Nuggets fire coach Malone and won’t extend GM Booth in stunning move as postseason looms
Michael Malone coached the Denver Nuggets to the NBA title in 2023. He has them set to make the postseason for a seventh consecutive year. Even amid a four-game slide, they’re still in position to have home-court advantage in Round 1.
And he’s gone with three games left — an unprecedented move for a club bound for the postseason.
The Nuggets fired Malone on Tuesday, a stunning move that comes with less than a week in the regular season. Also out: general manager Calvin Booth, whose contract will not be renewed. The Nuggets said David Adelman will be the coach for the remainder of the season.
Josh Kroenke, the vice chairman of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Nuggets, said “it is with no pleasure” that the team made the change at coach.
“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.
There’s never been an instance in NBA history of a team officially changing coaches with three games left and going to the postseason; the Nuggets aren’t in the playoffs yet but are assured of a play-in berth at worst. The latest in-season change for a playoff team before now was in 1983, when Larry Brown left the New Jersey Nets with six games left to take over at the University of Kansas.
The Nuggets are 47-32 this season but are part of a logjam of teams fighting for home-court advantage in Round 1 of the playoffs. Denver won the title in 2023 and lost a Game 7 at home in the Western Conference semifinals a year ago to Minnesota.
Malone pointed the finger at himself after the most recent loss, a 125-120 defeat to Indiana on Sunday.
“I’ll start with me: We’ve lost four games in a row and I’m never going to this-guy, that-guy. How about me, as a head coach, not doing my job to the best of my ability,” Malone said. “We haven’t lost four in a row in a long time. It’s really easy to be together and say ‘family’ when you win, but when you’re losing games, can you stay together?”
The slide comes despite Nuggets star Nikola Jokic — a winner of three of the last four NBA MVP awards — having a historic season, averaging 30 points, 12.8 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game. But even that wasn’t good enough for Denver to enter the final week of the season certain of having home court in Round 1.
After that loss to the Pacers, Jokic was asked his biggest concern with the team right now.
“I don’t know. Maybe we just, maybe we just … I don’t know, actually,” Jokic said.
The Nuggets are hoping a shakeup might provide the answer.
Malone had the fourth-longest tenure of any active NBA coach, behind San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, Miami’s Erik Spoelstra and Golden State’s Steve Kerr.
Malone won 471 regular-season games in Denver, 39 more than Doug Moe for the franchise’s all-time coaching lead.
“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,” Kroenke said.
Malone had consistent success in Denver. The Nuggets finished with losing records in his first two seasons and posted winning records in his next eight years with the club.
This season’s postseason appearance will be the team’s seventh in a row; it has not clinched a playoff berth yet this season but is assured of finishing no worse than in the play-in tournament.
Starting with the first playoff appearance under Malone in 2019, the Nuggets got out of the first round six times in seven chances. They made the Western Conference finals in the Walt Disney World bubble in 2020 and then rolled to the championship by winning 16 of 20 playoff games in 2023.
It is the second time in the last two weeks that a postseason-bound team has fired a coach. Memphis — another team assured of at least a play-in spot — dismissed Taylor Jenkins late last month with nine games left in the season, replacing him with Tuomas Iisalo on an interim basis.
The Nets parted ways with Brown (officially he resigned) with six games left in 1982-83, and the Nets — now in Brooklyn — replaced Kenny Atkinson with Jacque Vaughn for the final 10 games of the 2019-20 “bubble” season. The 1983 Nets and 2020 Nets went a combined 0-6 in playoff games after the coaching changes; time will tell what happens with the Grizzlies and Nuggets this year.
Booth came to Denver in 2017 as an assistant general manager and was promoted to GM in July 2020. He signed his most recent contract with the club in 2022.
Kroenke credited Booth “for helping put the final pieces in place for the roster that delivered Denver and our fans their first NBA championship.”
“Calvin’s knowledge of the game, his passion for scouting, and his long history as a player and executive in the NBA helped lift our organization to new heights which we will continue moving forward,” Kroenke said.
The Nuggets play Wednesday at Sacramento.
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