Subject: Los Angeles Lakers

• Carmelo and K-Mart Spout Off at Sign-Waving Critic

  March 13, 2008

• How Much of the Nuggets' Playoff Flop is Melo's Fault?

  April 29, 2008

• Pardon the Interruption Offers a Moment of Silence for the Nuggets

  April 30, 2008

• Worst. Colorado. Sports. Week. Ever.

  May 5, 2008

• Carmelo Anthony Challenges Septuagenarian to Game of One on One

  July 10, 2008

• Another sex dispute between a Colorado woman and an L.A. Laker

  Shannon Brown, in an image from his MySpace page. Maybe Los Angeles Lakers players should keep it zipped when they visit Denver. Earlier this decade, Kobe Bryant spent month after month in legal hell after a woman said he'd sexually assaulted her, precipitating a media free-for-all in Eagle County that only ended after his accuser stopped participating in the case against him (Bryant settled her civil suit against him in 2005). Now, ESPN is reporting that another Laker, Shannon Brown, "is being

  June 1, 2009

• McNichols on Ice

  February 18, 1999

• The Message

  The Thong Show

  August 12, 2004

• Nuggets: Let's remember the good times -- and try to forget about tonight

  A Flickr photo....aargh.... As I write this blog, the Nuggets are down by 24 points to the Los Angeles Lakers with 1:36 to go in game six of the Western Conference finals -- playing out the string in the kind of loss we'd come to expect in previous years, but had thought the Nugs had finally managed to outgrow. Denver didn't look ready for prime time, and they were so self-conscious about the officiating that by the second half, Kobe Bryant was able to treat defenders look turnstiles. And yet:

  May 29, 2009

• Calling Dwight Howard: Here's why you can avenge the Nuggets

  Yes, I know that the Nuggets-beating Los Angeles Lakers are supposed to school Orlando in the NBA finals series, which begins tonight. But although I'd have to give the edge to the Lakers, too, I'm not ruling out a sweet, ever-so-satisfying Magic victory. No doubt the refs will give every advantage they can to the Lake Show, by ticketing anyone who dares to so much as exhale on Kobe Bryant -- and if similar whistle-happiness gravitates to the paint, it'll undermine Dwight Howard's size, streng

  June 4, 2009

• Letters to the Editor

  August 14, 2003

• Pop Quiz

  November 20, 2003

• Best Trial in the Court of Public Opinion

  March 25, 2004

• Best Scandal Magnet for the Media

  March 25, 2004

• Denver Nuggets' play last night not enough to win over analysts Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley

  TNT studio commentators Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley. The Denver Nuggets' 106-90 victory last night over the Portland Trail Blazers is being portrayed by most of the local media as a dominating performance, and that makes sense. After all, Carmelo Anthony put up 38 points after serving a one-game suspension for being a baby (a.k.a., refusing to come out of a game when coach George Karl tried to substitute for him), and the team as a whole looked much more together than it did

  March 6, 2009

• Into the Light

  The Jurassic 5 make a heroic ascent from the hip-hop underground.

  October 26, 2000

• Down Is Up

  System of a Down is rock's least likely success story.

  September 29, 2005

• Solid Gold

  This K-Mart special glitters.

  July 29, 2004

• Do You Believe?

  Long-suffering Nuggets fans tell tales worth hearing -- at last.

  April 22, 2004

• Pop Quiz

  The Kobeat Goes On
  February 5, 2004

  February 5, 2004

• Pop Quiz

  Kobe's big adventure

  January 15, 2004

  January 15, 2004

• High Hopes

  The Nuggets have finally begun to warm up the faithful.

  January 8, 2004

• Off Limits

  Puttin' on the Dog

  September 25, 2003

• The Message

  Welcome to Kobeville

  August 14, 2003

• Off Limits

  With friends like these...

  July 31, 2003

• The Message

  Slammed!

  July 24, 2003

• Off Limits

  Stop-and-gonad traffic

  July 24, 2003

• Phil's Big Scores

  Anshutz's domain stretches from kids' theater to pro sports.

  April 18, 2002

• Is There Life After Mike?

