The Denver Nuggets - Contenders or Pretenders?

For years, the Denver Nuggets had been a completely inconsequential basketball team. Years passed with nary a playoff bid, indicating to many fans that their favorite team would be suffering from structural problems throughout the beginning of the new millennium.

Then, during the 2003 NBA Draft, the Nuggets drafted a promising young man out of Syracuse University - Carmelo Anthony. Anthony showed much promise as a freshman at Syracuse, more than enough to warrant being picked third in the draft, and he brought all of that talent with him into the NBA.

Immediately following the edition of Anthony, the Nuggets began to win games, propelling them from having the worst record in the NBA season prior to drafting Carmelo to finishing the following season as the eighth seed in the playoffs. From that season on, the Nuggets became a very potent team in the Western Conference. Although this was enough to get them into the playoffs, they were not proven to be serious contenders until the 2008-2009 season, when the addition of former Detroit Pistons point guard Chauncey Billups helped to lift the Nuggets into the championship conversation.

Billups took what was once a somewhat stagnant offensive team and made them absolutely electrifying. That season, the Nuggets went all the way to Western Conference Finals, where they were knocked out by the eventual champions, the L.A. Lakers. Despite the loss, this deep run into the playoffs not only showed that the Nuggets were more than capable of making a championship run, but it also marked the first time ever that Carmelo Anthony had managed to lead the Nuggets out of the first round of the playoffs.

Using their playoff run for perspective, the Nuggets began the 2009-2010 season much as they had ended their last-determined to prove that they were more than capable of winning an NBA championship.