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The Denver Nuggets first joined the ranks of professional basketball in 1967 when they played in the inaugural season of the ABA. The Nuggets were then known as the Rockets and the team played solid basketball with Byron Beck, Larry Jones, Spencer Haywood, and Ralph Simpson during those early years. The club was in the middle of the pack apart from a few sub par seasons, and did not reach the heights of the ABA until the team changed its name to the Denver Nuggets.
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About The Denver Nuggets
The name change and the addition of David Thompson, Marvin Webster, Dan Issel, and Bobby Jones and the direction of Larry Brown the newly anointed Nuggets put together great regular seasons. Though the Denver Nuggets could not win an ABA Championship, they came close in the final season before the ABA disbanded, losing to the Nets in the championship series.
The Denver Nuggets were one of four ABA teams that merged with the NBA after the NBA-ABA merger in 1976. The great team that had competed for the ABA Championship continued their strong play in the NBA, winning their division in their first two seasons. The division titles did not lead to postseason success though, and soon the team began rebuilding.
The change from Larry Brown to Doug Moe brought a run and gun philosophy that, at the time, was unique to basketball. The Nuggets played with offensive prowess, forcing the other team to try and keep up. Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe were the forwards who paired to become one of the scariest in basketball. The brand of basketball took them from the lottery to the playoffs. In 1985, the Denver Nuggets made it to the Western Conference Finals, but met a team that could keep up on the offensive end, the Los Angeles Lakers.
After losing the series quickly in five games, the Denver Nuggets started tweaking its lineup. They traded away Vandeweghe for Fat Lever, Calvin Natt, and Wayne Cooper and added Bill Hanzlik and TR Dunn. By the 1987 season the club had made another strong run at the postseason with a 54-28 record. The Denver Nuggets went to the conference semifinals and lost to the Dallas Mavericks.
The seasons that followed saw the Denver Nuggets begin to fall to the bottom of the league, but in 1992 they drafted a Dikembe Mutombo in an effort to build a new kind of basketball team. At 7 foot 2, Mutombo was a defensive stalwart in the paint. His arrival signaled the end of the offense only Nuggets and started the team down a path back to basketball respectability. Mutombo, point guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, power forward LaPhonso Ellis, and guard Bryant Stith formed the core of a new team with a new philosophy.
The 2008-09 Denver Nuggets are much the same team as last year, without the defense. Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony are still starting and Linas Kleiza and J.R. Smith are still coming off the bench. They are all still in love with scoring. The front court duo of Kenyon Martin and Nene will try and bring something like interior defense to the Pepsi Center, but they will probably be far too tired from the full court game to stop anything near the basket.
Anthony Carter is the designated ball-bringer upper because everyone knows that Iverson is going to run this offense. Last season the Denver Nuggets were able to make the overwhelming scoring ability of the starters and the bench work for them, but this season they are missing the only person in the middle who was able to make the other team think twice about bring the ball into the lane, Marcus Camby.
This means that the team actually has to put more emphasis on scoring to make up for a lack of defense. You could say that the team needs to improve its defense, but realistically it would be easier for the players to simply shoot more for this club than learn team defense principles. This means that the Nuggets will be a great team to see live and the squad could even make the playoffs, but the offense will have to avoid any off nights if they are to go far in the post season.