  December 11, 1997

• Avs and Have-Nots: The Year in Review

  December 26, 1996

• The National Billionaires Association

  July 25, 1996

• A MAGIC BULLET FOR AIDS

  February 7, 1996

• BASKET CASES

  April 13, 1994

• THERE GOES MR. JORDAN

  March 30, 1994

• Could Denver Nuggets be number two in a good way?

  A Flickr photoChauncey Billups takes on Dallas earlier this season. Admit it: When you heard the Nuggets were getting rid of defensive stalwart Marcus Camby prior to the start of the season in exchange for virtually nothing, and when the team swapped Allen Iverson for Chauncey Billups a few games into the 2008-2009 campaign, you figured Denver's ballers were in for a shitty year. Well, we were almost right. On the last day of the season, the Nugs have a real shot at being number two -- but not

  April 15, 2009

• Overconfidence = kiss of death for Nuggets, fans

  A Flickr photoWill the Pepsi Center offer a real home-court advantage this year? Yesterday afternoon, Jim Armstrong and Sandy Clough were talking Denver Nuggets on FM 104.3/The Fan, and while the hosts kept the team's playoff chances in perspective, many of the callers weren't concentrating on the New Orleans Hornets, the Nugs' first-round opponents (who they meet for the first time on Sunday). Instead, they wanted to know if Carmelo Anthony and his mates had any chance in hell of beating the L

  April 17, 2009

• Nuggets don't just kill in game four -- they assassinate

  The strange confidence that inspired me to write a blog yesterday entitled "Why the Nuggets Will Win Game Four Against the Hornets Tonight" was more than justified by the team's historic performance last night. By any objective measure, the game was horrible -- but I reveled in every glorious minute. It's been so long since the last 58-point victory margin in an NBA playoff game that the two squads involved in the earlier contest -- the St. Louis Hawks and the Minneapolis Lakers -- have played

  April 28, 2009

• Make room for Charles Barkley on the Nuggets bandwagon

  Embedded video from NBA Video Isn't it nice to hear national basketball commentators like Charles Barkley say nice things about your Denver Nuggets for a change? Sir Charles has typically treated the Nugs with all the respect of something he scraped off his shoe -- but the further the team gets into the playoffs, the more effusive he's become. The TNT clip above (also featuring Chris Webber, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson) dates from just prior to the start of the team's current series with the

  May 8, 2009

• Clip and save: Nuggets take game five, polish off Mavericks

  In the past few days, Mark Cuban has been dancing without the stars. During last night's late newscast, 9News' Drew Soicher said that if the Nuggets manage to blow their series against the Dallas Mavericks, blamecasters will suggest that Mavs owner Mark Cuban got into their heads via his antics -- namely trash-talking about Kenyon Martin to his mom on Mother's Day weekend and then offering an obseqious apology via his blog rather than directly to K-Mart and his family. Chances that the Nuggets

  May 13, 2009

• Next stop Kobeville for the Nuggets

  A Flickr photoKobe Bryant and Kenyon Martin -- or a reasonable facsimile. As a lifelong Nuggets fan, I've grown accustomed over the years to waiting for the team to blow leads. But I don't think I've ever been so zen about the Nugs as last night, during their series-clinching victory over the Dallas Mavericks. My confidence was so high going in that I posted a blog declaring their victory about twelve hours before tip-off -- and even during that second-half Mavs run, when Jason Kidd started dra

  May 14, 2009

• The pros and cons for the Nuggets of last night's Houston Rockets win

  A Flickr photoKobe shoots and (probably) scores. Watching the Houston Rockets-Los Angeles Lakers game last night caused this particular Nuggets fan an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Like the Nugs have done for ages (until, for the most part, this year), the Rockets blasted off to an early, commanding, seemingly insurmountable lead only to gradually but steadily give almost all of it back. During this stretch, the Lakers displayed the sort of mental toughness associated with champions. They c

  May 15, 2009

• Does the Staples Center have to be a house of horrors for the Nuggets?

