I suppose I should explain myself, yeah?

You see. I live in Wisconsin. I was born and raised in Wisconsin. This means my basketball fandom is inexorably tied to two things. Nellieball and the George Karl era. You see, like most sports fans of the 80's, I grew up watching sports with my dad. Juan Nieves means a whole lot more to me than he means to you, unless you are indeed Juan Nieves or a member of the Nieves family. In which case welcome.

But that's Brewers baseball. And we will inevitably return to that subject on my twice as popular twitter account as well as here. But Basketball is why I'm here right now. And I have to tell you? I hate the Lakers. Hate the Lakers.

But you know what? The Nuggets have Professional Rick Barnes as their coach. I know, not an Earth-shattering take. But like the Texas coach, Karl always has talented teams that inevitably lose one or two levels before they were supposed to. (Like the 2000-2001 Bucks? They were supposed to take the pin me, pay me JOB to the Lakers if George Karl used proper end of gsme logic.)

But you know what? Karl is somuch worse at coaching. He campaigns for chemistry poisons. (I mean, who trades for Anthony Mason? It happened 8 years ago and I'm still baffled.) He feuds with decent human beings. (I would not be surprised if he starts feuding with Billups, he did feud with Ray Allen). I'm telling you this to warn you Denver fan.

I want you to win. I want you to go to the finals. But you need to hire Dan Aykroyd and Daniel Stern to kidnap him before he lets a third inbounds play cost you the series.