Run 'N' Done: The 1990-91 Enver Nuggets Season

Hey y'all. I was inspired by Jon Bois' YouTube series Pretty Good, and so I'd like to tell a story about one of my favourite historical sports teams. This is the tale of the 1990-91 Denver Nuggets.

First, a little backstory: as a sports franchise, the Nuggets' story goes back to 1967, when they were founded in the old ABA as the Denver Rockets. After 7 seasons of solid but unspectacular basketball, anticipating a move to the NBA, a league that already had a team named the Houston Rockets, they changed their name to the Nuggets in 1974. The ABA-NBA merger they were expecting happened 2 years later, and they joined the NBA along with the New York New Jersey Nets, San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers.

In 1981, after a few more seasons of unspectacular, conventional basketball, the team hired Doug Moe as their coach. Moe's fast-tempo offensive style led to some of the highest scoring teams in NBA history. In 1981-82, Moe's first season as coach, his Nuggets scored 126.5 points per game, the most in NBA history. From January 21, 1981 to December 8, 1982, the Nuggets never scored fewer than 100 points in a game - an NBA record 136 games, including the entire aforementioned 1981-82 season. On December 13, 1983, the Nuggets hosted the Detroit Pistons and lost a triple-overtime game 186-184 - the highest-scoring game in NBA history.

Moe stayed as coach until 1990. During his 9-year tenure as coach, despite his teams' offensive prowess, the Nuggets only made it past the 2nd round of the playoffs once, in 1984-85, where they lost to the eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. Following his departure, the Nuggets hired a guy named Paul Westhead.

Like Moe, Westhead was also known for a fast-paced, "run & gun" offense. His coaching career started with the Lakers in 1979, kicking off the Showtime era of that team. However, he feuded with the team's young star, Magic Johnson, which led to his dismissal in 1981. After a brief stint with the Chicago Bulls he wound up in the NCAA, coaching the Loyola Marymount Lions. It was here that he perfected "The System", turning the Lions into an offensive juggernaut and guiding them to the 4th round of the 1990 March Madness tournament, an impressive feat for such a small school. They broke countless scoring records along the way, among which was a January 1989 game between the Lions and United States International University. The Lions cruised to a 181-150 win, the highest-scoring game in NCAA Division I history.

Westhead's system wound up inspiring other schools to adopt a run & gun offense, the most notable of which might be Troy State University, then coached by Don Maestri in Division II. Maestri's Trojans played in the 2 highest scoring games in all of NCAA and possibly in all of basketball: a 187-117 win over DeVry of Decatur, GA in 1991, and an incredible 258 253-141 win over the same school in 1992.

Anyways, after the 1990 NCAA tournament Westhead left Loyola Marymount to take the Nuggets' head coaching job, and this is where I finally talk about the 1990-91 Nuggets, one of the most "so bad they're good" teams in sports history.

Westhead attempted to adopt the same system that worked for Loyola Marymount in the NBA with the Nuggets. But the Nuggets just weren't a very good team. Although they were coming off of a 43-39 season in 1989-90, their star throughout the 80's, Alex English, had signed with the Dallas Mavericks in the previous off-season; he'd play one season with them before retiring. The players that were left for Westhead to coach were a young group of players that'd be good in a few years... just not yet. Still, he attempted to make do with what he had.

On November 7, 1990, the Nuggets opened their season hosting the Golden State Warriors. This game saw them put up 158 points, the most they'd score all season. However, they'd still lose, 162-158. They would lose their first 7 games of the season by similar scores; in their 6th game, a 173-143 loss to the Phoenix Suns, they gave up 107 points in the first half, an NBA record for points scored in one half by one team. It'd also be the most points the Nuggets would allow all season. They finally got their first win in their 8th game, on November 15 against the 2nd-year Minnesota Timberwolves, 121-108.

