The Denver Nuggets Have Officially Given Up
By Rob Perez
HOT TAKE: The Denver Nuggets are not having a good season.
The NBA is so competitive now-a-days, it doesn’t take much to fall out-of-contention. If you have, let’s say, a coach that has no clue what he’s doing, a roster that was assembled as if the general manager was building an AND 1 mixtape team, and/or an owner who is a notorious penny-pinching cheapskate — it’s quite easy to become irrelevant.
Sitting at 20-38, things could be worse, i guess… they could be the Knicks, they could be holding a bunch of bad contracts which they can’t get out of for years, or, for example: the players could be chanting “1-2-3 … six weeks!” every time they break the huddle, in reference to the anticipation they have for when the the Denver Nuggets’ season is scheduled to end — six weeks from now…
OH WAIT THAT KINDA HAPPENED LAST NIGHT DURING THEIR GAME VS. UTAH (per The Denver Post’s Chris Dempsey)
If you haven’t made the connection yet, the “1-2-3” chant is a play on Nick Van Exel’s infamous “1-2-3 … Cancun!” cheer in 1998, when he yelled this at the end of a practice during the Western Conference Finals in which the Los Angeles Lakers were about to be swept by the Utah Jazz.
In addition to all of this, Head Coach Brian Shaw has completely lost the locker room and the respect of his players to the point that they may or may not be actively sabotaging him…
Shaw was quoted recently questioning the integrity of his players. After scoring a pathetic 69 points during a 30-point home loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, he said…
"“I’d have more respect if guys just told me they didn’t feel like playing tonight from the start,”"
Shaw’s subtweet/troll game has been on point lately too…
"“Our guys are frustrated, too. And so the weight of this all starts to come down. Some guys in those situations fight harder. Some guys give in.”"
Long story short: On a scale of 1-10, the degree of the ‘meltdown’ in the Denver Nuggets locker room is currently ‘Chernobyl’. It appears that the drama in Denver has completely boiled over, and from the sound of things — it’s pretty evident that the Nuggets players are publicly letting everyone know they don’t care about games and/or their coach’s demands for effort anymore.
If you’re a fan of the team, no need to walk off a cliff just yet … the one bright spot of these tumultuous weeks for the franchise is that the team has SOARED up the ‘Tankathon’/’Lose More For Okafor’ Standings!
Losers of 5 in a row, 1-9 in their last 10 games … maybe the fans’ Christmas wishes of tanking/blowing up this team and restarting with the #1 overall pick may come true!