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The Denver Nuggets stayed quiet for weeks after being sued by a former Rocky performer, who’s claiming that he was let go from the mascot job in an act of disability discrimination, but the team responded in court last month.
Lawyers representing Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, the ownership group behind the Nuggets, asked a Denver District Court judge to throw out the lawsuit filed by Drake Solomon, a former employee who performed as Rocky, the team’s beloved mountain lion mascot. The dismissal request, first reported by the Denver Post, argues that Solomon’s termination was for “legitimate, non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory business reasons,” and that the team was within its rights to look for his replacement.
Behind the Lawsuit
Solomon’s father, Kenn, was the original Rocky performer who held the role for thirty years; he was largely responsible for making the mascot popular, thanks to athletic and dangerous feats executed during game breaks, amusing crowd-involved antics and an impressive accuracy at hitting half-court shots — while standing with his back to the basket. Professional mascoting eventually became the family business, with Kenn’s sons both working under the fur in the NBA. One son, Garret, became the mascot for the Detroit Pistons, and Drake, who started working for the Nuggets as a trampoline-dunking performer in 2012, was in line to succeed his father as Rocky. He did, but not for long.
Solomon took over for his dad in the 2021-22 season. However, he caught COVID in the 2022-23 season, and says he then began developing pain in his right hip. He was diagnosed with avascular necrosis, a condition in which his femur bones don’t get enough blood flow, causing them to degenerate, and had surgery in hopes of correcting it in March 2023. Kenn came back to perform as Rocky during the Nuggets’ championship run while his son recovered. By the following season,the younger Solomon was back in the suit, but his health problems didn’t go away. In February of last year, he underwent a double hip replacement.
According to Solomon, his Nuggets supervisors, Steve Johnston and Craig Dzaman, labeled him unreliable after the second bout of health issues and told him that the Nuggets would be holding tryouts for a new Rocky performer “regardless of the outcome” of his hip surgery.
Solomon came back to work as Rocky for public appearances after that surgery in May 2024, but says he returned to a hostile work environment and wouldn’t hear from supervisors for weeks. By August, he and three other candidates had tried out to be Rocky for the 2024-25 season. Solomon says he performed well, but was reportedly asked to teach competitors how to dunk a basketball and land afterward. Later that month, Solomon says, he was informed he was fired shortly after he arrived at work, and then escorted out of the building by security.
On top of discrimination and termination claims based on Drake Solomon’s hip disability, his attorneys want to establish a class action for all former KSE employees who were presented with the same severance agreement as he was. According to Solomon’s lawyers at Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, the severance agreement provided by KSE violated Colorado’s Protecting Opportunities and Workers’ Rights Act by omitting required language concerning Solomon’s rights after his termination.
“They’re our second family,” Drake Solomon told Westword shortly after filing the lawsuit. “They’re everything to us. This was not an easy decision at all for me to pursue this; there were times I was in tears talking to my dad about it. But what I narrowed it down to is, it’s about right and wrong. I hope this helps current employees and future employees from being treated like this.”
The Nuggets front office has preferred to keep the man behind the mascot suit a mystery, rarely commenting on who’s underneath the Rocky costume (or the size of Rocky’s salary). However, the organization’s arguments were laid out in district court filings on September 25.
Nuggets Respond
According to Solomon, becoming Rocky was a professional dream, but the Nugget’s lawyers saw his energy indicated otherwise. Attorneys for Fisher & Phillips in Denver, which is representing KSE in the case, claim that Solomon did not perform his mascot duties with “passion, energy and joy.” In the court filings, Nuggets officials also say that Solomon did not adequately perform during summer 2024 appearances post-surgery or at his tryout last August.
“The plaintiff does not have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities and, as a result, does not have a disability,” team attorneys argue, adding that any more accommodations for Solomon’s alleged disability “would have imposed an undue hardship” on the Nuggets.
Solomon’s lawsuit seeks economic and compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees and $5,000 per violation for Drake and others in the class who received the same severance agreement.
