Nuggets: the offseason so far

The desk keeps a day-by-day record of everything that happens to the Denver Nuggets: results with the players who decided them, injury changes, roster moves, reports, milestones and the schedule ahead. The story of the offseason is written from that record every week; the timeline below is the record itself, each line linked to the page that proves it.

The franchise dates to 1967, when an ABA charter team awarded to Kansas City businessman James Trindle relocated to Denver on commissioner George Mikan's suggestion. Local resident Vince Boryla became general manager and the club was named the Denver Larks, after the state bird. Undercapitalized and facing a $100,000 performance bond deadline, Trindle sold two-thirds control to trucking magnate Bill Ringsby for $350,000, and Ringsby renamed the team the Rockets after his Ringsby Rocket Truck Lines. On August 7, 1974, ahead of a planned NBA move, the team became the Nuggets, since Houston already held the Rockets name; the new name honored the 1948-1950 NBL-era Denver Nuggets.

In the ABA, Byron Beck, Larry Jones, Ralph Simpson, and Lonnie Wright (who also played for the Denver Broncos) anchored early rosters, and Spencer Haywood's 1969-70 season - about 30 points and 19.5 rebounds a game, ABA MVP, Rookie of the Year, and All-Star Game MVP - stood out before he left for the Seattle SuperSonics. With David Thompson, Marvin Webster, Dan Issel, Bobby Jones, and coach Larry Brown, the Nuggets went 65-19 (40-2 at home) in 1974-75, losing the Western Conference finals to the Indiana Pacers in seven games, then 60-24 in 1975-76, reaching the ABA Finals only to lose to Julius Erving's New York Nets in six games.

The Nuggets entered the NBA in the 1976 merger alongside the Nets, Pacers, and Spurs, paying a $2 million entry fee; Red McCombs bought the team in 1978. Under Doug Moe's motion offense, Denver scored 100 points in 136 straight games, an NBA record streak, and averaged a league-record 126.5 points in 1981-82. Alex English and Kiki Vandeweghe each topped 25 points a game alongside Issel; on December 13, 1983, Denver and the Detroit Pistons combined for an NBA-record 370 points, Detroit winning 186-184 in triple overtime. English won the NBA scoring title, and the 1984-85 team lost the West finals to the Lakers in five games. After trading Vandeweghe for Fat Lever, Calvin Natt, and Wayne Cooper, and with defenders Bill Hanzlik and T.R. Dunn, Denver won 54 games in 1987-88 before falling to the Mavericks. Ownership passed to Sidney Shlenker in 1985 and COMSAT in 1989.

Paul Westhead's run-and-gun approach coincided with a collapse from 46-36 to 20-62. Dikembe Mutombo, drafted in 1991, finished runner-up for Rookie of the Year to Larry Johnson. Under coach Dan Issel, with LaPhonso Ellis and Bryant Stith added, Denver adopted navy, metallic gold, and wine colors in 1993-94 and went 42-40 behind Mutombo, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (formerly Chris Jackson), and Ellis - upsetting the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics with a 98-94 overtime win in Game 5, the first 8-seed to beat a 1-seed, before losing to the Utah Jazz in seven. Mutombo left for the Atlanta Hawks in 1995-96, and Jalen Rose and Abdul-Rauf were traded away.

Denver bottomed out at 21-61 in 1996-97, 11 wins with a 23-game losing streak in 1997-98, and 17-65 in 2002-03, tying the Cavaliers for the league's worst record; Issel resigned as coach after an incident with a heckling fan. COMSAT's 1995 purchase of the Quebec Nordiques, moved to Denver as the Colorado Avalanche, added to ownership instability. In 2023, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray led the Nuggets to their first NBA Finals, where they beat the Miami Heat for the franchise's first championship - the last of four surviving ABA teams to reach the Finals and the second former ABA team, after the Spurs, to win a title. The Nuggets play at Ball Arena, shared with the Avalanche and the Colorado Mammoth.