May 2, 2013; Oakland, CA, USA; Denver Nuggets point guard Andre Miller (24) drives in against Golden State Warriors point guard Jarrett Jack (2) during the second quarter of game six of the first round of the 2013 NBA Playoffs at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

The end of a season brings out two extreme, polar-opposite forms of fans:

1. The Happy Fan: Those fans gleefully cheer on their team and players regardless of how the season ends. These fans are sweet, innocent bystanders who think highly of every player on the team and think everyone should return next season. They stray away from cynicism and believe that no one on the team can do wrong, ever.

2. The Mad Fan: These guys want to blow the team up immediately. They’re calling for the head coaches head and don’t want anybody on the roster to be on the team next season. They destroy three or four TVs a season.

What would these fans say about the the players on the Denver Nuggets roster after Thursday night’s disappointing end to the season? Ahh, I’m so glad you asked.

Corey Brewer

Happy Fan: Corey! I just love the energy Corey brings every game. He’s so awesome! Those shots just weren’t falling against the Warriors but the team really needed him out there anyways. He’s such a funny, genuine guy. I hope we resign him just because.

Mad Fan: BREWER THAT BALDING ASS-CLOWN. HE PRACTICALLY LOST THE SERIES FOR US. WHAT WAS HE? 1 FOR 30 FROM THREE? YO COREY DON’T YOU KNOW THEY’RE PLAYING ZONE HOPING YOU’LL SHOOT THE BALL? TRADE HIM IF HE HAS ANY VALUE.

Wilson Chandler

Happy Fan: haha he has so many tattoos! I just hope that it doesn’t hinder him from getting a job one day because I care about him and his well-being so much. He REALLLYY stepped up when Gallo went out. When Gallo got hurt–bless his soul–I was like “at least we have Wilson Chandler, ya know?” Can’t wait to watch him next year!

Mad Fan: WHY IS CHANDLER SHOOTING MID RANGE JUMPERS WITH STEPHEN CURRY GUARDING HIM? JFAIGJIADFJGIAFJ. HE COULDN’T HIT ANYTHING ALL SERIES. FRUSTRATING PLAYER TO WATCH. TRADE HIM MORE MONTA ELLIS. 7 MILLION DOLLARS IN 2015-16? WAY TO GO UJIRI

Kenneth Faried

Happy Fan: It’s just like, you know, he’s the glue guy. He’s the face of the organization! He’s the greatest hustler in the history of history. So much upside! I love his hair omg.

Mad Fan: Shouldn’t have played game 2 practically lost game 2 because he wasn’t healthy. I’m glad he hustles but Jesus he can’t guard anyone. Got burnt all series by HARRISON FREAKING BARNES. NEXT.

Evan Fournier

Happy Fan: Evan’s the future! He really is! He’ll be Manu Ginobili one day! Just watch! Poor guy was thrown into the fire too early but just give him time! Greatn3ss!

Mad Fan: WHY WAS HE EVEN ON THE FLOOR? WHY WAS HE EVEN IN THE LOCKER? PRACTICALLY LOST EVERY GAME EVEN GAME 6 WHEN HE DIDN’T PLAY. BAD PERSON. WORSE PLAYER. AWFUL PICK. TRADE HIM.

Danilo Gallinari

Happy Fan: When the Rooster went down, I cried. I cried for days. I cried for weeks. I never met him but I felt like I did. <3 you bro get well soon.

Mad Fan: Reserving my right to not speak.

Jordan Hamilton

Happy Fan: The future! Him and Evan! I’m so sad he’s in Karl’s doghouse

Mad Fan: WHY DIDN’T JORDAN HAMILTON PLAY GEORGE KARL YOU OLD FART HE’S THE ONLY GUY WHO CAN SHOOT FROM DISTANCE AND HE SAT AT THE END OF THE PINE THE ENTIRE SERIES.

Andre Iguodala

Happy Fan: GOAT. Max contract! Do what you gotta do! Keep Iggy #Iguodaladalabillsyall

Mad Fan: CAN’T EVEN FRONT HE’S DOPE

Kosta Koufos

Happy Fan: OMG did you see Kouf hit that three? How awesome?! What a moment! But seriously maybe he can be a stretch 5? Who knows!? Upside’s there, just put it together!

Mad Fan: UNFGUAFHGUAJUGJ. TERRIBLE PLAYER. GOT BULLIED BY BOGUT. PRACTICALLY LOST THE SERIES. HIS HEAD LOOKS LIKE A ROTTEN PEACH. HE’S THE UGLIEST PERSON ALIVE. HE’S CHRIS KAMAN’S FACE WITH FELTON SPENCER’S SKILL-SET. RELEASE HIM. WAIVE HIM. GET HIM OFF THE TEAM.

