No NBA coach can ever feel safe again, to the extent any ever did.
Coaches don’t need any reminders about the instability of their profession, but what’s transpired over the past two weeks is a new level of startling.
The Denver Nuggets fired head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth just 11 days before the playoffs tip off. The only other team to fire its coach this late in an NBA season was the 1981 Hawks, who replaced Hubie Brown as Atlanta was wrapping up a 31-51 campaign. They finished 13 games out of a playoff spot. Conversely, the 2024-25 Nuggets came to this decision while sitting in fourth place in the Western Conference. Denver is also only 22 months removed from the franchise’s first championship.
The mile-high housecleaning comes less than two weeks after the Memphis Grizzlies fired the overachieving Taylor Jenkins while sitting fifth in the West with a top-four overall point differential.
The NBA has long been a “What have you done for me lately?” kind of league. But even “lately” now seems like an increasingly tightening window for impatient owners and front offices swiping through coaches like they’re on TikTok or Tinder.
Not wanting to delay an inevitable firing is understandable when a front office loses faith in its coach. But what basketball executive with any understanding of locker-room dynamics believes a coaching change in the final week of the regular season will turn a fringe contender into a surefire winner?
AAron Ontiveroz / Denver Post / Getty Images
Someone had to eventually answer for the fact a team that employs the best player in the world was merely on the fringes of title contention. But the only thing more puzzling than the timing of Denver’s response was how they went about it, with Malone and Booth now out of jobs.
Such dual terminations are a task for the offseason, or for losers. Midseason shakeups of winning clubs often come when there’s a clear disconnect between the front office and the head coach, as was the case in Memphis.
The tension between Malone and Booth had been reported on and whispered about since Booth replaced former team architect Tim Connelly, who left to run the division-rival Timberwolves (and for a hefty raise) in 2022. It has long been rumored that Malone hated how Booth chipped away at his team’s veteran depth, leaving him to rely on youngsters who haven’t always been ready to fill key roles on a contender. Booth was said to be equally perturbed by Malone’s lack of faith in his plan and those youngsters.
If team president Josh Kroenke (whose father owns the team) agreed with Malone, then firing Booth would’ve made sense on its own. A new GM could’ve gotten a handle on the team’s scouting, pre-draft process, and general offseason plan while Malone handled the business of postseason basketball. However, by firing Malone and citing the chase for the 2025 championship as a catalyst, Kroenke has demonstrated he still believes in the roster Booth has assembled. Plus, Kroenke would’ve signed off on Booth’s decisions over the past few years, which largely stemmed from trying to build more cost-effective teams in an apron world.
Yet Booth and Malone are both gone. It doesn’t add up, unless Kroenke had simply grown tired of their griping. Still, the offseason would’ve been a better time to resolve it than the eve of the postseason, even if the Nuggets have dropped four games in a row and are only a half-game clear of play-in range.
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The immense pressure that comes with a fading champion’s last gasps now falls on the shoulders of interim coach David Adelman, a longtime assistant and the son of Hall of Famer Rick Adelman. No pressure, Dave.
The Nuggets, like the Grizzlies, will head into the postseason hoping a newly promoted coach can scramble to overcome the roster-related flaws his predecessor failed to solve with far more prep time.
It’s a bold strategy, as Pepper Brooks would say. Let’s see if it pays off for them.
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