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This is a cautionary tale to my good friends in the Mile High.

A few years ago, there was a team with a plan. It had fallen from the NBA heights to its depths, and it was time to rebuild. The plan was simple: create the maximum amount of room under the salary cap to sign big-time free agents. That required the team to, in essence, sacrifice a season. The idea was to sign or trade for cheap players at the end of their contracts, bottom out, and the following summer, the team would be in position to hit the mother lode.

But a funny thing happened. The team that was supposed to lose quickly, and quietly, started winning. It had a young, energetic coach that preached scrambling defense and all-out effort. The players fell in love with the coach, and the fans fell in love with the team. All season, the team exceeded expectations. In the end, it came down to one shot, with a playoff spot on the line. The team's emotional leader took the shot. It fell short. He wept on the floor.

And that was the story of the 1999-2000 Orlando Magic.

The following summer, the Magic went for the downs in free agency, and connected. Orlando got Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill to sign on the dotted line, and looked set for the next decade. To create the room necessary to sign two players to $93 million deals, away went Ben Wallace, and Chauncey Billups, and Ron Mercer, and Chucky Atkins, and Anthony Johnson. (You may recall that during that '99-2000 season, George Karl, then in Milwaukee, pointed out that the Magic would have to jettison a lot of the guys that were currently busting their butts in order to sign the top-shelf free agents. His words were dismissed as those of a coach trying to start trouble for Doc Rivers, with whom George had a bit of a feud.)

At the time, it looked like a great tradeoff for the Magic.

We know now how it turned out.

And you wonder how it will turn out, now, in Denver, under similar circumstances, with an overachieving team, sitting on a pile of potential free-agent loot.

When general manager Kiki Vandeweghe came to town two years ago, he asked people to be patient, because he had a plan, but that it would involve short-term pain for long-term gain. And away went Antonio McDyess and Nick Van Exel, while Denver fans were treated to the likes of Junior Harrington and Vince Yarbrough. The Nuggets averaged 84 points and may have been the most inept offensive team in the league in two decades. The second the season ended, Vandeweghe didn't wait. After Carmelo Anthony fell into his lap with the third pick, Vandeweghe offered huge contracts to free agents Brad Miller and Gilbert Arenas, barely missing on both. But that turned out to be a blessing. Vandeweghe wound up signing Andre Miller, Earl Boykins, Jon Barry and Voshon Lenard for a lot less, and stuck with head coach Jeff Bzdelik. The result?

The Nuggets are a bigger turnaround than John Kerry. They passed last season's 17-win total in December. They've smoked every contender in the West at least once, and they've won at Dallas. Enthusiastic crowds are filling the Pepsi Center. The playoffs are in reach.

But what will Kiki do this summer?

The Nuggets could have more than $20 million in cap room available next summer. You hear they have designs on Quentin Richardson or Rasheed Wallace, and neither of those fellows will come cheap. But Vandeweghe -- while obviously not able to talk about players on other teams -- says that even if Denver makes free-agent moves next summer, he's not overhauling the roster.

"I think our circumstances are a little different" than Orlando's, Vandeweghe said. "What we're doing is adding guys. Our core group is going to remain the same. We're not going to get rid of a lot of guys to get one great player. It's a little bit of a different scenario. You're not coming to a team where the cupboard's bare. You've got some pretty significant pieces under contract and signed. And we've got some extra draft picks stored up which might help us, too."

Vandeweghe says he'd trade anybody if he thought it would help the team, but he has no desire to break up what he considers the heart of the team: Anthony, Miller, Nene, Marcus Camby and Boykins. "And I think Skita (last year's first-round pick, Nikoloz Tskitishvili) is going to come along," he said. "I think we have a good core group. I think it's a team that players would like to come to. We play a style that's fun to play. There's a lot of shots for everybody."

ALDRIDGE'S NBA RANKINGS

THE TOP 10 1. Sacramento Kings 2. Minnesota Timberwolves 3. San Antonio Spurs 4. Dallas Mavericks 5. Indiana Pacers 6. Houston Rockets 7. New Jersey Nets 8. Detroit Pistons 9. Los Angeles Lakers 10. New Orleans Hornets THE BOTTOM FIVE 25. Phoenix Suns 26. Atlanta Hawks 27. Chicago Bulls 28. Washington Wizards 29. Orlando Magic THE MIDDLE FOURTEEN 11. Denver Nuggets 12. Memphis Grizzlies 13. Milwaukee Bucks 14. Toronto Raptors 15. Utah Jazz 16. Philadelphia 76ers 17. Boston Celtics 18. Miami Heat 19. New York Knicks 20. Cleveland Cavaliers 21. Seattle SuperSonics 22. Golden State Warriors 23. Los Angeles Clippers 24. Portland Trail Blazers

Camby is the only member of the core who could be a free agent -- if he opts out of his contract this summer. Miller and Boykins each signed five-year deals. Anthony and Nene are still on their rookie contracts. The only other free agents are Lenard and high-flyer Chris Andersen.

Says Vandeweghe: "We have an All-Star point guard (Miller), or an All-Star caliber point guard, a Sixth Man of the Year candidate (Boykins) as a backup, two really good veteran shooters at two guard, Carmelo Anthony, who's probably top five at his position. Nene's top 10 at his position. And Marcus -- name me a center who's played better this year? I don't think you can."

