Two seasons ago, the Denver Nuggets were on top of the NBA world. Former Head Coach Michael Malone proudly held the Larry O’Brien Trophy after swiftly defeating the Miami Heat in five games to win the franchise’s first-ever NBA championship. On Tuesday, the Nuggets flipped the NBA world upside down. Malone, the all-time winningest coach in Nuggets history, was fired. The success he had two years ago no longer mattered; all that mattered was the present.
The decision to fire Malone came with three games remaining in the regular season. Currently, the Nuggets are the fourth seed in the Western Conference at 48–32. They hold a one game lead over the seventh-seeded Memphis Grizzlies, who would be in the play-in tournament if the season ended today.
Three-time MVP center Nikola Jokić is in the midst of another historic season. Jokić is joined by guard Jamal Murray, known for his playoff-rising ability; sharpshooting forward Michael Porter Jr.; and do-it-all forward Aaron Gordon — the same core that led the Nuggets to a title in 2023.
One year ago, the Nuggets won 57 games and earned themselves a two-seed. After skating past the Los Angeles Lakers in five games in the first round of playoffs, the Nuggets faced off against the Minnesota Timberwolves. In a back-and-forth series, the Nuggets led by 20 in the third quarter of game seven. Yet, in the fourth quarter, Denver collapsed and lost 98–90. It was the largest blown lead in game seven in NBA history.
Joining Malone in the hunt for a new job is Calvin Booth; the Nuggets’ former general manager was fired on the same day as ownership decided it was time to clean house. Every season the Nuggets do not compete for a championship with Jokić — the fastest player in NBA history to reach 16,000 points, 8,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists — is a failure. For the past two seasons, Booth failed to surround Jokić with the talent necessary to reclaim their title. Nuggets ownership was quick to pull the trigger in an attempt to not waste this season as well.
Such a sharp, swift reaction to underperformance is not uncommon in the current NBA landscape. Since 2018, a different team has won the championship every season. Of those six teams, only two still have the same head coach. The four others … all fired.
Malone won 471 games over 10 seasons in Denver. When he was hired in 2015, the Nuggets were coming off a disappointing 2014 season that saw them finish 36–46, missing the playoffs as the No. 11 seed. He developed and trusted Jokić, gave Murray the ball in clutch time for better and worse, and stuck with Porter Jr. after many critics believed back surgeries had derailed his career. Malone ushered in the most successful era of Nuggets basketball. Despite all that, faltering in the past two seasons was enough to end his tenure.
“In the world of professional sports, when winning and losing is your currency, winning can mask a lot of things,” Nuggets President and CEO Josh Kroenke said when asked about the decision to let Malone go. “We went on an eight-game winning streak right before the All-Star break but since then we’re 11–13, we’ve lost our last four, and we’re trending towards a direction that would bring our season to the end in the near future.”
Kroenke is right: ownership pays players and coaches to win. The margin of error is minimal.
The decisions made by Nuggets ownership sparked conversation around the league. The brutal reality of the NBA has other coaches questioning their job security.
“It’s part of what motivates me,” Boston Celtics Head Coach Joe Mazzulla said. “But I wake up every day saying this could be my last day.”
The Celtics won the title last season. They are the defending champions. Even their coach feels constant pressure to win.
Eleven days before the Malone news broke, Grizzlies head man Taylor Jenkins was fired with nine games left in the season. In his tenure, the Grizzlies were 250–214, and were boasting a 44–29 record this season at the time of the firing.
In the post-Warriors era of the NBA, parity is at an all-time high. The last six-year stretch when a different team won the championship each year ended in 1979. A poor stretch in the season can have massive repercussions on playoff standings and home-court advantage, and can plunge teams into the ominous play-in tournament.
The moves by the Nuggets and Grizzlies sent shockwaves through everybody in the organization. If ownership is willing to fire playoff-proven coaches with under 10 games remaining, nothing is stopping them from making more drastic roster changes in the future.
“People say that we were vulnerable, but the beast is always most dangerous when they’re vulnerable,” Jokić said on the current state of the Nuggets. “Maybe [ownership] woke up the beast.”
