Denver Nuggets

• 1. Born in Crisis

  ›

  The Denver Nuggets nearly ceased to exist before their first game. In 1967, the founding group came within hours of losing the franchise over finances. Name changes, league transfers, scoring records, and Hall of Fame careers all followed, but a championship did not. What finally brought Denver its title, and how did the franchise get from that near-collapse to the top of professional basketball?

  182116

• 2. Three Names

  ›

  James Trindle headed the group that received one of the ABA's charter franchises in 1967, a team initially destined for Kansas City, Missouri. Trindle could not secure a suitable arena in that city. League commissioner George Mikan stepped in and suggested moving the franchise to Denver. Former NBA player Vince Boryla was named general manager. The newly relocated team became the Denver Larks, a name chosen in honor of Colorado's state bird.

  That identity barely survived. Trindle's group was found to be severely undercapitalized. The ABA ordered the franchise to post a $100,000 performance bond or forfeit the team before playing a single game. Hours before that deadline passed, Trindle sold a two-thirds controlling interest to Denver trucking magnate Bill Ringsby and his son for $350,000. Ringsby immediately renamed the team after his company's long-haul trucks, the Ringsby Rocket Truck Lines. The Denver Rockets were born.

  Ringsby later sold the franchise to San Diego businessmen Frank Goldberg and Bud Fischer in 1972. Two years later, the team held a public contest to choose a new name. The franchise was anticipating a move into the NBA and a new home at McNichols Arena. The problem was simple: the Houston Rockets already had the word Rockets. The winning entry drew on local history. It honored the original Denver Nuggets basketball team, which had played in the NBL from 1948 to 1950. On the 7th of August 1974, the Rockets officially became the Nuggets. A new logo depicted a cartoonish miner discovering an ABA basketball. Local investors grouped under Nuggets Management Inc. took over ownership that same year and the next. The first season played under that new name would be the best the franchise had seen up to that point.

  1821159523

• 3. The ABA Years

  ›

  The Denver Auditorium Arena hosted the early Rockets teams, which played at a competitive level early on while developing a loyal following. Byron Beck and Larry Jones led the initial lineup, then Beck and Ralph Simpson carried the team forward. Lonnie Wright of the NFL's Denver Broncos signed with the Rockets during that first season. He became the first player to appear professionally in both football and basketball in the same season. Wright stayed four seasons.

  Spencer Haywood joined for the 1969-70 season as one of the first players to leave college early and turn professional. The NBA initially refused to allow him to play in their league because of his amateur status. The ABA had no such restriction. Haywood averaged nearly 30 points and 19.5 rebounds per game in his one ABA season. He was named ABA MVP, ABA Rookie of the Year, and All-Star Game MVP all in the same year. The team finished 51-33, won its division, then exited in the second round of the playoffs.

  Just before the next season began, Haywood signed with the Seattle SuperSonics and crossed over to the NBA. The legal case that followed, Haywood v. National Basketball Association, changed the rules of professional basketball permanently. Courts ultimately allowed both leagues to draft collegiate players who had not finished their eligibility. The ruling later expanded to include high school players. Without Haywood, the Rockets tumbled to a 30-54 record.

  The 1974-75 season, the first played under the Nuggets name, was also the first coached by Larry Brown. David Thompson, a future Hall of Famer out of North Carolina State, joined alongside Marvin Webster, Dan Issel, and Bobby Jones. The team went 65-19, with a home record of 40-2. They lost in the Western Conference Finals in seven games to the Indiana Pacers, one step short of the ABA title series. The following season, the Nuggets went 60-24. They beat the reigning champion Kentucky Colonels four games to three to reach the ABA Finals for the first time. Julius Erving and the New York Nets ended their run in six games. The ABA-NBA merger took place immediately after that season. Four teams were absorbed into the NBA: the Nuggets, the Nets, the Indiana Pacers, and the San Antonio Spurs. The Spirits of St. Louis and Kentucky Colonels were disbanded. The Nuggets joined the NBA without an ABA title. They arrived in the new league carrying a $2 million entry fee and two consecutive division titles.

