Before They Were the Nuggets

The Denver Nuggets have become the second ABA team to win an NBA championship. They never won an ABA title, and neither did the five-time NBA champion San Antonio Spurs.

Meanwhile, the Indiana Pacers and Brooklyn Nets have been the champs of the ABA (five times between them) but never the NBA.

The 1973-74 season was the franchise's last as the Denver Rockets, and it ended when they lost a tiebreaker for fourth place in the West and the playoff berth that came with it.

The score of the March 29 game at the Mile High City's small Auditorium was San Diego Conquistadors 131, Denver Rockets 111.

All-Star guard Ralph Simpson failed to average 20 points per game for the only time in a four-year span. He contributed 17 to the tiebreaker game.

Fellow guard Al Smith, in the middle of a five-year career in the ABA only, dished out 20 assists. He was also the league's assist leader with 619 in total and with 8.1 for each contest.

Center-forward Byron Beck, who had played at Denver University before joining the original Rockets, was entering an ebb in his career, and he was one of the two who scored 18.

The other, fellow center Dave Robisch, is determined by metrics developed much later to have had the best "offensive rating" in the entire league.

Rounding out the starting five was forward Julius Keye. Later in '74, he was traded to the Utah Stars, then to the Memphis Sounds, who waived him, and that was the end of his career.

Coming off the bench and spending the most time on the court was Steve Jones, a shooting guard who joined the team in mid-season. Less than a month after trading for Jones, the Rockets waived an All-Star at his position.

That was the controversial Warren Jabali (born Armstrong). Denver struggled in his absence, but he had apparently gone too far for the team's tastes by the time the All-Star Game was through.

Team ownership changed, head coach Alex Hannum was fired, Larry Brown replaced him, Jan van Breda Kolff was drafted, and the rechristened and re-energized Nuggets went 31-5 before the end of the year, 65-19 overall. Needless to say, the franchise became valuable enough to eventually bring into the NBA.