Denver Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference. The team was founded as the Denver Larks in 1967 as a charter franchise of the American Basketball Association (ABA) but changed their name to the Rockets before the first season. The Rockets then changed their name again to the Nuggets in 1974. After the name change, the Nuggets played for the final ABA Championship title in 1976, losing to the New York Nets.

The team has had some periods of success, qualifying for the ABA playoffs in every season of the ABA's existence, losing in the 1976 ABA Finals to the New York Nets. The team joined the NBA in 1976 after the ABA–NBA merger and qualified for the NBA playoffs in nine consecutive seasons in the 1980s and ten consecutive seasons from 2004 to 2013. In 2023, the Nuggets, led by Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray, reached their first NBA Finals and defeated the Miami Heat to capture the franchise's first NBA championship. The Nuggets were the last of the four surviving former ABA teams to reach the NBA Finals, and the second former ABA team to win an NBA title (after the San Antonio Spurs). The Nuggets play their home games at Ball Arena, which they share with the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League (NLL).