Denver Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets carry a name rooted in Colorado’s own story. The franchise began life in 1967 in the ABA as the Denver Larks, though it was quickly rebranded the Rockets. When Denver prepared to enter the NBA in 1974, the club chose “Nuggets” — a deliberate nod to the gold and silver nuggets that drew fortune-seekers west in the mid-19th century and set Denver on its path.

The Colorado Gold Rush of 1858–59 — often called the Pikes Peak Gold Rush — transformed the region almost overnight. After flakes of gold were found in the creeks near today’s Denver, prospectors poured across the plains under the slogan “Pikes Peak or Bust”. Two rival camps, Denver City and Auraria, sprang up at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte before merging into Denver. Many struck out, but the rush established the settlement as a gateway to the mountains, where silver, copper and, later, coal and oil underpinned an economy built on resource booms. Choosing “Nuggets” tied the club to that heritage of risk and resilience — the belief that the next strike could change everything.

There is a darker strand to that history. The influx of settlers upended the homelands of the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute peoples, who had lived in and moved through the Front Range and high country for centuries. Disputes over land and resources escalated into violence, culminating in tragedies such as the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, when hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed by U.S. troops. The riches that helped build Denver came with displacement and loss for Indigenous communities — a truth that sits alongside the more familiar boom-town myth.

The mountains still carry the marks of those cycles. Dozens of mining settlements thrived for a season, then emptied when seams ran dry or prices fell, leaving behind weathered streets and false fronts — St. Elmo, Ashcroft and other ghost towns that punctuate Colorado’s high valleys. That boom-and-bust rhythm shaped the state’s identity as a place for optimists and hard cases, pressing on through disappointment. In that sense the Nuggets’ long climb — years of promise, rebuilds, and renewed hope — mirrors Colorado’s habit of holding its nerve.

The badge and colours make the connection explicit. The current crest sets two crossed pickaxes over a mountain peak, a miner’s emblem framed by a palette that echoes the state flag: deep blue skies, a golden disc of sunshine and white, snow-topped summits. Even the geography adds character. Denver is the “Mile High City” — 5,280 feet above sea level — and the thin air has long been part of the club’s lore. Visitors feel it in their legs; Denver’s players are built to live with it.

On the floor, the Nuggets have tended to favour flair with graft. The ABA years brought high-scoring nights and stars like David “Skywalker” Thompson under coach Larry Brown. In the NBA, Thompson and Dan Issel kept Denver in the mix; the 1980s belonged to Alex English, whose effortless scoring turned the Nuggets into a perennial play-off side. The modern era has been a lesson in patience and development. Under Michael Malone, Denver drafted and nurtured Nikola Jokić — the Serbian centre whose vision and passing have redrawn the job description for big men. Two MVP awards later, Jokić guided the team to its first NBA title in 2023, beating the Miami Heat and finally living up to the name in the most literal way: a championship nugget after decades of digging.

The Denver Nuggets are more than a basketball team. They are prospectors’ pickaxes and Front Range skylines, Pikes Peak wagons and ghost-town timbers, Thompson’s leaps and Jokić’s no-look passes — the long hunt for gold and the joy of finally finding it. Their badge is a miner’s crest, but their story is also one of reckoning and resolve: a city made by fortune-seekers that must remember the costs carried by those pushed aside.