  A Flickr photoWhere the Nuggets will be playing Tuesday night. As predicted, the Los Angeles Lakers handled the Houston Rockets on Sunday, setting up a Western Conference finals matchup with your Denver Nuggets, who the Lakers have dominated in recent years. But even though the game was never competitive, the Lakers hardly looked invincible. Simply put, the Rockets had no scorers with both Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady on the bench, leading to ugly sights such as Ron Artest repeatedly tossing up w

  May 18, 2009

• Surviving the Denver Nuggets' down-and-up weekend

  J.R. Smith. To be a fan of the Denver Nuggets -- even the new, improved Denver Nuggets -- is to risk cardiac arrest on an all-too-regular basis. Saturday night's game against the Los Angeles Lakers would have put the Nugs in a commanding position, and they seemed to have everything going for them -- momentum, swagger and a mammoth home-court advantage thanks to an absolutely berserk crowd thrilled to be witnessing the first Western Conference Finals game to take place here in a generation. So h

  May 26, 2009

• Vince McMahon takes on faux-Stan Kroenke's killer toupee

  The McMahon-Kroenke smackdown -- captured in the "Raw." True Nuggets fans didn't watch last night's edition of World Wrestling Entertainment's Raw, in which Nugs owner Stan Kroenke and the ballers on his payroll were spoofed by WWE's Vince McMahon and his unitard-clad minions -- an act of revenge/publicity stoking inspired by a Pepsi Center double-booking. We were too busy watching the real Nuggets thump the Los Angeles Lakers in game four of the Western Conference Finals. But judging by the Ra

  May 26, 2009

• Q&A with Built to Spill's Doug Martsch

  Photo by Autumn DeWildeDoug Martsch, foreground, and the rest of Built to Spill. Doug Martsch, whose band, Built to Spill, headlines this year's Westword Music Showcase on June 12 (click here for more details), is a rarity -- a indie-rock musician who signed to a major label in the mid-'90s who's still inked to the same imprint today. He's also a rare, if modest, talent with interests that go well beyond music to family and pro basketball, as he demonstrates in the following Q&A, conducted for

  June 10, 2009

• Kobe Bryant: Nuggets' public enemy number one

  So... does knowing that your Denver Nuggets lost in the NBA's Western Conference Finals to the eventual champs, the L.A. Lakers -- and put up more of a fight than did the Orlando Magic -- make the way the Nugs' season ended a little less painful. No. Not at all. But it does give the Nuggets more incentive to stick it to Kobe Bryant next season. The clock is ticking....

  June 15, 2009

• Lamenting the title of Rhino's latest box set: Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets

  And the award for the most unfortunately named release of the year goes to... drum roll, please ... Rhino Records. Just under a month after the crushing elimination of our Denver Nuggets from the NBA Western Conference Finals, comes word of a box set being issued by the folks at Rhino titled Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968. Really, guys? Los Angeles Nuggets? The wounds are still fresh. Of course, the four-disc set, which otherwise sounds pretty enticing, BTW, has absolutely no

  June 24, 2009

• What's next for the Nuggets after caging Chris "Birdman" Andersen?

  Chris Andersen as he appeared in the November 2008 issue of Denver magazine. We've been lobbying for the Denver Nuggets to re-sign Chris Andersen for over a month, and the more time that passed, the more likely it was that other teams would start knocking on his door. Fortunately, though, the deed is finally done, with the Birdman agreeing to a five-year, $26 million pact he more than earned with his play last season. But as rival teams improve (note the Los Angeles Lakers' wise signing of Ron

  July 8, 2009

• WWE snubs Pepsi Center in Denver return

  A WWE image pimping a May "faceoff" between angelic "Vince McMahon" and devilsh "Kroenke."​In May, World Wrestling Entertainment showman Vince McMahon got publicity aplenty when a WWE Raw event was bumped from the Pepsi Center by a playoff game between the Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Lakers. McMahon's PR blitz included a mock showdown between him and Nuggets/Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke at the rescheduled bash, which took place in (feel the sting) L.A. The WWE is returning to De

  August 3, 2009

• Departure of Nuggets' Linas Kleiza leaves bigger hole than most fans acknowledge

  Linas Kleiza.​The Denver Nuggets' loss yesterday of backup forward Linas Kleiza, who signed a two-year, $12.2 million deal with the Greek team Olympiakos, has prompted a collective shrug by most members of Nuggets Nation, probably owing to Kleiza's underperformance last season, when many observers expected him to have a break-out year. But his absence will definitely be felt. Even though he's been inconsistent, he runs the floor very well for a man his size, and he often stepped up scoring

  August 11, 2009