By Heath Copps

"So who's your favorite NBA team?"

"Uh, the Nuggets."

"Hrmph, ccth hss ha," they barely muffle a laugh (hey, it's tough to put in print, the barely muffled vocalized amusement these people are having at my expense).

"There's no such team."

"Yeah, the Denver Nuggets."

OK. There's several factors in this never-ending interaction, including smaller-market franchise and a terrible team, but the main giggle point is the name. Seriously!

Mr. Vandeweghe along with all of your wholesale changes, why not pull out all the stops and change the name. It's your team. Owner Stanley Kroenke has bought into your program to the tune of bringing two aging point guards in just so you can buy them out and feel like your better than any team that stoops so low to pick 'em up off waivers.

So while you've got carte blanche, the moniker must go.

"Nuggets" is like dried mucus or fecal matter. It's a snide way to say bits of wisdom. It's like healthy cereal or something. It is not a name for a sports franchise.

My wife and sister-in-law have this thing going where they try to gross each other out with over-the-top language. It's like a combination of smarmy romance poetry and Dandy Dime community advertorial marketing.

"Hanging out with you at the bar last night was rich with nuggets of wholesome, frothy, warm goodness," one might write to the other in a heart-shaped note.

They do it better, I'm proud to say, but you get the idea and the word "Nuggets" is truly a nugget in their creepy lexicon.

It must go.

Broncos, Rockies, Avalanche. Not bad. Not bad. They sound imposing and capture the cultural essence of the area.

Not so, Nuggets. The whole gold digger thing (except for some choice society page marriages) is obscure legend to most in the Mile High area, and completely unknown to the rest of the world. And as for imposing -- not a chance. It's goofy. From any angle.

Let's get mystical, metaphysical, hippie-dippy for a second. This name has to have bad numerology. You know where each letter is assigned a numerical value, then they're added up and it's decided that the name doting parents decided on at birth no longer works energetically, so, instead of Bruce, it's Soaring Bear.

Do the math Kiki, the numbers are surely bad. You can't win with that name. Any success with it in the past was an anomaly, or right for the time, but things ch-ch-cha change, and Bruce filed for bankruptcy, broke up with his girlfriend and had his 19th nervous breakdown -- the Nuggets need a new handle. It can't hurt.

Heck, get the community behind it, like that open tryout marketing coup you pulled over the summer. Use your website. Get people to submit names. Throw in a prize (I'm not sure season tickets for the Nuggets will be much of a draw, but Sugar Daddy Stanley surely can spring for Avalanche passes).

Anyway, get a list of the best ones. Run a poll. Community favorite wins. Perfect.

Two Ideas to Prime the Pump

Denver Altitude. Make the opponent think about how much wind they're sucking in the second half of every home game. Stitch Altitude on the front and back. I know you know the intricacies of the psychological edge Kiki, so work it. This should be done already.

Alternate name: Denver Money. The mint. Tskitishivili from the three-point line. Get it? Do it.

Historically Speaking

Fate. 1974. Carl Scheer blew into town as GM and President -- changed the uniforms, the personnel (including some coach named Larry Brown) and, yes, the name. From Rockets to Nuggets and "yes" the fresh approach paid big immediate dividends (from 37-47 to 65-19). Wow! The new MO was grand, but it tapered off into another losing season in 1979-80.

The very action of a name change was a fresh, force for the franchise, but the Universe in charge of all things energetic finally figured out, "hey, that name sucks." And whammo the Nuggets found their proper place -- lousy.

Warning

Make sure you get a professional numerologist, historian and, I don't know, a feng shui expert or something before you make the official change. Had Scheer done his homework he would have known the Nuggets wasn't it. Think about it. For the inaugural NBA season in 1949, Denver tipped off under the uninspiring flag of you guest it, the Nuggets. They played to an eerily familiar atrocious 11-51 record, and folded after their first and only season in the big league. It took them 26 years to regroup and get back into The League.

Change the name, please. They laugh at me.

Heath Copps gets basketball visions while eating slightly fermented mangoes. E-mail him at gowiggle@qwest.net.