Lakers coach Mike Brown maintains a special fondness for the Denver Nuggets.

After all, they gave him his first job in the NBA.

Actually, his first job wasn’t a job at all.

Brown served as an unpaid intern during the summer of 1992 before he finished his final course work at the University of San Diego.

Then-Nuggets general manager Bernie Bickerstaff then hired him as the team’s video coordinator.

“All I can remember is he offered me 15 grand,” Brown said Saturday. “In my head I was, like, `Sucker, I got you fooled. All you had to do was offer me a couple pairs of sneakers and some sweat suits.’ He paid me 15 grand and I thought I was rich.”

Brown initially turned down the job in order to finish school.

Bickerstaff held the position open for Brown until he completed his final semester Dec. 15 and gave several assistant coaches the tasks of breaking down game film until Brown arrived.

Unlike today’s video coordinators around the league, who don’t work with tape anymore, Brown worked with two clunky decks. If he needed to make a tape of all the Nuggets’ fastbreak baskets, he watched the game tape and put it together.

If he needed to make a tape of all their plays when passing inside to their big men, he had to watch the whole tape over again and put together that tape. It was arduous, time-consuming and thankless work.

Patrick O’Keefe, the Lakers’ video coordinator, works with a laptop

and DVDs.

“It’s so advanced now, I have no clue how it works,” Brown said.

Watching more film than a movie reviewer wasn’t Brown’s only job, however.

“I landscaped our assistant GM’s yard,” he recalled. “I’ll never forget I had a Nissan 4×2 pickup truck. It was maroon. It was one thing to help him landscape his yard, but it was another thing finding out that 4×2 was going to be the stone hauler.

“I did it all, trust me.”

Brown spent five seasons with the Nuggets and eventually graduated to scout before he began his coaching career as an assistant with Bickerstaff for the Washington Wizards. His career in video and landscaping finally paid dividends.

Barnes starts

Devin Ebanks didn’t start for the first time in five games this season. In fact, he didn’t play a minute in the Lakers’ victory over the Nuggets.

Matt Barnes took his place as the Lakers’ starting small forward and had seven points and seven rebounds.

Brown said Barnes would start again in today’s rematch in Denver. He couldn’t say who would end up with the job, but Metta World Peace would not budge from his spot as a key backup on the Lakers’ second unit.

“I thought Matt was going to give us a lift after the way he played (Thursday),” Brown said, referring to Barnes’ defensive work against Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks during the Lakers’ victory.

“Devin didn’t do anything wrong. We wanted to give Matt a shot. I would like to name a starter. Matt started (Saturday) and will start (today). Will that change (for the next game)? It might until I say, `Hey, this is the guy we’re going to go with.”‘