This is not a team expected to contend deep in the playoffs. So the Nuggets, playing on house money, have created a fun-to-watch juggernaut that continues to win, and as the wins pile up, the fans grow more and more ecstatic. The departure of 'Melo was a relief. Everything that happens now in this season is icing on the cake. And Denver's dessert is starting to turn sickly sweet.

Projected like the Bat-Signal on the outside of Denver's Pepsi Center are the words "Can You Feel It?" I can't feel it. But on days like today, you are damn right I wish I could.

You know it seems the more we talk about it
It only makes it worse to live without it
But let's talk about it


Wouldn't it be nice?