The Los Angeles Clippers have made the playoffs five years in a row. Each year, they fell short of the Conference Finals. They are in postseason purgatory. Over the next few weeks, ClipperBlog will feature the other 17 teams to make at least five consecutive postseason appearances without reaching the Conference Finals during the streak. Eight of those 17 teams broke through and eventually made the Conference Finals before the end of the postseason streak, and two made it all the way to the NBA Finals. But none of the previous 17 teams to make at least five consecutive postseason appearances without reaching the Conference Finals won a title before missing the playoffs first. All of these roundups will feature the players who played at least 10,000 regular season minutes, the head coaches, and what happened to each team at the end of their run of Playoff Purgatory. We’ll circle back and relate it to the Clippers’ current situation. Denver Nuggets 2003-2008 Summary – 2003-2004: 43-39 (8th seed), lost to Minnesota Timberwolves in 5 – 2004-2005: 49-33 (7th seed), lost to San Antonio Spurs in 5 – 2005-2006: 44-38 (3rd seed), lost to Los Angeles Clippers in 5 – 2006-2007: 45-37 (6th seed), lost to Spurs in 5 – 2007-2008: 50-32 (8th seed), swept by Los Angeles Lakers in Round 1 10K minutes: Carmelo Anthony, Marcus Camby Head Coaches: Jeff Bzdelik (2003-2004), Michael Cooper (2004-2005), George Karl (2005-2008) The Denver Nuggets ended the 2002-2003 season under first-year head coach Jeff Bzdelik at 17-65, tied with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the worst record in the league. It was Denver’s eighth consecutive season out of the playoffs; only the Memphis Grizzlies, an expansion team in Vancouver in 1995, had more than Denver’s 424 losses from 1995 to 2003. Help would be on the way, though. Some of the help was already there; during the 2002 NBA Draft, the Nuggets traded PF Antonio McDyess, the 25th pick of the 2002 NBA Draft (PG Frank Williams), and a 2003 2nd Round pick to New York for C Marcus Camby, the 7th pick in the 2002 Draft (PF Nenê), and PG Mark Jackson. Camby missed most of the 2002-2003 season after hip surgery, but he finished the season healthy. And though the Nuggets only got the third pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, they would get an immediate contributor in Syracuse SF Carmelo Anthony. The Nuggets would also secure the services of PG Andre Miller, who left the Los Angeles Clippers to sign a six-year deal with Denver via restricted free agency in 2003. Denver also signed Toronto SG Voshon Lenard in September 2003; Lenard had spent the 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 seasons with the Nuggets. Miller and Lenard would join Anthony, Nenê, and Camby as starters for the 2003-2004 season. They wasted no time putting the 2002-2003 season behind them. The Nuggets knocked off the defending champion Spurs in their season debut, and by December 26, the Nuggets had surpassed their win total from the entire 2002-2003 season. In the home finale against the Sacramento Kings, the Nuggets won 97-89 to beat out the Utah Jazz for the final playoff spot in the West, ending the franchise’s longest postseason drought in the process. Anthony would lead the Nuggets with 21.0 points per game as a rookie, while Camby played in 72 games for 2,162 minutes, averaging 10.1 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game. The Nuggets would lose to the Minnesota Timberwolves in 5, but it was a successful debut season for Anthony. The Nuggets traded three 1st round picks to New Jersey for the right to sign All-Star PF Kenyon Martin in July 2004. The move was supposed to move Denver up a class. But when the Nuggets started the 2004-2005 season 13-15, general manager Kiki Vandeweghe fired Bzdelik as head coach. Assistant Michael Cooper, who left the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks to join the Nuggets coaching staff in July 2004, was named the interim head coach. The Nuggets were even worse under Cooper, losing 10 of 14 games. The solution: hire ESPN analyst and former NBA head coach George Karl in January 2005. Cooper was kept on as an assistant, while Karl made it his duty to get Anthony going. “I’m going to be demanding of certain things that he might not be happy with, but I also respect that he’s a great talent,” Karl said. “[His] being successful will only make my job successful. I’m just going to communicate with him, coach him, mentor him, try to teach him professionalism. I see a great player that has plateaued.” Karl’s first game as Denver’s head coach came at Milwaukee; the Bucks fired him in 2003. Denver overcame a 14-point deficit to beat the Bucks, and the run towards a playoff spot was on. Anthony went from scoring 20.2 points per game on 39.0 percent shooting from the field under Bzdelik and Cooper to averaging 21.3 points per game on 47.3 percent shooting from the field under Karl. Camby would earn a selection on the NBA All-Defensive Second Team after averaging 10.0 rebounds and blocking a league-high 199 shots. The Nuggets went 32-8 under Karl to finish 49-33, their best record in 17 years. Denver’s reward for being the NBA’s best team since Karl took over? A 1st Round matchup with the San Antonio Spurs. The Nuggets took Game 1 in San Antonio, but the ride was over shortly after that, as the eventual NBA champions would win the remaining four games of the series by an average of more than 14 points per game. The momentum from Karl’s debut didn’t carry over into the 2005-2006 season. Nenê was lost to a torn right ACL in the season opener, Karl was suspended multiple times by the league, and Camby needed finger surgery. Anthony was an All-Star snub again, but he averaged 26.5 points per game, while Camby averaged 11.9 rebounds and a league-leading 3.3 blocks per game. The Nuggets were division champs for the first […]
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