1988–89 Denver Nuggets season
NBA professional basketball team season
The 1988–89 Denver Nuggets season was the 13th season for the Denver Nuggets in the National Basketball Association, and their 22nd season as a franchise.
Season summary
Off-season
The Nuggets had the 23rd overall pick in the 1988 NBA draft, and selected power forward Jerome Lane from the University of Pittsburgh. During the off-season, the team signed free agents, All-Star guard Walter Davis, and Elston Turner.
Regular season
With the addition of Davis and Turner, the Nuggets got off to an 11–4 start to the regular season, but then lost 16 of their next 25 games, and later on held a 25–23 record at the All-Star break. At mid-season, the team traded Jay Vincent, and Calvin Natt to the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for Dave Greenwood, and Darwin Cook. Despite losing six of their final eight games of the season, the Nuggets finished in third place in the Midwest Division with a 44–38 record, and earned the sixth seed in the Western Conference; the team also posted a very successful 35–6 home record at the McNichols Sports Arena during the regular season, and qualified for the NBA playoffs for the eighth consecutive year.
Alex English averaged 26.5 points and 4.7 assists per game, while Fat Lever averaged 19.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, 7.9 assists and 2.7 steals per game, and Michael Adams provided the team with 18.5 points, 6.4 assists and 2.2 steals per game, and also led the league with 166 three-point field goals. In addition, Davis played a sixth man role off the bench, and contributed 15.6 points per game, while Danny Schayes provided with 12.8 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, Blair Rasmussen contributed 7.6 points and 3.7 rebounds per game, and Wayne Cooper averaged 6.6 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game. Meanwhile, Bill Hanzlik contributed 4.9 points per game, but only played just 41 games due to a back injury, and Turner provided with 4.3 points and 3.7 rebounds per game.
During the NBA All-Star weekend at the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas, English was selected for the 1989 NBA All-Star Game, as a member of the Western Conference All-Star team; it was his final All-Star appearance.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1988–89 Denver Nuggets season” is nBA professional basketball team season. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Denver, Nuggets and season, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “nBA professional basketball team season” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3705580. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1988 and 1989.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1988–89 Denver Nuggets season”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1988–89 Denver Nuggets season primary sources, 1988–89 Denver Nuggets season archive and Denver research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1988–89 Denver Nuggets season”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1988–89 Denver Nuggets season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.