While Nuggets coach Michael Malone can’t bear to watch the NBA Finals on television because it hurts too much not to be playing for the championship, I wouldn’t watch the Colorado Rockies play painfully bad baseball on TV if franchise owner Dick Monfort paid me $100 per game.

The father-son Kroenke team of Stan and Josh get it. They play to win, and understand owning a sports franchise is all about bringing victory parades to Colorado. This is more than the competitive spirit of a father and son at work. It’s their civic duty.

Dick and Charlie, the maladroit Monfort brothers, would rather pour you an overpriced beer on the party deck than put a legit World Series contender in Coors Field. The brothers Monfort can count their money because we don’t hold them accountable. They are the nemeses of every true baseball-lover in Colorado.

When both the Nuggets and Avalanche were abruptly bounced from the playoffs during the second round, it was a gut punch to Josh Kroenke. He firmly believes the championship window for both teams is wide open, so he feels compelled to make certain the centers of attention for both teams – Nikola Jokic and Nathan MacKinnon – have the necessary help to hoist more trophies.

Kroenke, however, also realizes what was once a successful formula for winning must be changed, because relying solely on what has worked in the past nearly guarantees future frustration.

So now here is his bold question to the Nuggets: With new, more punitive restrictions in the NBA salary cap, is the once-solid idea of building a championship foundation on the backs of three highly-paid stars in the starting five no longer a viable option?

“I think what the NBA is trending toward, and I’m interested to see how it plays out next season, is really what the new rules are designed to do: To prevent having three max-contract players on the same team,” Kroenke said. “I think, going forward, what you’re going to see is really good tandems with more talent spread out throughout the roster. Look at Dallas. That’s what they’ve done with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.”

Yes, the TV dispute that has kept Jokic and MacKinnon a stranger in too many Colorado households is on the Kroenkes. But you can’t fault them for hiring good stewards of the Avs and Nuggets, then giving Joe Sakic and Chris MacFarland, as well as Calvin Booth and Malone, the support needed to build championship-worthy rosters.

“Bob Meyer, the former general manager of the Golden State Warriors, explained it best, in a metaphor that made sense to me: Overseeing a team is like taking care of a garden. You check on it. But it doesn’t require that you disturb the roots every single day,” Kroenke said.

“It all involves a certain level of trust in the front office and coaches you put in charge. Once you have people you trust, then my role is to say: “Tell me what you need. Tell me how we fit it into a budget that makes sense. We want to win, but we also want to always be in a position of financial strength, even if some of our moves don’t work out, because nobody gets it right 100 percent of the time.”

The real shame of the Rockies is not a lack of commitment to the team’s payroll, but that Monfort actively fools himself into the crazy belief he knows baseball as well as any general manager of the Yankees, the Indians or the Mariners.

It’s a dangerous self-delusion that allows Monfort to pay broken-down Kris Bryant $28 million to sit on his duff this season, in the foolhardy hope that a former MVP long past his prime might make us forget how Monfort paid the Cardinals to take Nolan Arenado off his hands and wield a golden glove at third base in St. Louis, where his salary this season is $24 million.

This is what happens when a franchise owner tries to micromanage everything from the real estate development of McGregor Square to the solution for the lack of home runs produced by the bats of Rockies hitters. And when it all fails, Monfort routinely asks his manager to paint a smiley face on a sad situation. It eventually drove Jim Tracy nuts. And I suspect it might soon drive Bud Black out of this dusty old cow town.

What’s the bottom-line?

What’s the obvious difference between the approaches of the Kroenkes and Monforts?

You mean other than the Kroenkes can afford the price of poker to play with the big boys, while the Monforts are stuck hoping for a big payoff from the penny slots?

It’s more than money.

Whether it’s hockey or basketball, the Kroenkes treat building a championship team like a high-stakes, dog-eat-dog business.

The Monforts treat the Rockies like a game for which they’ve never bothered to learn the rules of success.