Nuggets winning rainbow converts

After sending the Los Angeles LeBrons home with a 117-85 defeat, the Nuggets should have offered one of their cool rainbow skyline uniforms to each one of the thousands of fans who showed up at the Pepsi Center wearing a jersey that celebrated every team King James has ever played for, from Akron to Miami and Cleveland to California.

Turn in your LeBron James jersey and get a Nuggets rainbow skyline jersey in return. Deal?

“We don’t want any converts,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said Tuesday. “You’re either with us or against us.”

He was joking. Malone understands why so many sports fans in Denver rank the Nuggets, whose record is now a nifty 14-7, as no better than their secondfavorite NBA team.

“LeBron is arguably the best player ever, and when he comes to town with the Lakers, their fans care,” Malone said. “But as long as their fans go home disappointed, that’s all I care about. So the Warrior fans can come in here, the Celtic fans come in here, the Laker fans can come in here. But take that ‘L’ on the way out.”

James got 14 points, seven rebounds and a loss. Now, it’s time for this basketball city to lose a little of its inferiority complex.

Earlier this year, in an effort to recruit the league’s most desirable free agent, Nuggets president Josh Kroenke sent his famous basketball buddy a rainbow skyline uniform, and as James recalls it, “He said, ‘You’ll look good in one of these.’ ”

Hey, I don’t pretend to know when the UPS delivery guy rang the King’s doorbell, but the gift couldn’t be considered tampering if James regarded it as a gag between friends.

Asked if Kroenke made the Nuggets a legitimate contender for his services, James said, “We have a great friendship, but I didn’t give it much thought.”

Ouch. Remember all the commotion around here the Nuggets were aggressively pursuing James? How funny was that?

Put it this way: If I sent Halle Berry a 12-month subscription to The Denver Post, you think she’d go out to dinner with me? What if I said please?

Let’s move on to a more serious question. Can the Nuggets