Denver Nuggets Trivia
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50 free Denver Nuggets trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
How well do you really know the Nuggets? This Denver Nuggets trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers that run from the franchise's 1967 birth as an ABA charter team through the Rainbow Skyline years, the Mutombo and Melo eras, and the Jokić-Murray team that finally brought the Larry O'Brien Trophy to the Mile High City in 2023. The early questions are the ones any Denver fan should nail: the mascot, the arena, the draft picks and the Finals MVP. Then it gets harder, with the trades, the record-book nights at McNichols, the coaches who came and went, and the odd corners of team history, from a truck-line owner naming the team the Rockets to a 168-point game against Seattle. It works as a warm-up before tip-off, a bar-trivia round, or a way to settle who in the group chat is the real Nuggets historian. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the team, its arena and its players, and each question links to the page and sentence that establishes it, so you can argue with the explanation and then go read for yourself.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Under what name were the Nuggets founded in 1967, before a last-minute ownership change renamed the team?
Denver Larks
Denver Larks honored Colorado's state bird, the lark bunting; a new owner bought control hours before a league deadline and renamed the team the Rockets before it had played a game.
Q 02The Nuggets were called the Rockets from 1967 to 1974 after what kind of business owned by Bill Ringsby?
A trucking company
A trucking company: Ringsby's long-haul rigs were known as Rockets, and the team's first logo and its orange-and-black colors were borrowed straight from the trucks.
Q 03Why did Denver's Rockets become the Nuggets in 1974?
An NBA team in Houston already used it
An NBA team in Houston already used it, and Denver was angling to switch leagues, so a fan contest picked Nuggets, the name of the city's short-lived NBA club of the late 1940s.
Q 04Which team beat the Nuggets in the ABA's final championship series?
New York Nets
New York Nets, led by Julius Erving, trailed by 22 in the third quarter of Game 6, then outscored Denver 34-14 in the fourth to win the last title the ABA ever awarded.
Q 05Which team joined the NBA with the Nuggets in the 1976 ABA merger?
San Antonio Spurs
San Antonio Spurs were one of four ABA clubs let in, and on hard terms: no share of the NBA's television money for three seasons and no part in that summer's college draft.
Q 06Which team did the Nuggets defeat to win their first NBA championship in 2023?
Miami Heat
Miami Heat had lost their first play-in game and squeezed into the playoffs as the East's No. 8 seed, then went all the way to the Finals, where Denver needed only five games.
Q 07Which All-Star Weekend staple was first staged at halftime of the 1976 ABA All-Star Game, hosted by the Nuggets?
The slam dunk contest
The slam dunk contest was invented to sell tickets for a league in desperate shape; Julius Erving won it by taking off from the free-throw line, beating a field that included Denver's David Thompson.
Q 08The Nuggets share Ball Arena with the NHL's Avalanche and which National Lacrosse League team?
Colorado Mammoth
Colorado Mammoth arrived when the Washington Power franchise was sold and moved to Denver in 2002; their first home game drew 16,121 fans, then a league record for a debut.
Q 09Before it became Ball Arena in 2020, what was the Nuggets' home arena called?
Pepsi Center
Pepsi Center was the name for 21 years, until aluminum-can maker Ball Corporation took over in 2020 with a plan to swap the arena's plastic cups for recyclable aluminum ones.
Q 10Which venue did the Nuggets and Avalanche leave behind when Ball Arena opened in 1999?
McNichols Sports Arena
McNichols Sports Arena was only 24 years old when it was demolished to clear space for the Broncos' new stadium complex; ZZ Top played both its first rock concert and its last.
Q 11What is the name of the Nuggets' mountain lion mascot?
Rocky
Rocky made his debut in December 1990 and has feuded with Charles Barkley for decades, ever since, by the mascot's own account, Barkley punched him in the face during a game.
Q 12Jokić's 2014 draft pick was shown during an ad for which fast-food chain?
Taco Bell
Taco Bell was advertising its new Quesarito when the 41st pick slid by at the bottom of the screen; the future MVP was asleep at the time.
Q 13Jokić's 'Shuffle' fadeaway is named after which Serbian city, his birthplace?
Sombor
Sombor gave the Sombor Shuffle its name; Jokić came up with the shot while an ankle injury forced him to find a new way to get it off.
Q 21In the 2020 bubble, Jamal Murray scored 50 points twice in a first-round series against which team?
