Nuggets rookie hazing involved condoms, tampons and Hello Kitty backpacks

It is well known that this season Denver Nuggets rookies had to dougie on the court after a public scrimmage, but that was only a part of the story.

On December 26, Timofey Mozgov wrote this on his personal blog at Sports.ru:

After the morning practice team captain gave every rookie a gift that was indeed worthy of a captain — these exact backpacks)) And then he used his captain word and ordered that the rookies never part with them during the entire season. Also he has put some interesting content inside, so that the guys wouldn’t be too sad.

 

 
The guys, of course, were taken aback at first, almost got depressed and felt terribly shy. And we were cheering them up, teasing them, so to say. I am lucky, after all – nothing like this was happening last year… Or am I not?! I didn’t get a backpack…))

The photo features a Hello Kitty backpack and its content is easily recognizable.

About two weeks later, on January 6th, Mozgov blogged about a Nuggets road trip and wrote:

By the way, rookies are still carrying the backpacks that captain gave them everywhere they go. There are strict rules about it here, so there’s no way to dodge)))

Obviously pranks were frequent in the Nuggets locker room early in the season. Here’s one by the team staff: each international player got a national flag placed next to his name on the locker.

This is a flag of Lithuania, where Ty Lawson was playing for Zalgiris Kaunas during the offseason. Abroad, Lawson “had bubbly guts” the whole time and lost weight, and also had a teammate who would smoke a cigarette after a game.