A soft-spoken man from South Carolina scored more points than any other player in the league that decade: Alex English. The greatest Nuggets player in history still holds all-time team records across several categories, including points and assists.

English was an 8-time NBA All-Star who led Denver to nine straight playoff runs in the 1980s, including a trip to the Western Conference Finals in 1985. He was the leading scorer on a high-flying Nuggets team, coached by Doug Moe, that led the NBA in scoring for much of that decade.

English was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round of the 1976 NBA draft with the 23rd pick. English was then traded to the Boston Celtics.

English then signed with the Indiana Pacers as a free agent after the 1977-78 season. English became a starter in Indiana and began to establish a reputation as a scorer, averaging 16 points per game during the 1978-79 season on another rebuilding team.

English was traded to the Denver Nuggets midway through the 1979โ€“80 season for George McGinnis. In the 1981-82 season, English averaged 25.4 points and the team advanced to postseason play. He earned a position on the All-Star Team and All-NBA Second Team. The following year, in 1982-83, English won the league scoring title with an average of 28.4 points per game, while teammate Kiki Vandeweghe placed second averaging 26.7 points. Then in 1983-84 English placed fourth in the league in scoring.

In the 1984-85 season English raised his scoring average to 27.9 points to pick up some of the slack from Kiki Vandeweghe's departure. Denver won its division and secured the second seed in the Western Conference. In the 1985 playoffs, English averaged 30.2 points as the Nuggets defeated the San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz to meet the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, where they would fall to the eventual NBA-champion Lakers in five games. English recorded his career-best average of 29.8 points per game in the following 1985-86 season, finishing third in the league behind Atlanta's Dominique Wilkins and Utah's Adrian Dantley. In the 1986 NBA All-Star Game, English set his All-Star career high by scoring 16 points on 8-of-12 shooting in 16 minutes off the bench for the West squad.

After the 1989-90 season, in which English's scoring average dipped to 17.9 and he largely struggled to maintain his level of play compared to previous seasons, English became a free agent, and the Nuggets elected not to re-sign him.

When English left Denver, he was the holder of nearly every team record, including most career points (21,645), assists (3,679), games (837) and minutes (29,893) in a Nuggets uniform, along with the highest career scoring average with the team (25.9) of any English's number 2 jersey in 1992. He also has the distinction of being the top scorer in the 1980s.

At age 36, English signed a one-year contract with the Dallas Mavericks where he once again played off the bench, this time averaging just under 10 points per game. No other NBA team signed him for the next season, and after a stint in Italy with Basket Napoli, English retired.