Rose Colored Glasses

Regardless of all the wins this season, you can't really and honestly be happy as a fan or reporter for the Denver Nuggets unless you wear large rose colored glasses. Which of course is exactly what most reporters and fans other than yours truly (who we'll call "The Others," lol) are wearing. With their rose specs on, The Others are looking at the Nuggets as if the sudden slicing and dicing of the roster, and of the payroll, and of of any and all the possible opportunities from the 2008 draft, all of which happened during the, ummm, 2008 off-season unpleasantness, never happened. As if the kicking to the curb of Marcus Camby and Allen Iverson never happened. As if Antonio McDyess was being completely unreasonable in point blank refusing to play for the Nuggets at a large personal financial cost. Yes, McDyess paid dearly to avoid this franchise, avoid having to put on rose colored to glasses, to stay in Detroit where you seldom see this type of glasses. And so then The Others are proceeding to one extent or another as if all these regular season wins against all the Indianas of the NBA really do mean that the Nuggets can finally win a playoff series this coming Spring.

Unfortunately, when any of The Others dare to remove their rose spectacles, he or she will see again that this is a team that was in fact partially dismantled in a hurry when the owner went into a financial panic as a result of the economics emergency. With those crazy glasses off, he or she will see that this franchise became the hyena of the NBA, picking up several inexpensive players that just about no other team wanted. And he or she will see again that this team is coached by a coach who not only has proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that he can not win in the playoffs, but has actually admitted he doesn't know how to win in the playoffs at press conferences.

And once the rose colored glasses are removed for a while, he or she will recall that this financial panic struck after the Nuggets blew the kind of opportunity that only very rarely comes around, the opportunity to achieve a near perfect offense. Specifically, the Nuggets blew the opportunity to get the very expensive Camby-Martin-Iverson-Anthony-J.R. Smith offense tuned up right, and to then very possibly earn an appearance in the West finals in 2008. Or at a rock bottom minimum, they blew the opportunity for a solid, respectable appearance in the West semifinals (the round of the final four Western teams).

Yes, you heard me correctly. It is true, in the Spring of 2008, it could have been the Nuggets against the Lakers for the West Championship and not a complete and I do mean a complete burying of the Nuggets by the Lakers in the very first (baby) round, with Carmelo Anthony looking like he was going to break down and cry at any moment while telling reporters about how the Nuggets quit in the 2nd half of being routed in game three in Denver.

With respect to yours truly, especially this year, it may often seem, and it is to some extent objectively frequently true, that I am, while refusing to wear the rose colored glasses, frequently ticked off about the Nuggets' relative cheapness this year, and even by all their false hope generating winning. But overall I'm still plenty happy and contented enough. Being hyper critical and seemingly unhappy in my critical writings is normal for my brain and for my personality. This pattern originates also from my education and training, the result of which is that I am supposed to spot every small and big problem and mistake, and then suggest solutions.

So on the one hand, the Nuggets have ticked me off by being so cheap and unintelligent about how they run their business. But if you just judge from my writing, I always will seem less happy than I am. So do not be fooled: I am often relatively happy overall even while being apparently ticked off about particular things. And when I am not ticked off about anything at all, which does happen sometimes believe it or not, I can be really, really, extra happy.

So don't try to judge how happy or unhappy I might be overall by how critical I might be in any of my writings. I don't get unhappy overall unless I am really, really ticked off about something, which doesn't happen as often as you probably think.

But getting back to the rose glasses wearers, let me say to you that you can't be serious if you claim the Nuggets are for real in terms of the playoffs, with all their low salary, defense-only players. The Nuggets winning all these regular season games is a special case that has been largely explained in recent reports. Aside from the special players involved, this is just good old Mr. Karl and the good old Nuggets management, who have cooked up yet another dish to fool the public during the lengthy regular season again. Both Mr. Karl and the Nuggets' management have been doing this "Go all out in the low pressure regular season and forget about the high pressure playoffs" routine for many years now.

But don't blink next Spring at playoffs time. Because if you blink, you might completely miss the Nuggets playing in the playoffs.

With Mr. Karl, this regular season only thing goes back going on two decades now. With Mr. Karl, the names and faces of the players, of the managers, of the owner, and of the fans change, but the game is always the same: to win enough regular season games to continue to be considered a solid, historical coach, but to never worry about how to win in the much more difficult situations found in the playoffs. Leave the much more demanding and complicated task of how to win in the playoffs for the chump coaches who are coaching for more demanding owners, managers, and fans.

And see, this particular year, the economics emergency year, the Nuggets owner, management, and Mr. Karl are all eye to eye on this subject: they are all on the same page in this regard. All of them are fully aware that the Nuggets can not win in the playoffs this year and, probably, anytime in the next few years. They can't be dumb enough to think otherwise after frantically slashing their payroll and bringing in a bunch of defense-only players from the waiver wires, as the new hyenas of the NBA.

And after telling Carmelo Anthony they do not want him to worry about scoring or about trying to lead or carry his team to tough wins. I guess they are saving him for the future, in case they ever get their act together offensively from dumb luck, laugh out loud.

The Nuggets and their fans are like one big happy but dysfunctional and delusional family. And yes, that will have been a very nasty thing to say to some people, but I come in peace really, because I come with total honesty and with total truth and with total fairness. But I come pulling no punches. And I will not put on the rose colored glasses. I do not like rose colored glasses, never have and never will.

I am not going to get all that perturbed about people wearing rose colored glasses, because humans are going to do that from time to time. But I am going to report it.

Do not forget, it was I who just did a full report on how it looks like the Nuggets players themselves are going to remain relatively happy this year even when they can't win a playoff series. So I hardly qualify for the title of Official Scrooge of the Nuggets.

And the owner, the managers, and the coaches of the Nuggets are extra happy this year if fans and bloggers are wearing the rose colored glasses and are actually thinking that the Nuggets can win in the playoffs this year. This is an unexpected bonus for them, and an unexpected extra happiness.

So everyone is happy and everyone is going to continue to be happy. Right?

Except for me.

Because I am never going to be rose colored glasses happy after what I and the Nuggets went through in the Spring and Summer of 2008. You see, for someone like me, rose colored glasses are never going to be enough to overcome that amount of failure and panic.

But damn, even so, I better keep a pair handy, because I need those babies whenever I remember how Carmelo Anthony practically broke down and cried after the Nuggets were totally and completely dismantled and destroyed by the Lakers during the Spring 2008 series. And how Iverson was sort of crying a little inside his mind, and how he wanted to leave the Nuggets after that, because he knew then that the Nuggets were never going to win a playoff series during the years when he was still playing in the NBA.

And how J.R. Smith was treated like dirt even though he was one of the very best young shooting guards in the League. Fortunately, J.R. Smith turned out to be even more of a gentle soul than I thought he was, and so he was able to get through the endless gauntlet that the monstrous Karl had him go through without any immediate, obvious damage or disasters.

And how Nene had cancer and hardly played at all for the umpteenth year and how the Nuggets were making a bad situation worse by making it seem like he would never play basketball again.

In fact, hand me those rose glasses right now, because I feel a real sadness coming on again.

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