Renck: The Nobody Believes in Us Nuggets are back with a new coach, new hope and no excuses

Hide your eyes. The truth is more stunning than a Nikola Jokic no-look pass.

Nobody believes the Nuggets can beat the Los Angeles Clippers, let alone win the NBA championship. Less than two years after raising the trophy, it is a fact.

Denver is an underdog to – gulp – the Clippers.

Is Nikola Jokic skipping this series to watch harness racing? Did Josh Kroenke accidentally CC Jamal Murray on the email firing Michael Malone and Calvin Booth?

They draw the Paper Clips in the postseason and everyone thinks Denver is the Chicken Nuggets? They haven’t lost in the first round of the playoffs since 2022. But listening to the national discourse, seeing the series predictions, it is obvious that the Nuggets have become an afterthought.

Now. Not when Jokic retires. Or when they blow up the roster. This moment. The Nuggets are nobodies again outside of Colorado, forgotten by everybody.

Nuggets-Clippers figures to be a cage match. And yet it is the only series in the Western Conference featuring one game on NBA TV. Was C-SPAN not available?

It tells you all you need to know about how the bean counters view the Nuggets, even with Jokic.

“We have always been overlooked,” guard Jamal Murray said Wednesday after practice. “What’s new?”

It is disrespectful. This cannot be their fate. Not yet. The Nuggets cannot go out like this, the rock equivalent of a warmup band entertaining the crowd before The Rolling Stones take the stage.

The Nuggets owe their fans more. Paranoia and pettiness aside, the way they played — too often uninspired and flat — got their coach and GM fired.

Is it too much to ask for that shock to bring their goal back into focus? To demand that this season matter again beyond winning three straight games to avoid the play-in?

It’s been a little over a week since the seismic shift in leadership, but the Nuggets look different, no longer pointing fingers during games and throwing pity parties after them.

“We are the Denver Nuggets. We have been winners for a long time. So our expectations are to try to win this series. With great respect for coach (Tyronn) Lue and everything they do, this is a 4-5 (seeds matchup). It means it’s two really good teams separated by a very slim margin on who gets the home court,” said Nuggets coach David Adelman, whose team hosts Game 1 on Saturday. “There’s no victim in this thing. No, ‘feel sorry for me because I only got three games.’ This is the NBA. Grow up and play.”

Let’s hope his players are listening. This is the exact attitude the Nuggets need.

They don’t have to be who they are right now. Or at least who everyone thinks they are.

They can leverage this situation. They still have Jokic, who has a sneaky chance to upset Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for his fourth MVP award. They still have Murray, who can erase his disappointing Olympics and this season’s forgettable first two months with another classic playoff performance.

Kroenke gave them a free pass for their grousing and underachieving. He pulled the plug on Malone and Booth to make basketball fun again, to allow the Nuggets to play with freedom.

It has worked beyond the results. Players are talking more on and off the court. They appear connected.

“As a team, anytime there is a big change in an organization, you can either do two things: spread apart or come together,” veteran Russell Westbrook said. “I think we have done a good job of coming together.”

Winning this series makes the Nuggets serious. A contender. Lose, and they are like so many flawed franchises, their offseason highlight the announcement of a coach and a new front office structure.

Could that be more boring?

That was the Nuggets Stan Kroenke purchased in July of 2000. A middling franchise that promptly posted three consecutive losing seasons. Josh recalled talking to fans years ago, who just “wanted a competitive team.”