The Denver Nuggets might be about to face their old mascot in court. Or more specifically, the guy who used to wear the mascot costume.
Drake Solomon, who previously worked as Rocky the mountain Lion, filed a lawsuit against the Nuggets’ parent company, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, in Denver District Court on Wednesday he was wrongfully terminated after undergoing a hip replacement surgery during the 2023-24 season, according to Denverite.
The lawsuit reportedly claims the Nuggets violated nearly every provision of Colorado’s Protecting Opportunities and Workers’ Rights Act and seeks to become a class action lawsuit to include other KSE employees, requesting monetary damages on behalf of Solomon and other plaintiffs. Solomon’s former supervisors are also named as defendants, per USA Today.
Solomon is a second-generation Nuggets mascot, as his father Kenn Solomon originated the role in 1990. After his father retired in 2021, he was the only person invited to a closed-door tryout and got the job.
He reportedly started experiencing hip pain in both joints during the Nuggets’ championship season in 2022-23. leading to a diagnosis of avascular necrosis, the death of bone tissue due to the lack of blood supply. To fix it, he underwent a procedure known as bilateral core decompression surgery, but he still missed enough time during the season that his father came out of retirement, and the pain continued when he returned to the court.
The next option was reportedly a total hip replacement surgery. Before he went under the knife in 2024, Solomon claims his supervisors told him they would be holding tryouts for the role of Rocky and said he was unreliable due to his medical history.
From Denverite:
“They just said I burned them last time and that they didn’t want to bank on the second surgery working out,” Drake said. “They were like, ‘We don’t know if it’s gonna work out this time because the first time it didn’t work out.’”
“I didn’t get any kind of welcoming back, not that I needed that. But, my higher-ups wouldn’t even look at me or talk to me when we all worked in the same office,” Drake said. “And it wasn’t until finally they talked to me when, you know, it was time to talk about having tryouts. So that was pretty tough.”
Solomon reportedly said he was terminated last August with no reason provided and was offered a severance agreement witha confidentiality and non-disclosure provision and a liquidated damages provision.
The lawsuit reportedly seeks to declare that severance agreement to be in violation of state law.
