After the Nuggets won their first championship in 2023, then-head coach Michael Malone made a bold proclamation.
“What a great day to celebrate a championship, but we’re not done yet,” Malone said at the championship parade. “We some greedy bastards, baby. We some greedy bastards. And we’re getting another one.”
Less than two years later, disagreements about how to best pursue those “greedy” ambitions reportedly led to one of the most shocking firings in NBA history with both Malone and general manager Calvin Booth getting the axe Tuesday just days before the NBA playoffs.
“Calvin Booth had really managed this team around young players the last couple of years after winning that championship, saving money for ownership. They had saved millions and millions of money in terms of tax over the last couple of years, and from Michael Malone’s perspective, he’s trying to win a championship building around win-now players with Nikola Jokic,” ESPN insider Sham Charania reported Tuesday after the Nuggets fired the pair with three regular-season games remaining.
“The fabric and what both sides have philosophically there were some big differences there, so instead of buying time and maybe letting go of one guy instead of the other, the Nuggets, (owner) Josh Kroenke, let go of both.”
Malone’s dismissal is tied for the latest in-season ousting of a head coach, according to ESPN data, but the previous example came during a losing season.
The Nuggets stood in fourth place at the time of the move and on the verge of a seventh straight postseason trip under Malone, the franchise’s regular-season and postseason leader.
It appears the tension between Malone and Booth regarding roster construction and player usage hit its boiling point, per The Athletic, and the team’s defensive slip this year could not buy Malone any extra time.
Since winning the title in 2023, Booth opted to reshape the roster around younger talent while letting important veterans like defensive stopper Bruce Brown and wing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope leave in free agency.
His own free-agent moves have mostly not worked out, with big man Zeke Nnaji signing four-year deal before the 2024 season and averaging just 3.2 points and 10.3 minutes per game since and veteran forward Dario Saric signing a two-year deal this offseason and tallying 3.5 points per game.
Malone and Booth reportedly clashed regarding second-year guard Jalen Pickett’s usage in recent games, per The Athletic.
The coach instead relied on veteran Russell Westbrook late in several games, while the general manager would have preferred to see Pickett on the floor.
“Booth wanted Malone to use younger players that he drafted and to stray away from using veterans for so many minutes,” the outlet reported. “On a macro level, Booth and Malone disagreed on several things.”
While Denver lost at home to the Timberwolves in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals last season, a respectable showing for the defending champions, this year’s team doesn’t look like a title contender.
The Nuggets have lost four straight games and are tied for the 19th-best defensive rating.
The recent slippage, both in wins and losses and defensive showing, created “significant frustration within the locker room,” per The Athletic.
Even three-time MVP Nikola Jokic had become frustrated with the team’s performance.
It all created a situation where Kroenke felt he needed to make a move to give his team the best chance of competing for a championship this postseason.
“Having observed that group over a period of time, there were certain trends that were very worrisome, to me, at different points in time, but they would get masked by a few wins here and there,” Kronke said in a team interview. “We are trending towards a direction I thought would probably be a very near end to our season in the near future. … Wanted to figure out a way to squeeze as much juice out of the season as possible.”
He added: “I think there’s more to the group then has been accomplished so far. How much more is in that group? I don’t think I know the answer to that, I don’t think anyone knows the answer to that. But I think I have a belief that there is more in that group that can be accomplished and I look forward to seeing what they can do.”