50th Anniversary

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The backdrop could have been straight out of a movie. A star acquired. A late December snow storm complicating his ability to get to Denver. But then he did. Of course he did.

Allen Iverson arrived in the Mile High City on Dec. 23, 2006 with just enough time to get to the Pepsi Center, to take a physical – and pass it – to take a few pregame shot attempts, to suit up and then to make his debut for the Nuggets.

And what a debut it was: 22 points, 10 assists, 39 minutes. He did not start, but when he hit the court, Iverson never left. The Nuggets did not win that night, but it was memorable nonetheless.

"They embraced me here," Iverson said that night. "It was just a great feeling, and it was a feeling I wanted to get. A feeling I hoped to get. It was special to me, something I'll remember and cherish the rest of my life."

Allen Iverson played just one full season and parts of three seasons for the Nuggets. In his 14-year Hall of Fame career, it is but one chapter. But for that brief moment in time, the Nuggets were just what he needed. And for the Nuggets, Iverson was the man that helped Carmelo Anthony put the Nuggets on a national map.

They needed each other, and that’s why Bubba Chuck, as he was affectionately called by his Nuggets teammates, is back in Denver for 2000s Night as part of the team’s 50 Anniversary Celebration, to look back at those days. They were high scoring days. They were career redefining days.

At the start, they were days eerily reminiscent to Iverson’s time in Philadelphia. Not many will remember he arrived at the exact moment when the Nuggets needed a basketball court savior. Anthony was out due to a suspension. The Nuggets were down a few players, in fact, due to a brawl in New York.

Iverson filled the early bill. And when he and Anthony paired together, the Nuggets had a dynamic duo they hoped would move them closer to a title. Those were wild times. Iverson averaged 25.6 points, 7.1 assists and shot 45.6 percent from the field. His assists were the highest with any team in his career. His field goal percent was the highest of any team he played at least five games for in his career. Iverson still had “it.” And his national profile never missed a beat.

He made the All-Star team in each of his seasons with the Nuggets. In the 2006-07 season, Iverson was the author of 25 games of at least 30 points – and he scored 51 in a game against the L.A. Lakers on Dec. 5. Two remarkable aspects of that game: First, he scored 49 points in the first three quarters. Second, Iverson didn’t make a single 3-pointer. He made 18-of-27 shots from the field, and 15-of-18 shots from the free throw line. That game still stands as the highest point total for a Nugget since Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf hit for 51 in 1995 – a span of over 22 years.

This is the player the Nuggets will honor on Friday night. The crossover king. The scoring guru. The cornrows. The unabashed and unflappable confidence. And all of it with so much swagger. There is no player in Nuggets history quite like him. There is likely no three-year period of a player that had more of a lasting impact with a franchise than Iverson’s with the Nuggets.

Christopher Dempsey: christopher.dempsey@altitude.tv and @chrisadempsey on Twitter.

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Nuggets in the 2000s: Allen Iverson

Kenyon Martin is a complex individual. Always has been. He likes it that way. But in seven seasons with the Nuggets in the 2000s, there is some easy word association to sum his time up.

Yes, chameleon. Let’s start right there. For anyone who watched Martin’s entire career, going back to college at Cincinnati, they saw a player that started out as one of the most imposing physical specimens – ever. Martin tried to rip the rim off on every dunk and tried to rip the heart out of opponents with every blocked shot. And there wasn’t a player he couldn’t dunk over, or a shot he couldn’t block. Basketball, at that time, was natural and free-flowing and, well, easy.

This where we’ll enter perseverance into the conversation as well. Over the years, injuries began piling up. A broken leg. Microfracture surgery. Numerous other ailments. They not only tested Martin’s ability to still be the same athletically, they challenged his ability to not give in and give up. But ‘give’ and ‘up’ as a tandem are not in Martin’s makeup. As such, he kept coming back and in the process reinvented himself on the basketball court. Offensively, his jump shot improved. He incorporated a floater. He picked and chose his spots to remain effective.

Defensively, he settled into knowing all of the nuances of the game. He not only could block a shot and steal a pass, but his positioning was perfect – and he knew where everyone else should be, too. And he made sure they were. The Nuggets were in the top 10 in defensive efficiency the year they went toe-to-toe with the L.A. Lakers in the conference finals, and Martin’s personal play, plus his smarts in directing teammates to where they should be was a huge contributing factor.

