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Michael Malone — the man who coached the Denver Nuggets to their only NBA title in 2023, and the only coach Nikola Jokic has ever known in the NBA — has been shockingly fired by the team with less than a week remaining in the regular season and Denver about to enter the playoffs.
Calvin Booth, the Nuggets general manager, will also be let go — technically, his contract will not be renewed — announced Josh Kroenke, the vice chairman of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Nuggets. Kroenke added that he took "no pleasure" in firing Malone.
"This decision was not made lightly and was evaluated very carefully, and we do it only with the intention of giving our group the best chance at competing for the 2025 NBA Championship and delivering another title to Denver and our fans everywhere," Kroenke said in a statement. "While the timing of this decision is unfortunate, as Coach Malone helped build the foundation of our now championship-level program, it is a necessary step to allow us to compete at the highest level right now. Championship-level standards and expectations remain in place for the current season, and as we look to the future, we look forward to building on the foundations laid by Coach Malone over his record-breaking 10-year career in Denver."
There had been speculation that, barring a deep playoff run, Malone would be let go at the end of the season. In that light, the firing itself is not a total shock, but the timing certainly is.
Assistant coach David Adelman takes over a team that is 47-32 but has lost four in a row and finds itself sliding down a logjam of teams fighting for seeds 4-8 in a deep Western Conference. Those four losses were signs of a team struggling since February, particularly on the defensive end — Denver is bottom 10 in the NBA in defensive rating since the All-Star break (they were 16th in the league, right in the middle, before the All-Star Game). There had been rumblings of frustration in the locker room with the team's play, and even the normally calm Jokic has shown signs of frustration on the bench. Jamal Murray being out injured is not helping things. It was also an open secret that Booth and Malone did not like each other and did not see eye-to-eye on roster decisions, adding to the tensions around the club.
Firing the coach with a week to go in the season is an extreme answer to those challenges.
The goal was to give the team a "jolt," reports Ohm Youngmisuk at ESPN, but that doesn't always work as intended. Denver is following in the footsteps of Memphis, which unexpectedly fired coach Taylor Jenkins a couple of weeks ago. That jolt has seen the Grizzlies go 2-3 since, sliding down to eighth in the West.
If Kronke wants to see what has taken this team from the mountain top to the second-tier title contenders — at best — he needs to look in a mirror. The Nuggets won that 2023 title because Jokic and Jamal Murray were surrounded with quality role players such as Bruce Brown, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Jeff Green and others. While players such as Christian Braun have stepped up, the erosion of depth on this roster came from the marching orders Booth was given. (Booth took over in 2022 when Tim Connelly, the guy who built a championship roster, went to an ownership group willing to pay more for him in Minnesota. Connelly then built a Timberwolves roster that knocked the Nuggets out of the playoffs last season.)
Denver has now cleaned house. How much, if at all, it helps the Nuggets in these playoffs is now the question on the table. Soon enough, the questions will be about the next coach and GM, and if there is a path to getting this team back to top-tier title contention.
Continue reading...
Calvin Booth, the Nuggets general manager, will also be let go — technically, his contract will not be renewed — announced Josh Kroenke, the vice chairman of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Nuggets. Kroenke added that he took "no pleasure" in firing Malone.
"This decision was not made lightly and was evaluated very carefully, and we do it only with the intention of giving our group the best chance at competing for the 2025 NBA Championship and delivering another title to Denver and our fans everywhere," Kroenke said in a statement. "While the timing of this decision is unfortunate, as Coach Malone helped build the foundation of our now championship-level program, it is a necessary step to allow us to compete at the highest level right now. Championship-level standards and expectations remain in place for the current season, and as we look to the future, we look forward to building on the foundations laid by Coach Malone over his record-breaking 10-year career in Denver."
There had been speculation that, barring a deep playoff run, Malone would be let go at the end of the season. In that light, the firing itself is not a total shock, but the timing certainly is.
Assistant coach David Adelman takes over a team that is 47-32 but has lost four in a row and finds itself sliding down a logjam of teams fighting for seeds 4-8 in a deep Western Conference. Those four losses were signs of a team struggling since February, particularly on the defensive end — Denver is bottom 10 in the NBA in defensive rating since the All-Star break (they were 16th in the league, right in the middle, before the All-Star Game). There had been rumblings of frustration in the locker room with the team's play, and even the normally calm Jokic has shown signs of frustration on the bench. Jamal Murray being out injured is not helping things. It was also an open secret that Booth and Malone did not like each other and did not see eye-to-eye on roster decisions, adding to the tensions around the club.
Firing the coach with a week to go in the season is an extreme answer to those challenges.
The goal was to give the team a "jolt," reports Ohm Youngmisuk at ESPN, but that doesn't always work as intended. Denver is following in the footsteps of Memphis, which unexpectedly fired coach Taylor Jenkins a couple of weeks ago. That jolt has seen the Grizzlies go 2-3 since, sliding down to eighth in the West.
If Kronke wants to see what has taken this team from the mountain top to the second-tier title contenders — at best — he needs to look in a mirror. The Nuggets won that 2023 title because Jokic and Jamal Murray were surrounded with quality role players such as Bruce Brown, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Jeff Green and others. While players such as Christian Braun have stepped up, the erosion of depth on this roster came from the marching orders Booth was given. (Booth took over in 2022 when Tim Connelly, the guy who built a championship roster, went to an ownership group willing to pay more for him in Minnesota. Connelly then built a Timberwolves roster that knocked the Nuggets out of the playoffs last season.)
Denver has now cleaned house. How much, if at all, it helps the Nuggets in these playoffs is now the question on the table. Soon enough, the questions will be about the next coach and GM, and if there is a path to getting this team back to top-tier title contention.
Continue reading...
