MICHAEL COOPER WATCH: The former Sparks coach is currently an assistant with the Denver Nuggets, but he may be on the verge of taking the reins, possibly by the end of the month.

In the offseason, Denver brought in Kenyon Martin in the hopes that he would vault them from the middle to the top. (Why they thought it was a good idea to bring an overpaid, undersized power forward to the Western Conference is beyond me, but that's another story.) But the Nuggets have gotten off to a poor start, leading to early speculation that they'll fire current coach Jeff Bzdelik and replace him with Coach Coop.

Tonight they lost another bad one -- they got blown out by Seattle at home, fell to 1-4, and moved us closer to a Coop coup.

I'll be cheering for them to keep losing, because after getting screwed by Kobe Inc., it would be nice to see Coop come out ahead in Denver. (Probably some sort of joke there... but maybe I'll leave that one alone.)

If he does take over soon, it won't be a great situation, and he'll have to learn how to manage some players who are real prima donnas. (I'll leave that one alone too.) But I'm sure he'd be thrilled to be back where he belongs: in the head coach's seat.