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The Denver Nuggets fired both head coach Michael Malone, the only coach Nikola Jokic has ever had in the NBA, and general manager Calvin Booth yesterday in a shocking organizational shakeup.
While assistant coach David Adelman was named the Nuggets' interim head coach, keeping some continuity within the team, NBA insider Brian Windhorst is voicing his concern about the team potentially alienating their three-time league MVP center.
“They've got to be real careful here because they’ve got a superstar in his prime,” Windhorst said of Jokic and the Nuggets on the Hoop Collective podcast. “I know he’s never done anything but show total focus on winning the next game, but you’re messing with Jokic’s bleep here. Maybe we’ll find out that Jokic was on board with this — if that’s true, I would be stunned. I don’t know. I would be stunned. Jokic is not a guy who hangs out with ownership… I'm just saying: They are bleeping with Jokic’s bleep. They better not screw this up.”
Malone was hired by the Nuggets in June 2015, a month before Jokic, a 2014 second-round draft pick, signed his rookie deal with the team. Jokic was largely an afterthought when he arrived to Denver, but he soon became the organization's centerpiece and found a vocal advocate in Malone.
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In nearly 10 seasons with the Nuggets, Malone won a franchise record 471 games and led the team to the playoffs each of the last six seasons. In 2023, he and the Nuggets won the NBA Championship, a first for the organization.
However, tensions between Malone and Booth had reportedly reached a boiling point over the past few seasons. According to reports, Malone and Booth greatly disliked one another and avoided speaking directly to each other. Booth, the Nuggets' GM since 2020, assumed greater power in 2022 when president of basketball operations Tim Connelly left for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Despite on-court success and a generational superstar on the roster, the men apparently could not resolve their conflict. Nuggets ownership was reportedly considering firing one this offseason, but possibly as a result of another disappointing end to the regular season, both were fired a week before the Play-In begins.
To avoid sliding into the Play-In, the Nuggets will have to finish strong. With three games left in the season, Denver is tied for fourth place in the Western Conference standings with three other teams and could fall as far as eighth, depending on the results of the final week of the season. The Timberwolves, currently in eighth place, are just one game behind the Nuggets, who play the Sacramento Kings, Memphis Grizzlies, and Houston Rockets in the next five days.