Ty Lawson

Happy Fan: He’s so fast I swear! It’s like he’s a race car on the court hehe. He plays defense, he scores inside, he’s the leader of the team! Top 5 PG in the league! wWEEEEWHWEWEWOEWOE

Mad Fan: hmm, this is what I think: CAN YOU WIN WITH LAWSON AS YOUR STARTING PG? WELL MAYBE IN THE REGULAR SEASON. AWFUL AT DEFENSE. SCARED TO SHOOT OUTSIDE. OVERPAID.

JaVale McGee

Happy Fan: Okay I don’t like to tell people this but McGee’s like my favorite player ever and I think he can be a top 3 center in the league! He’s soo athletic. If he can just put it together he’s going to be a legend!

Mad Fan: JIDJFJSIFJIDJGIJFDSGSIFJQRJUF8AUR8Q7U547Q8RFACU HF7DAY 78AYCF7DSAHFU7DHAYS7F8YAF78DY7DSAYF7ADY DF7YC7FVYV FUAHFUAHDSFUAHDUFHAD

Andre Miller

Happy Fan: Why is everyone blaming Old Man Dre?! We NEEDED his #VETERANLEADERSHIP and he won Game 1 by himself! Sure he’s lost a step but have you seen his post game?!  He’s the x-factor! We live and die by Miller and that’s okay with me! hehe

Mad Fan: WORST PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE. HE COULDN’T CHECK KIRK DOUGLAS. YO DRE WHY ARE YOU IN THE GAME? WHY ARE YOU IN LOVE WITH DRE, KARL? GODDDD. HE LOST THE SERIES. THAT’S IT. HE SHOULD PLAY WITH THESE GUYS:

CUT HIM. WAIVE HIM. SEND HIM TO A NURSING HOME IDC. JUST GET HIM OUT OF A NUGGETS UNIFORM.

Quincy Miller

Happy Fan: umm, who?

Mad Fan: what he said.

Timofey Mozgov

Happy Fan: Timofey lol I just love the way he spells that. It’s just so much fun. Almost as fun as his game. He’s REALLY good. He rebounds, he’s got touch, he hustles! I can’t wait to see what the future holds for him.

Mad Fan: *sighs* I’M SO MAD I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY

Julyan Stone:

Happy Fan: OMG Julian [check spelling] is just what we need. He doesn’t complain about minutes and plays hard every second he’s out there. Great piece to have moving forward. Most Improved next year? I think soooooo..

Mad Fan: BRUH, THIS MAN WOULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN CLOCK ON MY AAU TEAM. DROP.

Anthony Randolph

Happy Fan: Super talented! Him and JaVale are like Tim Duncan and David Robinson! Seriously they have that much potential! He’s going to get paid one day! lol

Mad Fan: Yo I’m out ya’ll…

***

Thanks for reading and follow me on Twitter @lashy.

January 20, 2013; Denver, CO, USA; Denver Nuggets forward Danilo Gallinari (8) posts up against Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westrbook (0) during the overtime period at the Pepsi Center. The Nuggets won 121-118 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

The Denver Nuggets pulled out a gutsy win over the Memphis Grizzlies (Care Bears) on  Friday, pulling into a tie with Memphis and grabbing a tiebreaker along the way.  With their eleventh win in a row, the Nuggets moved into reach of that fourth seed, and surprisingly one game behind the Clippers for the third seed.  In the words of a certain vice president, “This is a big f****ing deal!”

Why such a big deal?  The Nuggets are 30-3 within the high altitude confines of the Pepsi Center, while away, they are an unimpressive 15-19.  Home court gives a definite psychological advantage and hopefully an easier path to a deep playoff run, something that’s proved to be as elusive as playing time for Timofey Mozgov.  However, in spite of the Nuggets’ recent success, the Nuggets are as overlooked as always (thanks Miami, thanks a bunch).  The most flattering comment they’ll get is the ‘team nobody wants to face in the playoffs’ quote, but apart from the fears of having to play a possible series in Denver, why don’t the Nuggets really scare anyone?  Here are the following naysayers you’ll find doubting the Nuggets, and their potential pitfalls, as analyzed by yours truly.

The No All Star Guy

The Nuggets are a great team.  Balanced, deep and relentless, but they don’t have that all star closer that you can go to in the fourth quarter when you need points.  They had that in Carmelo, but they’re very much a team that doesn’t have that edge you need to make a deep playoff run.

