Eureka! This Dusty Ol’ Cowtown of Denver, Colorado, has the best betting odds of becoming the first city ever to win both the NBA and NHL championships in the same year since the NBA and I were born.
It is a foregone conclusion that the Nuggetlanche duo will play in the two league’s postseasons for a combined 50 times. The Nuggets have reached the playoffs 28 previous years since rejoining the National Basketball Association in 1976. And the Avalanche have advanced to the National Hockey League playoffs for 20 seasons since moving from Quebec City in 1995.
Each is a current No. 3 seed – the Nugs in the Western Conference and the Avs, despite being edged by the booming Blues on Saturday afternoon in a bad brain burp at Ball 2-1 — still are a wild card in the Central Division of the Western Conference.
The Avalanche won their third Stanley Cup title in 2022 with an astounding 16-4 postseason record, and the Nuggets were NBA champions in 2023 with an amazing identical 16-4 record.
In fact, Denver is the only city to have won the Vince Lombardi Trophy, the Lord Stanley Cup and the Larry O’Brien Trophy since 2015.
D.O.C. is not the favorite to win any of those championships this season. Six months before their first game the Broncos are 35-1 to prevail in the next Super Bowl. With only eight games remaining in the regular season, the Avalanche are 8.5-1 to clasp the Chalice, and the Nuggets are 15-1 to finish The Finals with a crown.
However, all three have a puncher’s chance.
The Rockies, whose $27 million cleanup hitter is 0-of-8 in two games, have a 50,000-1 sucker’s chance to win the World Series.
With the NHL and NBA regular seasons concluding on Sunday, only seven metropolitan areas that have franchises in both leagues possess possibilities of winning both championship – New York/New Jersey, south Florida, Toronto, Dallas-Fort Worth, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Los Angeles/Anaheim and, yes, Denver/25 surrounding communities.
The top four wise guy choices in the NHL are the Panthers, the Stars, the Oilers and the Avalanche. The first five championship contenders in the NBA are the Thunder, the Celtics, the Cavaliers, the Lakers and the Nuggets.
Obviously, Oklahoma City, Cleveland and Edmonton don’t have teams in the two leagues. Following the trade of Luka Doncic, the Mavericks may slip into the play-in games, but aren’t about to be a factor in the playoffs. Despite trading Karl-Anthony Towns, the Timberwolves, the Nuggets’ arch-adversary in the playoffs last season and opponent Tuesday night here, could challenge. But the Wild may only squeeze into a wild card spot. The Raptors in all likelihood will not be in the playoffs, and the Heat will beat them out for 10th in the East. Big cities Boston, Philly and Chicago are done like dinner.
So the only real potential prospects for a historic first double NHL and NBA titles (in the 79 years since the NBA was formed in 1946; the NHL was founded in 1917), are Denver (the Nuggets and the Avalanche), Greater Los Angeles (the Lakers or the Clippers and the Kings or the Ducks), Greater New York (the Knicks and the Devils).
Our D.O.C. is No.1, L.A. 2 and N.Y.C third.
But the Nuggets and the Avalanche, after wobbling in recent home games, are not cinches to get past first rounds, even with defending league MVPs.
The Avs have lost in the opening round only three times in their history (2014, 2018, 2023), but they are in position, with eight games left (five on the road) to confront the second-seed Stars, the team that eliminated the Avalanche last postseason in the second round. And guess who plays now for Dallas?
The Nuggets have suffered playoff purge in the first round on 17 dreadful occasions including in 2022 to the Warriors. From 2004-13 the Nuggets made it to the second round only once. Their seven final games (four at home) will determine which one of a half dozen candidates they would meet. The schedule could come down to the last Sunday in Houston against the Rockets.
If the Nuggets can get healthy, they’ll get happy. And if the Avalanche get going again, they’ll get glad.
Will June be busting out all over Colorado? Or just a bust before?