Bruce Brown, Nuggets’ biggest country music fan, signs with Knicks
Sep 16, 2026, 3:30 PM | Updated: Sep 17, 2026, 10:09 am
Denver’s favorite boot-wearing, Luke Combs-blasting basketball player is heading to the Big Apple.
Bruce Brown, the 30-year-old guard-forward who became a fan favorite during two stints with the Nuggets, signed an Exhibit 9 training camp contract with the defending champion New York Knicks on Wednesday. The non-guaranteed deal means Brown will have to earn one of the Knicks’ final two open roster spots during camp, competing alongside former No. 2 overall pick James Wiseman, guard Ochai Agbaji, forward John Konchar and center Drew Eubanks.
Brown played all 82 games for Denver last season, averaging 7.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and a steal per game on 47.5 percent shooting. He was a key piece of the Nuggets’ 2023 championship run, famously going shot-for-shot with Nikola Jokic on Serbian brandy during the Las Vegas celebration, before leaving for a two-year, $45 million deal with the Indiana Pacers. When that didn’t pan out, Brown came running back to Denver in 2025, saying at the time, “I was going to Nashville or going to Greece and I was like, ‘All right, I’m coming back. I don’t care who else called.'” The Nuggets’ first-round exit against the Timberwolves in April ended what turned out to be Brown’s final season in a Denver uniform.
Beyond the hardwood, Brown became one of the most beloved Nuggets in recent memory, largely because the guy is, at his core, a country music fan stuck in an NBA locker room. His Spotify rotation is heavy on Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen, Dan + Shay, Dustin Lynch and Jordan Davis. He was featured in Boot Barn’s “250 Strong” series as a professional basketball player “with a cowboy stat(e of mind),” and GQ ran a whole profile on his cowboy style. He even has a Nuggets championship tattoo featuring the Larry O’Brien trophy in front of a Colorado mountain backdrop, so yeah, Denver clearly left its mark.
The Knicks deal is far from a sure thing, but if Brown makes the roster, at least he already knows the building: he hit a buzzer-beater at Madison Square Garden in a Nuggets uniform just last February. The bad news? He once told DNVR, “I don’t think anyone on this team is into country,” about the Nuggets. Maybe he’ll have more luck finding a Wallen fan in that Knicks locker room…