Fiddlesticks.  There are a few reasons that this theory holds as much credibility as a random 22 year old blogger for the Nuggets (wait a sec…).

First: The Nuggets had this superstar named Carmelo, oh so long ago.  For a few years, this team had Anthony, the Defensive Player of the Year (Marcus Camby) and a former number 1 pick (Kenyon Martin).  Oh, the Nuggets of old.  For all of their laurels, these “superstar” Nuggets could get past the first round only once, and that was after dumping Camby for cap space and some choke artist (Yeah, we dumped Camby for Renaldo Balkman). As proven by the past, superstars are certainly not sufficient enough to guarantee playoff success, but are they necessary?  Yes, they are. But as I will explain below, great stars cannot always make special moments, but great moments will always make special stars.

Second: Clutch all stars don’t appear out of the ground like daisies.  Chauncey Billups wasn’t Mr. Big Shot as he journeyed around from team to team early in his career.  Lebron James wasn’t clutch, in spite of all the heroics in Cleveland (which is an oxymoron, I know),until his explosion last year in the playoffs.  The point is that many times, stars don’t ride into the playoffs, they’re made there.  None of the Nuggets were drafted higher than 6th in their respective drafts (Gallinari), so no Nugget was expected to be an all star right out the gates. In addition, none has made an all star game with the exception of Andre Iguodala, who played in the LEastern Conference.  But all perceptions of these Nuggets would change if say, they made the conference finals.  We’ve already seen glimpses of clutch from Ty Lawson (over the Thunder!), Gallinari and even Andre Miller.  The NBA is about stars, but the stars are manufactured from their winnings, and not the other way around.  For a very young Nuggets team, maybe a few months will give way to “their time.”

The “You Can’t Run In the Playoffs” Guy

Everything slows down in the playoffs.  The Nuggets might be able to run out against a team in the regular season, where they’re less focused, and more tired, but in a best-of-seven series, teams have time to rest, prepare and knuckle down on every possession.  The Nuggets are a regular season gimmick, nothing more nothing less.

The Nuggets have to face this statistic: the playoffs are typically three possessions per team slower than the regular season.  True.  The playoffs do tend to be slower, but the NBA is undergoing a distinct change.  The Heat are winning without a true center, the Spurs(!) are running, there is no true post presence anymore, and the league has become more pick and roll oriented than ever before.  The Nuggets play a fraction over ONE possession more than the Thunder (+1.3) and Spurs(+1.1), two “sexy” teams that experts pick to win the West.  What gives?

The Nuggets have pace, yes.  But the league has forgotten about the defense that the Nuggets have played.  The Nuggets play a risky rotating defense that forces turnovers and accounts for running as much as their offense does.  This defensive focus, headed by Andre Iguodala, is different from the freewheeling Rockets, Lakers and Bucks that are also associated with a higher pace.  People often point to the (’04-’05) D’Antoni Suns as the prime example of a run and gun team that can’t win (62-20 in the regular season).   That team had one defensive minded player in Shawn Marion and well… Joe Johnson… no.  Steve Nash… no… Amar’e Stouda… meh… God, did anybody in Phoenix play D?.  The Nuggets have a bevy of wing defenders in Iguodala, Wilson Chandler, the underrated Gallinari, Corey Brewer and a better defensive point guard (Lawson) than Nash ever was.  In addition, the Nuggets have shown the ability to win grind-it-out games against the likes of the Pacers (2-0) and Grizzlies (3-1).  This team isn’t as one-dimensional as the “Thuggets” of ’08-’09 and certainly have more dimensions than the Suns of ’05.

 These Youngbloods Ain’t Got No Experience

These youngbloods don’t understand the game of basketball.  These guys don’t practice the fundamentals.  They need some true experience.

These youngbloods went to seven games with the highly regarded Lakers last year, added an olympian in Andre Iguodala, and still have the original “Uncle Dre”: Andre Miller.  This team has is only one year younger on average than OKC and will at least split the series against the Thunder (game 4 on 3/19, Nuggets currently up 2-1).  Denver also owns wins over the Spurs, Knicks, Celtics and Lakers, four teams often criticized for being too old.  Perhaps the Nuggets will lose their talent in the playoffs like a third grader forgetting their lunchbox on their first day of school, but don’t forget that the Nuggets and coach Karl would prefer it if you kept thinking that way.

In Conclusion

The Nuggets may not win the NBA Finals, or the West, but those who doubt the Nuggets are missing out on one of the most entertaining and best TEAMS in the league.  The Nuggets have a scary combination of an old coach, a young team, a fast pace and an attitude that they can beat anyone in the league.  Overlook them at your own risk.