The Denver Nuggets were "born" in the summer of 1974, from the disarray of the Denver Rockets. The Rockets had existed since the beginning of the ABA. The Rockets occasionally had good attendance, but rarely succeeded on the court. Many Rockets fans had become disenchanted with the team when super-rookie Spencer Haywood abandoned Denver for the Seattle Supersonics of the NBA in 1970.

In the summer of 1974 new owners bought the team and got rid of Alex Hannum as the franchise's coach and general manager. The new coach was suddenly Larry Brown, who had played for Denver from 1970-72. Brown was willing to leave North Carolina because the Carolina Cougars franchise was moving to St. Louis. Brown also brought along Carl Scheer, as the general manager, and Doug Moe, as assistant coach. A contest was held to find a new nickname for the franchise--the name "Nuggets" won, the same name that had belonged to Denver's short-lived NBA franchise in the 1940's. The new logo was an excited miner ("Maxie the Miner," above) who had apparently just discovered an ABA Ball. This was a subtle suggestion to Denver residents that their "New Denver Nuggets" were suddenly different and interesting. Incredibly, due to the presence of Brown and Moe, they were. In one summer, Brown and Moe transformed the Nuggets from a problem franchise to a red-hot commodity.

With the North Carolina connections of Moe and Brown, the Nuggets were able to accomplish something significant: they drafted and signed defensive-minded Bobby Jones from Dean Smith and the North Carolina Tarheels. Jones chose the Nuggets above the Houston Rockets of the NBA. All-Star guard Mack Calvin also followed Brown and Moe from Carolina to the Nuggets. With Jones and Calvin, plus the same cast of players that had achieved a disappointing 37-47 record the year before (Byron Beck, Ralph Simpson, Dave Robisch, Claude Terry, and Mike Green), the Nuggets became the best team in the ABA. Virtually every home game in their small arena (the downtown Auditorium Arena) was a sellout