Nuggets Aren’t a Laker Rival, Yet

Meet the new rivals?

Well, perhaps not quite yet.

The Lakers once battled the Spurs, Timberwolves and Kings at the top of the West. OK, the Lakers usually messed around until the Spurs, Timberwolves and Kings had home-court advantage and then tried to beat them in the playoffs and often did.

Those were the days, my friends. These days, the Lakers are being picked to finish behind teams like the Denver Nuggets, although after Tuesday’s opener, the experts may ask to revise their predictions.

The Nuggets are the bright young team that went from 17-65 to 43-39 and a playoff berth last season, a rise engineered by a bunch of familiar faces. The general manager is former Bruin Kiki Vandeweghe. His assistant GM is Jeff Weltman, a former Clipper executive. One of the new assistant coaches is Michael Cooper, the old Laker favorite.

Vandeweghe arrived three seasons ago, when the Nuggets were coming off a 40-42 season. Then Antonio McDyess blew out a knee 10 games into the season and Nick Van Exel began a campaign to get himself traded, as only Nick could do and voila!

Instant rebuilding project!

“They thought they had a pretty good team initially and I really didn’t feel so,” Vandeweghe says. “We sort of got the lay of the land

“People told me we would have a lot of trouble getting free agents to come. They pointed out various instances in the past. I just kept in my mind where Denver was when I played there, how great the fans were and how much I enjoyed playing there.”

With McDyess and Van Exel gone, the Nuggets went 17-65 in Vandeweghe’s second season but saved enough cap room to bring in Andre Miller, another ex-Clipper, and more helpful players like Earl Boykins in the summer of 2003. With the league’s worst record, they wound up with only the No. 3 pick in the 2003 draft but when it turned out to be Carmelo Anthony, that was OK.

Last season, they looked so promising, they were the only small-market team Kobe Bryant considered, inviting them to make a presentation along with the Lakers, Clippers, Knicks and Bulls.

Intent on recapturing his marketing cachet, Bryant eliminated the Nuggets but was so impressed by Vandeweghe’s low-key charm, he paid him his ultimate compliment, saying he was “Jerry West-ian.”

“We had a great meeting,” Vandeweghe said. “I’ve always had a lot of respect for Kobe. I’ve always liked him a lot as a person. It was actually kind of an honor that he agreed to meet with us....

“I’m the eternal optimist so, whether we had no chance at all or not, he said he really considered us seriously. He liked our team and he thought he would fit in very well. You know what? I agreed with him.”

Tuesday’s game marked the NBA return of Cooper, who served as an assistant under Magic Johnson in his brief coaching stint in 1994, and under Del Harris from 1994 to 1997.

When opportunity ran out on the NBA level, Cooper became coach of the WNBA Sparks, winning titles with them in 2001 and 2002.

“I had a wonderful time with the Sparks,” Cooper said before the game. “It really gave me a chance to hone in on my craft, as far as being a coach, all the little ins and outs in actual game-time situations, as far as subbing and working with the clock and things like that....

“I’m pretty sure Smooth [Lisa Leslie] will come out. She usually comes out. Nikki Teasley, Lady Magic, hopefully, will be here.”

Teasley was sitting three rows off the floor, across from the Laker bench. She was the one with the little black hat and the mixed feelings.

“It’s a little bit of both,” Teasley said. “I’m happy for him. I’m excited for him. He deserves to be in the NBA but we’ll miss him.

“We’ll miss his friendship. He was like a father figure and a friend to all of us, not just a basketball coach.”

The Nuggets were an energetic young outfit last season and figure to be better this season with Kenyon Martin, although you couldn’t tell it off Tuesday’s game, when they scored 31 points in the first half and looked even worse in the second, trailing by as many as 23 points before rallying too late.

Tonight the Lakers will be in Salt Lake City, playing the Jazz, the team the Nuggets beat out for that last playoff spot. The Jazz would like to re-kindle its rivalry with the Lakers, but, as the Nuggets showed Tuesday, rivals are as rivals do.