So as you may be able to guess, the thing that makes the '91 Nuggets so interesting is the stark contrast between their offensive and defensive games. They lead the league in team scoring, averaging 119.9 points per game. Two of their players averaged more than 20 points per game - Michael Adams (26.5) and Orlando Woodridge (25.1); Adams was 6th among players in scoring, and Woodridge would've been 10th had he played more than 50 games. In addition, 6 more players averaged more than 10 PPG: Walter Davis (18.7), Reggie Williams (16.1), Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (14.1), Todd Lichti (14.0), Blair Rasmussen (12.5) and Jim Farmer (10.0).

Their problem, however, can be summed up by the team's informal nickname, the "Enver Nuggets" - No D. Because while they led the NBA in scoring, they also gave up the most points in the league, averaging 130.8 against per game, an NBA record. In fact, the record they broke? 126.0 - by the 1981-82 Denver Nuggets!

This team was a far cry from the 1981-82 Nuggets, however - while both teams gave up 100 points in every game they played, the '82 team still scored more than they allowed, and as a result they won more games - 46 out of 82 in fact. The '91 team's best defensive game probably came on January 16 against the 3rd-year Charlotte Hornets, a 111-104 win for Denver that improved their record to 8-29. The night before they lost a game in Seattle against the SuperSonics 146-99, one of only 5 times they missed the 100-point mark all season.

The sheer amount of points that were scored in their games made them one of the most entertaining teams to watch, even if you weren't a Nuggets fan - indeed, maybe especially if you weren't a Nuggets fan. If you went to one of their games cheering for the other team, not only were you gonna see a fast-paced, high-scoring game, your team was more than likely gonna win.

It also has to be said, that the Nuggets at this time were still in the era where they wore rainbow-coloured uniforms, which are still my favourite look in the team's history - so not only were they entertainingly bad, they dressed fabulously to boot.

The best stretch they had was between January 21 and February 2, where they beat Minnesota, the New York Knicks, the Utah Jazz, the Milwaukee Bucks, the New Jersey Nets and the Atlanta Hawks to string together a 6-game winning streak.

They proceeded to follow this with a 7 game losing streak, that ended February 23 against the Warriors. At this point their record was 15-37. These weren't even their longest stretches of futility, however - they closed their dismal season by losing 18 of their last 20, including a 10-game losing streak that went from March 30 to April 18. Their season came to a merciful end on April 21, where they lost a 131-125 game to the Rockets, leaving their record at an NBA-worst 20-62.

Despite their 23-win drop from the previous season Westhead was kept as coach for the 1991-92 season, which marked the debut of rookie Dikembe Mutombo, who'd go on to be one of the league's all-time best centers. With such a defensive-minded player this team couldn't afford to be as loose with the ball, and they only averaged a 25th-best 99.7 points per game this year, compared with the 20th-worst 107.6 they gave up. After this 24-58 season Westhead was fired; he'd never coach in the NBA again, and after an unsuccessful 4-year stint with George Mason University he wouldn't return to the NCAA either.

Under replacement coach Dan Issel the Nuggets would return to the playoffs in 1993-94, after ditching their rainbow unis for a navy blue, dark red & bronze look, and as the worst playoff team in the Western Conference that season, they upset the 1st-seed SuperSonics in the first round, becoming the first 8th-seed to accomplish this feat.

In closing, I have a certain fondness for this team, even in spite of their awful record. When it comes to sports - well, hockey and basketball anyways - I've always preferred faster-paced, offensive shootouts to slower, defensive stalemates. I know the latter is what wins more games, but just from a personal standpoint I'd much prefer rooting for a team that goes out, gives it 110% but still loses in a close, exciting game, to cheering for a team that wins by systematically grinding their opponents into dust. Even if they don't win, they're just more fun and more entertaining to watch that way. In my opinion, exciting and entertaining and especially fun are what sports are supposed to be about, so teams like the '91 Nuggets will always hold a place in my heart, even if they weren't very good.