  2023942421

• 4. The Scoring Machine

  ›

  Doug Moe took over as head coach in 1981 and brought with him a philosophy he called the motion offense. The idea was simple: keep moving the ball until someone came open. Defense was not a priority under Moe by his own design. During the 1981-82 season, the Nuggets scored at least 100 points in every single game. The streak reached 136 consecutive games before it was broken, setting a record that still stands. That same season, Denver set the NBA's all-time record for points per game, averaging 126.5 a night.

  Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe occupied the two forward positions, both averaging above 25 points per game. Dan Issel was at center. English won the NBA scoring title during this era. He was the only Nugget ever to claim the award, despite playing in an offense built deliberately around prolific scoring. On the 13th of December 1983, the Nuggets and the visiting Detroit Pistons combined for 370 points in a single game. Detroit won in triple overtime, 186-184. No combination of teams has scored more points in a regular-season NBA game.

  The team made it to the Western Conference Finals in 1984-85 but lost in five games to the Los Angeles Lakers. Vandeweghe was traded to the Portland Trail Blazers the following year. The exchange brought back guard Fat Lever, forward Calvin Natt, and center Wayne Cooper. Defensive specialists Bill Hanzlik and T. R. Dunn added a different dimension. The Nuggets won 54 games in 1987-88, the most they had managed as an NBA franchise to that point. They fell to the Dallas Mavericks in the second round. COMSAT took ownership of the team in 1989, following an earlier sale from McCombs to Sidney Shlenker in 1985.

  Moe left in 1990, replaced by Paul Westhead, who also believed in a run-and-gun approach. What he inherited was an aging roster rather than a youthful one. The team that had gone 46-36 with a playoff spot in 1988-89 fell to 20-62 the very next season, last in the Western Conference. The collapse left the franchise in need of a complete rebuild, and the centerpiece of that rebuild would come from Georgetown University.

  2226332516

• 5. Upsets and Chaos

  ›

  Denver drafted Georgetown University center Dikembe Mutombo in 1991. He finished runner-up to Larry Johnson for the NBA Rookie of the Year award that season, with Denver posting a 24-58 record. The team fired Paul Westhead before the 1992-93 season and hired former Nuggets star Dan Issel as head coach. That season the team also drafted LaPhonso Ellis from Notre Dame and Bryant Stith from Virginia. Denver improved to 36-46, just missing the playoffs.

  For the 1993-94 season, the Nuggets overhauled their look entirely, adopting a dark navy, metallic gold, and wine color scheme. Led by Mutombo, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, and LaPhonso Ellis, Denver finished 42-40 and secured the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoffs. Abdul-Rauf had recently changed his name from Chris Jackson. Their first-round opponent was the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics. After losing the first two games in Seattle, Denver won both home games. They then took Game 5 on the road, 98-94 in overtime. The Nuggets became the first eighth-seeded team in NBA history to defeat a first-seeded team in the first round.

  COMSAT, the corporate owner, bought the NHL's Quebec Nordiques in 1995 and moved them to Denver as the Colorado Avalanche. Cost overruns at the Pepsi Center construction project put shareholders under pressure. In 1997, COMSAT agreed in principle to sell its sports assets to Liberty Media. A sale to Walmart heirs Bill and Nancy Laurie for $400 million fell through after a shareholder lawsuit. A subsequent sale to Denver banking executive Donald Sturm for $461 million collapsed over a different dispute. The city of Denver refused to transfer land under the Pepsi Center without a 25-year commitment to keep the teams in town. In July 2000, real estate developer Stan Kroenke stepped in. Kroenke bought the Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche, and Pepsi Center for $450 million. He placed the teams in a trust that guaranteed their presence in Denver until at least 2025. He organized his sports holdings under Kroenke Sports Enterprises.

  In 2003, the Nuggets drafted Carmelo Anthony with the third overall pick. The team had gone 17-65 the previous season, tied with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the worst record in the league. General manager Kiki Vandeweghe had orchestrated the rebuild. Vandeweghe, a former Nuggets player himself, had taken the GM role on the 9th of August 2001. Anthony's arrival produced an immediate turnaround. The Nuggets became the first franchise in NBA history to reach the playoffs after a sub-20-win season under the 82-game schedule. They were eliminated in the first round by the Minnesota Timberwolves.

