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The Denver Nuggets surprised the NBA world when they fired head coach Michael Malone on Tuesday afternoon. Malone brought Denver its sole NBA title in 2023 and is the winningest coach in franchise history. This makes firing him a little under two weeks before the start of this year's NBA postseason pretty perplexing. Yes, even knowing that Malone has played a major part in wasting one of Nikola Jokic's best seasons. A reported front office conflict with also-fired general manager Calvin Booth was probably too much to ignore.
READ MORE: Top Nuggets candidates to replace Malone, including David Adelman
However, if you follow the career paths of recent NBA coaches to win titles, perhaps Malone's ouster isn't all that surprising anymore.
Malone is now the third NBA coach from 2020 to 2023 to win a title and get fired within two years in the aftermath. He follows in the line of Frank Vogel (the 2020 Los Angeles Lakers) and Mike Budenholzer (the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks). The Golden State Warriors' Steve Kerr is officially the only coach with a championship in this span to remain employed at this time:
When you take a larger macro view of the NBA coaching landscape, it's actually kind of wild how much turnover there's been in the last half-decade or so. With Malone's firing, the Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, and Miami Heat are the only NBA teams to not their fire coach since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also part of a wider coach-firing trend dating back to 2015.
That's 27 of 30 teams, dearest readers!
The NBA is a results-based business, and the Nuggets were floundering recently. At least for Malone's sake, he isn't close to alone in the NBA for getting fired for failing to meet expectations.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Michael Malone's Nuggets firing continues alarming NBA championship coach trend
Continue reading...
READ MORE: Top Nuggets candidates to replace Malone, including David Adelman
However, if you follow the career paths of recent NBA coaches to win titles, perhaps Malone's ouster isn't all that surprising anymore.
Malone is now the third NBA coach from 2020 to 2023 to win a title and get fired within two years in the aftermath. He follows in the line of Frank Vogel (the 2020 Los Angeles Lakers) and Mike Budenholzer (the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks). The Golden State Warriors' Steve Kerr is officially the only coach with a championship in this span to remain employed at this time:
When you take a larger macro view of the NBA coaching landscape, it's actually kind of wild how much turnover there's been in the last half-decade or so. With Malone's firing, the Warriors, San Antonio Spurs, and Miami Heat are the only NBA teams to not their fire coach since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also part of a wider coach-firing trend dating back to 2015.
That's 27 of 30 teams, dearest readers!
The NBA is a results-based business, and the Nuggets were floundering recently. At least for Malone's sake, he isn't close to alone in the NBA for getting fired for failing to meet expectations.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Michael Malone's Nuggets firing continues alarming NBA championship coach trend
Continue reading...