Martin played in Denver from 2004-11, signing with the Nuggets as a coveted free agent after spending his first four seasons in New Jersey. In those seven seasons, Martin impacted nearly every category with averages of 12.3 points, 7.0 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.0 blocks. He played in 371 games and started 361 of them.

In players that played 30 minutes or more, he was 14th in the NBA in defensive rating in the 2006-07 season, and led the Nuggets in that category that season. He was second on the team in defensive rating in 2008-09, the season the Nuggets advanced to the Western Conference Finals.

But most importantly, what Martin injected into the locker room was tons of heart and toughness. The Nuggets, long thought of as a finesse, free-running basketball team, had teeth with Martin on the court. They hit first and dared opponents to hit back. With that no-nonsense style of play, the Nuggets eventually soared.

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Nuggets in the 2000s: Kenyon Martin

Got five minutes to get your adrenaline going? Watch a highlight reel of Marcus Camby’s blocked shots.

These weren’t just blocks. They were full-scale annihilations of the basketball. Camby batted shots all over the court – all the way down the court, all the way into the stands. They were the kind of swats that made ball-handlers think twice about careening down the lane assuming a layup or dunk was the assured outcome. Some were hammered so far down the court they were basically outlet passes for Allen Iverson or any other Nugget to scoop and easily score.

Camby ran the court like a gazelle and blocked shots with fury. On a Nuggets team that played up-tempo before up-tempo was all the rage in the NBA, he was a perfect big man for coach George Karl’s system. He could fill the lane on fast breaks like a guard, yet dunk over any defender. He could guard his man on the opposite side of the court yet still have the speed and lateral quickness to come over and help alter a shot when needed.

And it was only a matter of time before the NBA recognized his defensive contributions.

Camby won his only NBA Defensive Player of the Year award with the Nuggets. That was in the 2006-07 season, and Camby’s 3.3 blocks per game that year remains the highest blocks per game average by a Defensive Player of the Year in 16 years.

He played in more seasons (six) more games (350) and more minutes (11,777) for the Nuggets than for any other team in his career. All three of the seasons in which he led the NBA in blocks came while he was with the Nuggets.

And for the analytics sect that shrugs shoulders at simple blocks numbers? Camby led the NBA in defensive rebounding percentage, total rebounding percentage and block percentage in 2005-06. He was top 25 in defensive rating among players on the court for at least 30 minutes in 2007-08 (24th), 2005-06 (21st) and 2004-05, (16th).

Camby has prominent standing in the Nuggets record books. Only Dikembe Mutombo has more career blocks than Camby’s 1,126 with the Nuggets. Camby is third in team history in defensive rebounds (3,176) and fourth in total rebounds (4,117). His hustle and heart endeared himself to Nuggets fans everywhere.

So, we celebrate the man and his meaning to some of the most successful Nuggets teams in history.

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Nuggets in the 2000s: Marcus Camby

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2000s: Allen Iverson

The Nuggets, for Reggie Williams, were without question the safety net that saved his career.

Bernie Bickerstaff was the general manager who made it happen. He coveted Williams out of college while he was GM of the Seattle SuperSonics, but could not get him. But Bickerstaff made good on getting Williams when he was making personnel decisions for the Nuggets.

And Williams paid the Nuggets back as only he knew how – with the best years of his career both from a production and leadership standpoint.

The Nuggets never needed him more than in their famed playoff run of 1994. Williams, then 30, was the elder statesman. A Nuggets team that averaged under 25 years of age, was in need of wisdom. Williams had that. He also pulled 31 points and eight assists out of his hat in Game 3 of the first-round series against the Sonics, helping the Nuggets stave off elimination and gain the momentum needed to pull of what was then the biggest upset in NBA playoff history.

Williams’ path to the Nuggets was arduous. A flat-out star at Georgetown, and senior leader of a team Hoyas coach John Thompson dubbed “Reggie and the Miracles,” Williams was drafted by the Los Angeles Clippers with the fourth overall pick in 1987. The Clippers basically had not scouted him at all and didn’t have real ideas on how they would use him. Bickerstaff, meanwhile, had done plenty of homework on Williams and wanted to draft him in Seattle with the fifth pick. But it was one pick too late.

Williams bounced around the NBA map in his first four years, going from the Clippers to the Cavaliers to the Spurs before, finally, San Antonio waived him on Christmas Eve. That’s right. Christmas Eve.

