Less than two full years after winning the Denver Nuggets their very first NBA championship, the team announced that it had dismissed head coach Michael Malone.
Malone, who had been with the Nuggets since 2015, had the team in a position to make the playoffs during the 2025 season.
In a simultaneous decision, Denver should also dismiss the director general Calvin Booth – who has been in the franchise since 2017 and in the role of GM since 2020.
The decision was announced by Josh Kroenke, the vice -president of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment – who has professional sports teams, including Arsenal FC in the Premier League.
“It is without pleasure that we announce that we have relieved Michael Malone from his functions as head coach, immediately (sic),” Kroenke said in the press release.
The team has also announced that the main assistant coach David Adelman will serve as an acting coach from Denver for the rest of the season.
Denver Nuggets shocked head coach Michael Malone before the playoffs
Denver also leaves GM Calvin Booth, who has been in charge since 2020
Josh Kroenke, son of the Stan Kroenke team owner, announced the move on Tuesday
Kroenke’s declaration continued: “ This decision was not taken lightly and was evaluated very carefully, and we only do it with the intention of giving our group the best chances to compete for the NBA 2025 championship and to deliver another title to Denver and our fans everywhere. ”
Kroenke called Malone’s dismissal a “necessary step” for the team to remain competitive and that the nugget standards to win a title “remain in place for the current season”.
“There is no gratitude that we can properly transmit to its contributions since (Malone) joined our franchise in 2015,” concluded the Kroenke Declaration. “It is with our greatest respect that we would like to thank the coach Malone for the most successful decade in the history of Nuggets, establishing the record for victories of all time and helping to deliver our first championship to Denver.”
Even if these shots occur in the middle of a sequence of four consecutive defeats, the moment of these movements is always bizarre.
At the time of the movements, the Nuggets are fourth in the closely disputed Western conference and in a place of playoffs with only three games to play in their season.
Denver currently has 17.5 games on Oklahoma City Thunder’s Thunder at the top of the conference.
The Nuggets are currently half a game behind third place in Los Angeles Lakers, but only half a match in front of the Memphis grizzles-which are seated in eighth place.
Malone, from Queens and son of the former NBA coach, Brendan Malone, has been leading basketball since 1993. After starting in high school and moved to university to work as assistant in Oakland, Providence and Manhattan, Malone jumped at the NBA in 2001 as assistant for New York Knicks.
Malone is the most winning coach in the history of Nuggets and won his only NBA title in 2023
The star of the Nuggets brothers Nikola Jokic raised Malone after winning the title
He worked as assistant with The Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, New Orleans Hornets and Golden State Warriors before taking his first chief coach concert with the Sacramento Kings.
After a 2013-14 dull season, Malone led only 24 games in season 14-15 before being dismissed in mid-December. The following offseason, it was hired by Denver.
He became the most victorious coach of the franchise of all time – amazing a record of 471-327 in ten seasons.
The Malone teams have missed the playoffs in the first three seasons, but have made the NBA qualifiers each year since.
This included a trip to the Western Conference final in the bubble in 2020 before reaching the pinnacle of sport in 2023.
Malone led the Nuggets to their only NBA title, beating Miami Heat in five games.
This decision occurs a little more than a week after an equally shocking movement when the grizzly girls dismissed head coach Taylor Jenkins. Memphis was, and is still able to make the playoffs.
According to the NBA journalist, Mark Stein, Jenkins and Malone being focused, it is the first time in the history of the NBA that two teams with winning records have drawn their chief coaches with less than ten games in the regular season.
Booth joined the Nuggets in 2017 and was promoted Managing Director in July 2020
Kroenke thanked Booth for his time with the team saying that he will be “honored for the coming years”
Shams Charania d’Espn says it is tied for the last coach who shoots the history of the NBA – with Malone joining Hubie Brown, who was chopped by the Atlanta Hawks at the end of the 1980-1981 season.
Booth, a former NBA companion, obtained his first job as a front office during the 2012-13 season as a scout. He arrived in Denver in 2017 as deputy managing director before taking the reins as managing director in July 2020.
Under his custody, the Nuggets swung the professions against Aaron Gordon and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and wrote players like Bones Hyland and Christian Braun.
In a separate declaration, Kroenke said: “I would like to thank Calvin Booth for managing our front office in the past three years and, above all, for having helped to put the final pieces in place for the list that delivered Denver and our fans their first NBA championship.
“Calvin’s knowledge about the game, his passion for scouting and his long history as a player and the NBA manager have helped to take up our organization towards new heights that we will continue to move forward.
“We are grateful to Calvin for his eight years with the Nuggets and know his place in the history of Nuggets, because our first winner will be honored for the years to come.”
