For Nuggets, 10 Victories Would Be the Mother Lode

Let’s get ready to crummmmble! It’s a new season with a new strategy in Denver, where the new management team decided to let the Nuggets fall to the bottom of the pack and succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.

At 2-31, they’re on a 5-77 pace that would put them at the bottom, all-time, eclipsing the 76ers’ 9-73 standard for wretchedness that has stood for 25 years.

The Nuggets are young and only marginally talented. It took them five weeks to hit the 100-point mark--in an 11-point loss. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Sacramento Kings start three rookies too, but they have Shawn Kemp, Wes Person, Mitch Richmond and Corliss Williamson. The Nuggets have Dean Garrett and rehabbing LaPhonso Ellis.

Said rookie Danny Fortson, comparing his Nuggets to the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors: “Those teams have no excuses. We have five rookies. I think that’s a really good excuse.”

The best there is, young guy. The worst part of it is, though, it didn’t have to happen. As recently as the spring of 1994, the Nuggets were young and good, shocking the Seattle SuperSonics in the first round of the playoffs, then taking the Utah Jazz to Game 7, coming within a win of the Western finals as John Elway, himself, led cheers, growling, “Are you ready to Mutommmmmbo?”

With Dikembe Mutombo, Brian Williams, Rodney Rogers and Ellis, their future lay ahead of them. Unfortunately, it lay somewhere else. Injury derailed Ellis’ career, but if he can pull himself together, he’ll be out of there too, on the next plane, train or Conestoga wagon.

In the free-agent era, it’s hell for a small-market team that makes a big mistake, and the Nuggets made several, starting when they decided that Mutombo, who wanted to stay, wasn’t worth $11 million. Two seasons after the false spring of ‘94, they were a disappointment, but without Mutombo, they were a disaster.

General Manager Bernie Bickerstaff fled to Washington a year later. His successor, Allan Bristow, an unemployed former Nugget--who else would want the job?--traded Antonio McDyess, who had cost Williams, Rodney Rogers and Brent Barry, for three mid-round No. 1 picks, after turning down a 76er draft-day offer of Keith Van Horn and Jerry Stackhouse.

“No one likes losing or being considered a doormat,” Bristow said in the relatively happy days of November, when the Nuggets were 0-9. “We’re just stiffening up our necks and going through it.”

The coach, smiling Bill Hanzlik, is another popular ex-Nugget, although he’s not as popular as he used to be and doesn’t smile as often. At 0-8, after a grisly loss to the Grizzlies, he moaned: “That’s not what I call good Nuggets’ basketball.” He has since found out that it was.

Point guard Bobby Jackson is a nice prospect. The other youngsters are OK or struggling. The team is reduced to getting excited about 7-foot-3, 320-pound Priest Lauderdale, who blew a $100,000 bonus in Atlanta last season, failing to show up for conditioning sessions.

In Denver, Lauderdale is with the program, more or less. He was recently seen emerging from the exercise room, carrying a plate of nachos.

Said a member of the Nuggets’ staff: “If that’s what it takes to get him in there, so be it. We’re just glad he’s going.”

On the bright side, Bristow has a plan, to use his $20 million of salary cap room for big-ticket free agents. On the dark side, it won’t work.

Says Sacramento personnel director Jerry Reynolds: “For some teams, a lot of cap room is like having a lot of scholarships at Oregon State.”

Indeed, money doesn’t rule, since the players anyone wants understand it will be there in any case. In what might be called “the Rick Fox Rule,” $1 million from the Lakers is worth more than $12 million in Cleveland.

Of course, one franchise’s woe is another’s relief.

“Unfortunately, the Nuggets are a candidate,” says Fred Carter, ESPN analyst and the man voted most valuable player of the worst team ever by 76er teammates. “I think not only are they going to break it [the 76ers’ record], they may shatter it, if that’s possible. . . .

