William Lockwood-Geck_Character design: CHARACTER DESIGN ASSIGNMENT 2

Brand Exploration.

The Denver nuggets are a professional basket ball team playing in the National Basket ball Association(NBA). The team belongs to the western conference and is situated in Denver, Colorado, with the Denver Pepsi center as there home court.

-Team history

The creation of the Denver Nuggets

In 1967, one of the American Basket ball Association's (ABA) charter franchises was awarded to a group in Kansas City, Missouri, headed by James Trindle. However, no suitable arena in Kansas could be found to host the team.

It was then league commissioner George Mikan who suggested moving the team to Denver, Colorado. After agreeing to name Denver native and former NBA player Vince Boryla as general manager, Trindle moved his team to Denver and titled them the Denver Larks, after Colorado's state bird.

The Trindle group was severely under capitalized, leading the league commissioner to order the Larks to post a $100,000 performance bond or lose the franchise. Hours before the deadline, Trindle sold a two-thirds controlling interest to Denver trucking magnate Bill Ringsby for $350,000. Ringsby then renamed the team after his long-haul trucking company.s, . This saw the teams name changed to the Denver Rockets before the first season.

The team was then sold in 1972 to San Diego businessmen Frank Goldberg and Bud Fischer. In 1974, in anticipation of moving into the National Basket ball Association (NBA), and the new Mc'Nicholson Arena, a contest was held by the the franchise to choose a new team name, as "Rockets" was already in use by the Houston Rockets. The winning choice was "Nuggets," in honor of the original Nuggets team in Denver from 1948–50. Their new logo was a miner "discovering" an ABA ball. Goldberg and Fischer went on to sell the team in 1976 to a local investment group.

The team had their best seasons in history in their first two seasons as the Nuggets. Playing in the Denver Auditorium Arena the 1974-75 team went 65-16, including a 40-2 record at home.

In 1975-76, playing at their new arena, the Nuggets edged the reigning champion Kentucky Colonels four games to three to make the 1967 ABA finals for the first time, were they lost to the New York Nets
The following year the ABA-NBA merger took place. The merger saw the Nuggets, Nets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs merged into the NBA, and the Spirits of St Louise and Kentucky Colonels disbanded.