  On the 19th of December 2006, the Nuggets acquired Allen Iverson from the Philadelphia 76ers. Joe Smith, Andre Miller, and two first-round picks went the other way. Iverson and Anthony were both scoring above 30 points per game at the time of the trade. Denver briefly had the top two scorers in the league. The team added Chauncey Billups in November 2008. Those additions carried Denver to the Western Conference Finals in 2009, the franchise's first trip since 1985. They lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games. Anthony, in the 2010 playoffs, averaged a career-high 30.7 points per game before the team was eliminated in the first round.

  On the 22nd of February 2011, Anthony was traded to the New York Knicks in a deal that also moved Chauncey Billups. In return, Denver received Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, and Kosta Koufos. The Nuggets played their next game that same day, beating the Memphis Grizzlies 120-107 while leading by as many as 27 points. "Our guys, when their backs are confronted with a difficult situation, they usually play at a high level," George Karl said afterward. The arena rang with chants of "Who needs Melo?" After the trade, Denver's defense improved, allowing 97.1 points per game where it had previously conceded 105.2. In 2012-13, the Nuggets finished 57-25, the best record in franchise history, going 38-3 at home. George Karl won the NBA Coach of the Year Award that season before being fired. Tim Connelly was named the new general manager on the 21st of June 2013. In the 2014 NBA draft, the Nuggets selected a 19-year-old center from Mega Basket in Serbia with the 41st pick. His name was Nikola Jokic.

  2829313455

• 6. Nikola Jokic

  ›

  Michael Malone was named head coach on the 15th of June 2015. The Nuggets were in a youth movement, built around Emmanuel Mudiay, Nikola Jokic, Gary Harris, and Jusuf Nurkic. On the 31st of January 2019, Jokic received his first NBA All-Star selection. He was named a Western Conference reserve for the 2019 NBA All-Star Game, the first Nugget so honored since Carmelo Anthony in 2011. That season, Denver finished 54-26, first in their division and second in the Western Conference. They returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2012-13. A seven-game first-round win over the San Antonio Spurs ended in a second-round loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. Game 3 of that series went to four overtime periods, tying a 1953 game for the longest playoff game in NBA history.

  The 2020 season was completed inside the NBA's Florida bubble. Jokic and Jamal Murray led Denver to back-to-back comebacks from 3-1 series deficits. First came a seven-game win over the Utah Jazz, in a series featuring a historic scoring duel between Murray and Donovan Mitchell. Then came the second round, where the Nuggets eliminated Paul George and Kawhi Leonard's Los Angeles Clippers under the same conditions. No team had ever come back from a 3-1 deficit twice in a single playoff run. The Los Angeles Lakers ended Denver's title chase in five Western Conference Finals games.

  Jokic won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award after the 2020-21 season. He was the first center to win since Shaquille O'Neal in 2000. He was also the first player in Nuggets franchise history to claim the award. As the 41st pick in the 2014 draft, he was the lowest-drafted player ever to win the MVP. Despite his individual success, the season ended in a sweep at the hands of the second-seeded Phoenix Suns. Jamal Murray had torn his ACL during the year, and without him Denver could not sustain the run. The following season, Michael Porter Jr. joined Murray on the sidelines with season-ending back surgery after only nine games. Despite both absences, Jokic became the first player in NBA history to accumulate 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 500 assists in a single year. He won the MVP award again, making him the first center to win it in consecutive seasons since Moses Malone in 1982 and 1983.

  Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown were added in the offseason ahead of 2022-23. Denver won the Western Conference's top seed with a 53-29 record, two games ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies. They swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the Conference Finals, the first playoff sweep in franchise history. It was also the first time Denver had beaten Los Angeles in a playoff series, after seven prior defeats. Jokic was named the Western Conference Finals MVP. On the 12th of June 2023, the Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat to win the NBA Finals, 4-1. Game 5 was the clincher. Jokic won the NBA Finals MVP Award. The franchise had needed more than five decades and three different names to get there. It was only the second time a former ABA team had won the NBA title, with the San Antonio Spurs having been the first.

  On the 8th of May 2024, Jokic won his third Most Valuable Player Award. He became the ninth player in NBA history to reach that total, tying Moses Malone and Larry Bird. Denver finished 57-25 that season, second in the Western Conference. They lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round, after holding a 20-point lead in Game 7. On the 7th of March 2025, Jokic posted at least 30 points, 20 rebounds, and 20 assists in a single game. No player in NBA history had ever done it before.

  7789919284