Do the Nuggets have tickets on the Love Boat?

When the Nuggets were suddenly thrust into the mix for Minnesota Timberwolves forward Kevin Love ... it, quite frankly, made everyone in Denver and likely throughout the league do a double take. The Nuggets? Really? It's not that the Nuggets would trade that confused people, it's just that the Nuggets were rumored to be involved in the ever increasing size of what I like to call the "Love Boat".

Problem is, none of us know if the Nuggets are genuinely involved or are being used as leverage by other teams to up their offers, or to keep other teams off the trail on this trade. It's certainly ... perplexing. All we know is that the Nuggets name suddenly coming up in the Love discussion came out of nowhere and raised eyebrows all around.

Naturally this causes people to speculate about what exactly the Nuggets would offer. There have been rumors that the Nuggets "offered" Wilson Chandler, Kenneth Faried and (weirdly) Arron Afflalo (how they would acquire him hasn't been exactly extrapolated). Additionally there have been more rumors of the team adding the 11th pick in the draft. I must stress, however, these are rumors.

Rumors are great for people to speculate, and Lord knows it gets people to talk. Yet ...

The circumstances and the sheer randomness of the Nuggets name suddenly appearing in Boston-centric media circles indicates to me that the Nuggets (if they are interested) may be caught up in the leverage game. Most of the rumors have centered around the Celtics and the Warriors, and that has continued throughout the process. The Nuggets may have interest in Love, but the way this information has been disseminated has been highly suspect. Sometimes teams will leak names to get other teams to increase offers, we are aware of this from the circumstances of the Carmelo Anthony trade of three years ago (cough ... Nets ... cough)

So a this point we just sit back, wait for more rumors to come down the pike while we prepare for the 2014 NBA Draft next week. Which should be fun. Who knows what will happen? I guess that part is the fun of this.

Place your thoughts below on thread number 10,050 on the subject in the last 2 days.