“I look at that ballclub and I see the lack of effort that’s out there. I understand the lack of effort because I was involved in that. . . . We weren’t good enough and we knew we weren’t good enough and we knew that management had really screwed the whole organization up. The players in Denver, they know that, so the effort just isn’t there.

“That was a young team on the come. Now they’re a young team on the go.”

Of course, there have been even worse starts in the ‘90s. Successive Dallas clubs were 4-57 and 3-40 but ultimately avoided the final humiliation. Even those--the first had Sean Rooks, Derek Harper and Jim Jackson; the second Harper, Jackson and Jamal Mashburn--looked better than this team. As far as ignominy goes, the young Nuggets are promising, indeed.

FACES AND FIGURES

In your faces, your hignesses: Like a defensive end doing a sack dance while trailing, 28-0, the Heat might have over-celebrated its rout of the Bulls just a tad. Voshon Lenard talking trash to Michael Jordan, on top of Pat Riley calling Jordan “His Majesty?” The game was all-important for the Heat but it was a freebie for the Bulls, who didn’t have Scottie Pippen and were on the road. . . . Phil Jackson on Riley’s complaint the Bulls get all the calls: “I think Pat is a little full of it.” . . . Just because they’re hysterical doesn’t mean they can’t be right: The Bulls’ fans are championing new/old/new favorite Dennis Rodman’s all-star bid. Back to his old form, without a major incident (yet) this season, there’s no doubt Rodman has been one of the East’s five best forwards. Whether the coaches, who name the reserves, will let bygones be bygones is another question. . . . The NBA Experience descends upon Canada (cont.): The post-Isiah Thomas Raptors are breaking into their constituent parts. With the Rockets in town, upcoming free agent Damon Stoudamire volunteered to join the enemy. “If I said I can’t see myself in another uniform, I’d be lying,” he said. . . . Meanwhile, Coach Darrell Walker put the rap on No. 1 pick Tracy McGrady, who passed up college to molder on the bench. “He could be a very good basketball player or he could be out of the league in a couple of years,” Walker said. “It’s all up to him. His intensity level, I don’t know. On a scale of one to 10, I’d say it’s about a two. If he picked up his intensity level, he might be what we thought he could be when we drafted him. But maybe he’s just too cool.” . . . Meanwhile, the Raptors are on a nine-win pace, giving them a shot at the 76ers’ record too.

Houston, we’ve got more problems: With Hakeem Olajuwon sidelined, a lot of Rockets--such as slow point guard Matt Maloney and very small forward Mario Elie--are being exposed and Coach Rudy Tomjanovich is ready to deal. The Houston Chronicle reported that Charles Barkley told the team he was unhappy and would like to be traded, but a Rocket official took Barkley to lunch and assured him they’re making changes that won’t include him. When Olajuwon returns, they’d like to swap Kevin Willis for Stoudamire. . . . They don’t make aides like they used to: Buck assistant Dick Versace, reportedly the heir apparent if Coach Chris Ford goes, says he’s a players’ kind of guy. “I think it’s just a natural empathy and appreciation I have for what they do,” Versace says. “I still get excited when they do awesome things, brave things, courageous things, enduring things.” . . . Versace is too loyal to say it but Ford, a screamer, is not a players’ kind of guy. . . . Behind the Charles Smith waiver: The Spurs have applied for a disabled player’s exception. If the league grants it, they’ll have $1.9 million to spend. They need it since they’re far over the cap for the rest of the century and need beaucoup help. . . . The meltdown continues: Stackhouse is gone, free agent-to-be Clarence Weatherspoon is going, Derrick Coleman is Derrick Coleman and Allen Iverson’s future in Philadelphia doesn’t look so secure, either. Weatherspoon no longer starts and will certainly leave, but the 76ers are acting as if they have the whip hand. “He’s valuable to us,” said Billy King, Larry Brown’s personnel director. “You want him, give us value for him.” . . . Knick team physician Norman Scott, asked what a return by Patrick Ewing this season would be: “Miraculous.”