Denver isn't a finished product by any means. The Nuggets need some more size inside, and they could use a swingman whose first thought is defense, not offense. (And they need to take care of Bzdelik, who is the lowest-paid head coach in the league. He adjusted when Vandeweghe asked him to open up the offense from last season's walk-it-up attack. This year, the Nuggets are fifth in the league in scoring and tied for fifth in field-goal percentage. Tear up Bzdelik's pedestrian contract and give him two guaranteed years with six zeroes each year.)

Like Detroit, Milwaukee, Memphis and Utah, Denver has opted to build a team with a lot of lower-priced players instead of a couple of supposed superstars. But there does come a day of reckoning. Even Dallas and Sacramento, the patron saints of talent collection, have started to blanch at the high costs of having successful 10-man rotations. Memphis is trying to cut more payroll, and the Pistons have some real tough calls coming up in the next few years. Will the Nuggets be able to sustain this promising renaissance?

"There's different ways," Vandeweghe says. "Can you get those two superstars? When you have a Shaq and a Kobe that changes the equation for you. If you can get them, you try. Not many teams have those type of guys. I think the other way to go, if you don't have those type of guys, and very teams do, you have to go the route of Sacramento or Dallas and you have to get a group together. It has to be a group effort."

Baron Davis has an eye for talent. The Hornets' guard will be releasing his first picture through his new film company, Too Easy Entertainment, in the fall. And he's always on the lookout for new stars. So I wondered, would he ever consider using NBA players in films?

Absolutely.

"You see so much" on a team, Davis said. "In acting, you practice, you concentrate. You're around people, so you develop different personalities. It's hard, but it can't be that hard to step into somebody's personality. You do that on a team. Guys on teams walk around like other guys; they talk like other guys."

So I asked him what hoopers he'd cast if he had his choice of the entire Association.

His starting five:

Allen Iverson. "'Cause he's a star."

Sam Cassell. "Just for the comedy."

Allan Houston. "He's not a bad actor."

Yao Ming. "For the international flavor."

Kevin Garnett. "He's a star."

The movie "would have to be more on the comedy tip," Davis says. "Allan Houston, Iverson and Ray Allen are probably the ones who could pull off the drama."

Allen, of course, starred opposite Denzel in Spike Lee's "He Got Game." And Houston more than held his own with Brooke Shields, Robert Downey, Ben Stiller and Mike Tyson as a doomed baller in James Toback's "Black and White." But Ive, to my knowledge, hasn't starred in anything more dramatic than those Reebok commercials.

"He's raw, he's real," Davis said. "As soon as I get this basketball script right, he'll be the first one I'd call."

The film is about a touring streetball team. "One kid is in high school and going to college. It's about this kid from Cali who's going to college, who could give two (bleeps) about basketball. One kid is a black militant. One kid is a white kid who thinks he's black. One kid thinks he's got game, and he's broke."

Davis doesn't think it would be any problem finding other players with acting chops.

"Half the NBA acts anyway," he says. "They get their money and they act like thugs."

Around the League

Jeff Van Gundy, right, has been trying to get his message across to Steve Francis, left.

Keep an eye on events in Houston, where Jeff Van Gundy and Steve Francis continue to clash. The latest came when Francis missed the team flight to Phoenix on Sunday. When Van Gundy finally got in touch with Francis on the phone, the guard said he'd informed the team that he'd be missing the flight to tend to a family emergency. But the club believes he stayed behind in Houston to attend the Super Bowl. Van Gundy told Francis that a lot of people, himself included, had access to Super Bowl tickets and gave them up. The phone call deteriorated from there, though Van Gundy continues to reiterate that he won't give up on trying to make Francis better. Still, "those two just aren't getting along," says a local witness.

The Grizz will make another run at Erick Dampier before the trade deadline. He's everything Memphis thinks its needs inside -- a rebounder, a banger, a solid low-post defender. But the Warriors aren't sure what to do. They know Damp will opt out of his deal at season's end and have to think about dealing him when he's at his maximum trade value. But they consider Dampier one of the top 10 centers in the league and won't give him away, especially when they aren't sure if Adonal Foyle can stay healthy.

The Bulls' buyout of Jay Williams doesn't mean he's done with the team. Agent Bill Duffy hopes to work out a community relations position for Williams while he continues to rehab his numerous injuries. "The likelihood is he's eight months from being able to test himself," Duffy says. "We're not in any hurry." And Williams was heartened by the personal attention that owner Jerry Reinsdorf gave after Williams's motorcycle crash last June. "You could have dealt with a team that was more harsh," Duffy says of the Bulls. "They never changed their tone. (Reinsdorf) called himself all the time."

Rick Carlisle's take on the Eastern Conference coaching upheaval: "I think if you study it closely, you find out that contractual status had a lot to do with some situations. And it's always going to be a results versus expectation business. Now that there have been, really, wholesale changes, I have to believe it's going to settle down and we're going to see some trades. It's always easier to change the coach, but once you change the coach, you've got to start looking at maybe some other things."

David Aldridge, who covers the NBA for ESPN, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. Also, click here to send a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.