April 25, 1950. Newspapers across the country printed a release by the UPI from the day before that began, "Denver, Sheboygan, and Waterloo were expelled from the National Basketball Association today."

The Nuggets had been around since 1928, but had been amateur for 20 years and professional for only the last two. They were founded by a Piggly-Wiggly regional manager to entertain his son, who loved sports but had become wheelchair-bound as a result of Potts disease. As amateurs, they were national champions three times and runners-up six. As pros, they lost a lot.

In 1948-49, the most interesting thing about the Denver Nuggets was the presence of Mo Udall, who almost became President a couple decades later.

In 1949-50, it was probably the 0-15 start to the season. Or the other three double-digit losing streaks. Or the fact that they only paid their players half their contractually guaranteed salaries.

The NBA was at a weird crossroads in which they knew they either had to split into a major/minor league system, expand and split into a baseball style AL/NL setup, or contract. When the best of the small-market teams, the Anderson Packers, ceased operations in the middle of the Finals—in part so that their owner could spend his free time riding trains—it suddenly became far easier for the league to decide on contraction. St. Louis quit on their own terms, but Denver, Sheboygan, and Waterloo were kicked out by unanimous vote from the other owners. Babe Kimbrough, president of the Indianapolis Olympians, initially abstained, until Commissioner Podoloff threatened to kick him out too if he didn't go along with it.

The three expelled teams started up a new league called the NPBL. The fact that you've never heard of it probably says how successful it was; they shut down before their first season even ended. But during that summer, they posed the NBA a real, existential threat. Waterloo poached the #1 pick from the Celtics. 16 starters (including Boston's leading scorer) and loads of prospects followed. Then it all dramatically fell apart.

Professional basketball came back to Denver via the ABA. In 1974, Carl Scheer changed the new franchise's name to the Nuggets to honor the original team. Two years later, they made the ABA Finals with the Denver Post's Frank Haraway among those covering the team, 48 years after his dad created them for him.

Now, they're one game away from their first major basketball championship since before WWII, a time when Denver basketball was led by a duo comprising "America's best center" and a guard who, when he "took charge... the pyrotechnics started." A certain Rev. Dr. James Naismith called them "the greatest team I have ever seen."

^{The above is a combination of my own personal research, interviews I've personally conducted with two members of the team, and a wide range of articles between 1937-1976 from The Denver Post as well as various newspapers across the Midwest, with topical inspiration from excerpts of the books The Golden Age of Amateur Basketball: The AAU Tournament, 1921-1968 by Adolph H. Grundman, Pioneers of the Hardwood: Indiana and the Birth of Professional Basketball by Todd Gould, and Ball Hawks: The Arrival and Departure of the NBA in Iowa by Tim Harwood.}