It’s called empathy man. Come on now.

We root against opposing teams and poke fun at their fans, but when the game ends the fact is we love talking about basketball with fans of other teams. The fact is alot of friends and acquaintances are fans of other teams, and empathy is a natural byproduct of that.

and sports calls for-wait for it-sportsmanship.

I despise the Lakers, but I don’t wish ill upon any Lakers fan. It’s just a game, after all.

Denver and their fans are not very knowledgeable. I went to the NLCS Game 4 in Denver last year, and these fans refused or didn’t know to stand up for 2 strike counts or important at bats. Baffling as a sports fan.

and JR Smith has had his problems with coaches.

Marcus Camby has always seemed like a classy man to me and is the only player on their team that realizes he doesn’t have to score 30 points to win a game. He does it with defense, rebounding, and assists

I just don’t see what ANY of the so called Thuggets have done that warrants even being in the same paragraph as the Jail Blazers, or even to be called Thuggets. Aside from Melo’s DUI, has any of them done anything REALLY wrong? Like, Ruben Patterson style wrong?

I can’t stand Kenyon Martin at all, he is ants at a picnic, and JR Smith is obviously a dummy. But how are they that bad or worse than MOST teams in ANY sport?

I think we can’t let our standards sink so low in regard to branding a team a bunch of outlaws, just because some of them are annoying (but thus far law abiding) and have tattoos. And perhaps one of them doesn’t like to talk about practice, but who does?

The current Nuggets just aren’t a complementary mix of players. Need more defense, less volume scoring, more real PGing. More leadership, more teamwork. It’s not because they are an explosive mix of bad people, like the old Jail Blazers. I don’t feel that bad for Nuggets fans, they got AI and Melo on their team! Plus Camby! A MVP still in his prime, a 30ppg scorer still about to enter his prime, and a DPOY shot blocking center who can even score. What’s to feel sorry about? They won 50 games and had their best season record wise in YEARS. They got some exciting players to cheer for.

The Suns and Mavs are gonna go home also. The West is a vicious bitch this year. To blow it up, after winning 50+ games and likely able to do it again next season, with no real other plan in place besides “something new” isn’t really a good idea for any of those teams. As we’ve seen with our own team, it’s hard to get back to mediocre, let alone a 50 win team.

50 wins for this Nuggets team sounds like a great year, to me. Yeah, they won’t win a championship, but they’re closer now than if they trade Melo away. Not EVERYONE can be the Blazers and be set for a decade of titles, can they?

In summation, a team should only be called thugs and gangsters or have a pun created out of their team name reflecting their badness, when a team has a cast of bad mean dumb dudes. Otherwise, every team can be deemed thugs.

Mortimer

I don’t really mind this all that much, I just see lots of people comparing the Nuggets to the Jail Blazers and just didn’t feel their deeds warranted such an awful comparison. I know what you mean about how they play; if they passed and moved the ball like we did during the 13 game win streak the Nuggets could beat anyone. They got a lot of talent.

At the same time, they did win 50 games, which is pretty good. Last year that woulda’ won the NW division and got them a 4th seed. Hell, our ‘77 Championship team didn’t even win 50 games, did they? We wouldn’t have even made the playoffs this year. The Nuggets do have talented players who are tradeable, and aside from Nene (and K-Mart I guess) they don’t have truly insane contracts that no one will take (and now that K-Mart is healthy, perhaps he is tradeable too). They can maybe get better, or stay a good 50 win team. I don’t think they’re so talented that 50 wins is a travesty, but they’re being thought of as underachieving thugs. Yeah, they’re an 8th seed, but everyone in the Western playoffs was a few bad losses away from the 8th seed. What they achieved this year just doesn’t seem that bad, but all the Denver media and fans act like it needs to be blown up.

Dallas, on the other hand, is supposed to be contending for a title and will likely be out in the 1st round. PHX too. THEY should be getting crap and treated like how the Nuggets are. Those teams are getting crap too, but not at the same level Denver gets.

The Nuggets have really annoyed me this playoffs though, because they put up no fight against the Lakers. It was pathetic. The Lakers aren’t THAT good, but they sure looked it against Denver.

Honestly, I hope Denver does blow the team up because that is our easy “in” to the playoffs. Same for Dallas and PHX. The more teams blown up the merrier, because we’ll be happy to take their place. If I was a fan of those teams though, I’m just not sure the alternative would be better—and is likely a lot worse.

I don’t really like defending the Nuggets; they’re a rival and I hate Kenyon Martin. I think a lot of the “thug” talk comes from AI and Melo’s supposed reps, and I don’t agree with that part.

Mortimer

Coach D’Antoni did have sexual relations with that pooch in game 1.

“You are what you pretend to be, so you must be very careful what you pretend to be.”

t

Player A: “What’s that on your arm?”
Player B: “Oh, that. That’s a poem my girlfriend wrote for me. I wanted to keep it close to me forever.”
Player A: “Dude, it’s a sheet of paper. And it looks to be in terrible shape.”
Player B: “I lost this corner when I was in the shower this morning. And it’s still wet.”
Player A: “The ink is running down your arm and giving you a nasty rash. It’s not even legible anymore!”
Player B: “But at least it’s here with me forever.”

But I jest. Welcome to the Blazers’ Edge community, from an octalingual biped. (slight exagguration necessary for play on words)