This week, the Denver Nuggets etched their name into the NBA history books, but it’s not a record anyone in the Mile High City will be celebrating. With just three games left in the 2024-25 regular season, the Nuggets made the shocking decision to fire head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth. This move marks the latest in-season firing of a winning team in NBA history—well, almost. The only comparable instance came during the 1980 NBA Finals, when the Los Angeles Lakers swapped coaches mid-series. But that situation was different: Jack McKinney, the Lakers’ head coach, had suffered a near-fatal bike accident earlier in the season, leaving assistant Paul Westhead as interim coach. During the Finals, Westhead was officially named head coach, with Pat Riley stepping into the assistant role. Technically, it wasn’t an in-season firing in the traditional sense, as McKinney’s departure was due to health rather than performance. That makes the Nuggets’ decision this week a rare, if not unprecedented, shakeup for a team still in playoff contention.
Malone and Booth, the architect and on-court leader of Denver’s 2023 championship squad, are no strangers to success. Malone, the franchise’s winningest coach, and Booth, the GM who helped assemble that title-winning roster, seemed like fixtures in Denver’s future. So why now? Rumors have swirled for months about tension between the two. Some insiders have pointed to disagreements over roster construction and player usage as a potential drag on the team’s progress. Malone reportedly favored leaning on veteran players, while Booth pushed for more minutes for the younger talent he’d drafted. This clash of philosophies might have created a rift that, over time, began to seep into the team’s performance. The Nuggets, sitting at 47-32 and fourth in the Western Conference, have stumbled lately, dropping four straight games. For a team with championship aspirations—and a three-time MVP in Nikola Jokić—that’s a slide no one can afford to ignore.
Enter Josh Kroenke, vice chairman of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, who didn’t mince words about the reasoning behind this drastic move. In a statement, he called the firings a “calculated” decision, one “evaluated very carefully” to give the Nuggets “the best chance at competing for the 2025 NBA Championship.” It’s a bold claim—dumping your coach and GM with the playoffs looming isn’t exactly a conventional path to a title. But Kroenke’s confidence suggests there’s a method to the madness. David Adelman, the team’s lead assistant, has stepped in as interim head coach, and the front office will presumably operate by committee until a new GM is named. The question is: what’s the real strategy here?
Historically, a midseason coaching change can jolt a team. Data and anecdotes alike show that new coaches often bring a temporary bump in performance—a fresh voice, a tweak in strategy, or simply a reset from whatever funk the team was in. Think of the 2011 Dallas Mavericks, who fired assistant coach Tim Grgurich midseason and went on to win the title, or the 2020 Lakers, who thrived under Frank Vogel after years of instability. The Nuggets might be banking on that spark to carry them through a playoff run. With Jokić playing at an MVP level (averaging a ridiculous 30 points, 12.8 rebounds, and 10.2 assists), Denver’s ceiling remains sky-high—if they can get their act together. But is that the full picture? Or is this less about a playoff boost and more about clearing out the chaos that had reportedly been brewing between Malone and Booth?
It’s hard to say. Firing both the coach and GM this late feels like a panic move dressed up as a masterstroke. If the goal was to stabilize the organization, unloading two key figures just days before the postseason might have the opposite effect. Players were reportedly “surprised” by the news, and Jokić, who’s only ever played under Malone, now faces a new dynamic with Adelman at the helm. The Nuggets could get that new-coach bump and ride it deep into the playoffs—or they could stumble out of the gate, reeling from the upheaval. Either way, this week’s shakeup is historic, chaotic, and a gamble of epic proportions. Denver’s championship hopes now rest on whether Kroenke’s calculation pays off—or if it’s just the latest chapter in a season that’s spiraling out of control.
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