A few bumps along the road is all part of the ride for Nuggets fans

Sometimes, the ride is bumpy. Enjoy the ride. Even NBA royalty like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry don’t just cruise through the schedule all season long, every season. And by now, Nuggets fans know better than anyone they better buckle up.

The entire history of the team has been an off-road, four-wheel drive trek up a 14er compared to that of the NBA’s marquee franchises. And last night was yet another bump in the road.

After an impressive 2-0 start, the Nuggets were completely flat and got embarrassed on their home court by Cleveland. We can complain about 22 turnovers leading to 32 Cavaliers points. Or about Denver shooting an abysmal 9-of-38 from three. Or how everyone but Nikola Jokic seemed to already be looking ahead to tonight’s game in Utah.

Sometimes, the road is bumpy. Enjoy the ride.

“Ladies and gentlemen, NBA fans around the globe, I present your 2021-22 NBA champion Denver Nuggets!”

Seems like a crazy thought after watching the Nuggets stumble and fumble their way to a 12-point home loss. But many Nuggets fans, and even some of our resident hoops-heads here at The Fan, are calling for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to be saying that exact thing for the first time next June. And for one of the only times in our city’s hoops history, it could actually happen.

Despite Monday’s disappointing result, yes, the Nuggets still have arrived into the NBA’s “have” club after the franchise has spent most of its 47 years in the league as a “have not.” This isn’t the 17-65 Nuggets trotting out a line-up of Junior Harrington, Vincent Yarborough, Skita, Rodney White and Donnell Harvey. Nor are they the Carmelo-left-us-woe-is-me Nuggets.

Even after a bad home loss, it’s still easy to see that the painful scars from Nuggets past are ancient history. Today’s Nuggets have the reigning MVP (who wants to be here), budding young stars and the firepower to finally compete at the highest level. Finally.

So I’m not saying this to be the bearer of bad news, but if you watch sports for the sole purpose of hoping your teams win championships, you’re not going to be a very happy person. Or a very good sports fan.

In fact if that’s why you watch, you’re probably not even a Nuggets fan at all. You probably root for LeBron, or the Warriors, who together had combined for 14 Finals appearances in the last 10 seasons before the Bucks and Suns met last summer. And if you believe the oddsmakers, those two usual suspects are among the seven other teams favored ahead of Denver to win it all this year.

This message isn’t for those front-running fans. This message is for Nuggets fans.

Sometimes, the ride is bumpy. Enjoy the ride.

Get on the Nuggets bandwagon now, and:

• Enjoy having a reigning MVP-offensive savant-video game cheat code in Nikola Jokic playing hard every single night

• Enjoy having Michael Porter Jr. be the only 6-foot-10 three-pointer shooter in the world that could rival Kevin Durant

• Enjoy every soaring Aaron Gordon jam off of a how-did-he-see-that pass from Joker

• Enjoy the anticipation that comes with what could be when Jamal Murray returns

• Enjoy Facu Campazzo getting under the skin of every opponent, even on a Tuesday night back-to-back in February

• Enjoy the really high-highs and even the low-lows Will Barton provides week in and week out

Don’t worry, be happy. Enjoy the ride, Nuggets fans.