By then, however, Bickerstaff had moved on to the Nuggets. He didn’t miss his second chance to nab Williams, quickly picking up the phone to get him to town and secure his services.

And with the Nuggets, Williams soared. In six seasons with the Nuggets – five full – he’s 10th in points (5,934), seventh in steals (632) and 10th in field goals made (2,359). He averaged 14.2 points and 4.6 rebounds in 419 games in Denver. His best season was the 1991-92 campaign in which he averaged 18.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals.

In the end, for an East Coast native, who grew up in Baltimore and starred in the area at Georgetown, the Mile High City turned out to be the perfect fit.

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Nuggets of the 90s: Reggie Williams

If there was a player who’s on-court play was more accurately defined by a hard hat than Tom Hammonds, you’d be hard-pressed to find him.

Hammonds was known for his unflinching willingness to do the dirty work and accomplish the detail items every team needs in order to win. He was a key member as a reserve on the 1993-94 Nuggets team that went on to upset the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics in the first round of the playoffs.

"(Nuggets coach Dan Issel) knew when I got in the game, I was going to fight for every basket and every rebound,” Hammonds told Nuggets.com in 2014. “No matter what, he could expect that.”

Hammonds played in five seasons for the Nuggets after signing with the team as a free agent late in the 1993 campaign. A star at Georgia Tech, who had his No. 20 retired during the last game of his senior season, Hammonds was drafted ninth overall by the Washington Bullets in 1989 and played for Wes Unseld Sr., the father of current Nuggets assistant Wes Unseld.

With the Nuggets, Hammonds regained his mojo and played a key role as a top reserve.

His best season was in 1996-97, when he averaged 6.2 points and 5.0 rebounds playing in 81 games. Hammonds scored a season-high 29 points with seven rebounds and five assists in a game against Portland late in the season. Hammonds played 331 games in all with the Nuggets, and was an ironman, never participating in fewer than 70 games in any of his four full seasons in the Mile High City.

He played 12 seasons in the NBA overall before retiring and focusing in on a lifelong love of racing cars. Hammonds had started in college and kept it up on the side throughout his playing career. He dove in the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Pro Stock series, and later started the Race For Achievement program to promote racing, leadership, education and sportsmanship among middle school and high school students.

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Nuggets of the 90s: Tom Hammonds

The athletic 6-foot-4 and under point guard is more commonplace than ever in the NBA. From Russell Westbrook trying to rip down the rim on dunks, to the new-school eye-popping athleticism of Dallas’ point guard, Dennis Smith Jr., jumping ability knows no height.

Robert Pack, however, was doing it when it was truly a feat.

Listed at 6-foot-2, Pack loved nothing more than to drive down the lane and throw down a thunderous dunk on an unsuspecting defense. And he did. Often. That aggressiveness and ferocity at the rim became his calling card.

In his 13-year career, Pack played the most games – and seasons – for the Nuggets. He played four seasons in two different stints in Denver and 259 games total averaging 9.4 points and 4.9 assists mostly as a top reserve for some successful Nuggets teams, including the 1993-94 season that featured the huge first-round playoff upset of the powerful Seattle SuperSonics.

“We weren’t scared of them,” Pack said. “They had more experience than us, but we weren’t scared of them. So, going into that series, lose the first two games the way we did, most young teams would have been, like, devastated. They would have been one more game and out. But we went back home with a lot of confidence, knew our crowd, knew the way McNichols (Arena) got behind us, and we fed off that energy, we played well.”

Part of the Nuggets playing well was Pack playing well. In fact, it was Pack who led the team with 23 points in the series-clinching victory in Game 5 in Seattle. When the Nuggets pushed Utah to seven games in the second round, Pack continued his clutch play in playoff road games with 19 points, seven assists, six steals and four rebounds in a Nuggets’ win in Game 5 in Utah.

And so it was with Pack. He changed the pace with speed and power at point guard off the bench. Originally signed by Portland in 1991 after going undrafted out of the University of Southern California and traded to the Nuggets a year later, Pack’s best season in Denver was an injury-shortened campaign in 1994-95, when he started and averaged 12.1 points, 6.9 assists and 1.5 steals but played in 42 games.

After his playing career, Pack got into coaching, most recently with the New Orleans Pelicans until 2017.

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Nuggets of the 90s: Robert Pack

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90s Night: Robert Pack, Tom Hammonds, Reggie Williams

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