What is more extraordinary: that the All Black-laden Highlanders are at the bottom of the Super 15? Or that the Nuggets, who staved off financial ruin four years ago without the help of a Campbell Live sausage sizzle, find themselves at the top of the National Basketball League after five consecutive wins?
Beleaguered rugby writer Steve Hepburn and disbelieving basketball writer Adrian Seconi argue their respective cases.
Nuggets
Look, Dad's Army is simply too slow to the breakdown and too busy thinking about those lucrative contract offers to play tiddlywinks in Japan next season.
They are a lot tougher than that across town at the Nuggets camp these days. But wind the clock back a few short years and the franchise really was a punchline - and we had a lot of laughs at their expense.
The monotonous ease with which the team amassed defeats inspired some pretty scathing comment.
I started reporting on the team in 2005 and, by 2008, had four consecutive wooden spoons to write home about it.
''Eventually, you stop barracking for a win and wonder whether the struggling franchise can extend its losing streak,'' I wrote while picking over the carcass of the 2008 season.
''It is as if cloaking yourself in morbid curiosity somehow prevents the [profound] disappointment soaking through.''
I added ''profound'' for effect, not accuracy, but actually things got worse. Basketball Otago grew weary of propping up the cash-strapped franchise and pulled the team out of the league in 2009.
There was some bloodletting at the following annual meeting and the board which emerged was more committed to having a presence in the national league.
Financial constraints continued to hamper the team and the Nuggets took to the court for their comeback season in 2010 with a rookie coach, some desperately average players, a gaggle of gangly teenagers and an import whose motivation waned if his girlfriend was not in the crowd.
The Nuggets, predictably, joined the Northland Suns (1998) and Taranaki Dynamos (2009) as the only teams in the history of the NBL to go through a season without registering a win.
They bowed out that season with a meek effort at home against the Hawkes Bay Hawks. The following bleak assessment appeared in the Otago Daily Times: ''No-one slumped to their knees. No-one held their head in their hands. No-one stormed from the court. It was just another loss.
''Where to now for the franchise? Clearly, the experiment to field a largely amateur team in a semi-professional league has been a resounding failure, and it is hard to imagine the Nuggets' programme has gained any traction.''
Ouch. Of course, I spent weeks trying to figure out why the Nuggets' management had gifted me a pack of ordinary playing cards. The accompanying hand-written note gave no clue. Eventually, the penny dropped. I had written this a few weeks earlier: ''Perhaps it is time the Otago Nuggets found something else to do in the weekend. Cards might be more suited to their skill set''.
Each match review was more biting than the last, until the Nuggets finally snapped a 33-game losing streak with a 74-67 win against the Manawatu Jets on May 21, 2011 - a win which had been more than three years in the making.
The 2013 Nuggets are radically different. They play uncompromising defence and the roster is stacked with wise heads who know how to get the job done. The team is expected to do well.
It no longer seems a matter of whether this team will end its 16-year playoff drought - it is more a question of whether it can win its first title.
For the Nuggets' long-suffering fans, that really is a wacky turn of events.
Highlanders
So, having a good team on paper is exactly that: on paper.
You play on grass. And, unfortunately for the Highlanders and their fans, the transfer from paper to grass has not worked out.
It has been a massive letdown - like getting a date with Miss Universe, only for Frankenstein to turn up.
When the squad was announced, the Highlanders looked a team which could go all the way. They had a dozen internationals, with experienced All Blacks such as Tony Woodcock, Hosea Gear and Ma'a Nonu.
They had a rock-solid tight five, six All Blacks in the backline and players coming off the bench who had plenty of promise and, surely, the ability to take the next step.
Throw in probably the most successful athlete in rugby and league in the past 20 years, in big lock Brad Thorn, and it was like the road to the title was going to be paved with Highlanders blue and gold.
Most thought they just had to stay healthy, do the basics well, back their abilities and the result would be a spot in the playoffs, at least.
But it has not happened. The man upstairs forgot to read the script. It has been depressing loss after depressing loss.
To sit on one win after 10 games is, well, terrible. To be this bad, when it was supposed to be all good, is tough to stomach. And unbelievable.
No-one saw it coming. Like, no-one. Even Ken Ring would have not have been bold enough to predict a 1-9 start.
The world was supposed to end in 2012, according to the Mayan calendar. It feels - for Highlanders fans, anyway - it has happened one year later.
They have found almost every way to lose. Players yellow-carded at just the wrong time. Niggly injuries which will not go away. Key inside backs suffering a shocking run of form. Simply woeful referees. Inspired opposition. Erratic set-piece execution.
Rugby is a simple game. But if you cannot hold on to the ball and perform other equally basic acts, it will be a struggle.
That is what has happened to the Highlanders. Too many silly mistakes, too many out-of-form players, too many injured players, too many average loose forwards. It all adds up to nine losses and one win.
Plus, the Highlanders are playing in a tough competition, where there are no easy-beats.
Even the once-woeful Cheetahs are now competitive. The Rebels will give teams a good game. You have to turn up every week.
The standard of the competition in which the all-conquering Nuggets play is nowhere near as strong.
Good on the Nuggets for winning five games at the start of the season. But it is not the NBA.
The NBL has nine teams, and none from Auckland - you can hardly count the Rangers, a hurriedly assembled bunch of juniors. It is a bit like English football not having any teams from London. Or the NRL not having Sydney sides.
The Nuggets are also helped by having a big money backer - Oceana Gold - and having a once-in-three-generation player, Mark Dickel, coming back to his home town to play.
And, in basketball, you probably only need to get four or five good players to stage a revival, against what are some very average sides. Not the 15 or more you need for a rugby side.
As my basketball colleague tells me, the Nuggets are on a roll. But it is a roll not totally unexpected. The moons have aligned for them.
Unfortunately, the moons cannot be spotted in the Highlanders camp. There are too many dark clouds up above.
They arrived contrary to most forecasts and may take a good while- until mid-July, say - to clear.