Utah Jazz
Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell scored 51 to Murray's 50 in Game 4, the first playoff game in which two opponents reached 50; Murray's second 50 came in Game 6 and forced a decider.
Q 22Jamal Murray scored 50 against Cleveland in 2021 and became the first NBA player to do so without what?
Attempting a free throw
Attempting a free throw was the one thing he never did, so all 50 had to come from the field; he got there on just 25 shots, making 21, eight of them three-pointers.
Q 23Which injury caused Jamal Murray to miss the entire 2021-22 season?
Q 14Away from basketball, Jokić's great passion is which sport, one he grew up around as a teenage stable hand?
Harness racing
Harness racing has been his first love since he worked as a stable boy at 13; he now owns a racing stable in Serbia and was filmed in tears when one of his horses won.
Q 15When Jokić won his first MVP in 2020-21, he became the first center to win the award since which player?
Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal won in 2000, a single vote short of unanimous because one ballot went to Allen Iverson; no center took the award again until Jokić, 21 years later.
Q 16Which two players were the other finalists for Jokić's third MVP award in 2024?
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Dončić
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Dončić finished second and third; a year later the top two swapped places, with Gilgeous-Alexander taking the award and Jokić the runner-up.
Q 17Jokić averaged a triple-double across the 2024-25 season, a feat previously managed only by Oscar Robertson and which other player?
Russell Westbrook
Russell Westbrook, who did it four times, had signed with Denver that summer, so the only two active members of the club shared a locker room; that March Jokić also posted the NBA's first 30-point, 20-rebound, 20-assist game.
Q 18Which medal did Jokić win with Serbia at the 2016 Summer Olympics?
Silver
Silver: Serbia reached the Rio final but lost it 96-66 to the United States; eight years later in Paris he added a bronze by beating Germany in the third-place game.
Q 19Jamal Murray was born and raised in which Ontario city, also the boyhood home of boxer Lennox Lewis?
Kitchener
Kitchener is where his father Roger, a lifelong Bruce Lee fan, raised him on kung fu exercises and meditation alongside his basketball drills.
Q 20Where did Jamal Murray play his one college season before Denver drafted him seventh in 2016?
Kentucky
Kentucky got him a year early: he reclassified to the class of 2015, averaged 20.0 points as a freshman and was drafted almost exactly a year after committing.
A torn ACL in his left knee
A torn ACL in his left knee, suffered against Golden State in April 2021, cost him 18 months; he came back in October 2022 and was an NBA champion by the end of that season.
Q 24Which team traded Alex English to Denver in 1980 to reclaim its former ABA star George McGinnis?
Indiana Pacers
Indiana Pacers got the worse of it: McGinnis, once an ABA MVP for them, was out of the league by 1982, while English went on to score more points in the 1980s than any other NBA player.
Q 25Beyond basketball, which art form is Alex English especially known for pursuing?
Poetry
Poetry was one of two artistic sidelines: he also acted, making his debut as a Boston Celtics star in the 1987 film Amazing Grace and Chuck while still the Nuggets' leading scorer.
Q 26What was David Thompson's nickname during his Nuggets years?
Skywalker
Skywalker was a tribute to his leaping; Michael Jordan, who said the whole meaning of vertical leap began with David Thompson, chose him as presenter at his own Hall of Fame induction in 2009.
Q 27David Thompson scored 73 on the last day of 1977-78 but lost the scoring title to whom?
George Gervin
George Gervin answered with 63 points in just 33 minutes of a game played later that same day, and took the title by less than a tenth of a point per game.
Q 28Dan Issel came to Denver after winning the 1975 ABA title with which team?
Kentucky Colonels
Kentucky Colonels sold him that autumn to the Baltimore Claws, a team that folded without ever playing a regular-season game, and Denver traded for him weeks later.
Q 29Dikembe Mutombo was drafted fourth overall by Denver in 1991 out of which university?
Georgetown
Georgetown enrolled him in 1987 on a USAID scholarship, a would-be doctor from Kinshasa who was still learning English; he left four years later with degrees in linguistics and diplomacy.
Q 30Why did Mutombo, early in his Nuggets career, invent his finger wag?
To become more marketable for endorsements
To become more marketable for endorsements: he had only shaken his head after blocks and wanted a signature move. When referees began calling technical fouls for it, he wagged at the crowd instead.