Why Nuggets’ Late-Season Firings of Michael Malone and Calvin Booth are Misguided

Michael Malone (Photo by Tyler McFarland/Clarkson Creative/Getty Images)

Every week, Mark Medina shares his thoughts and insights on the latest NBA topics for RG. In this installment, he gives his take on the Denver Nuggets firing coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth in the final week of the regular season.

LA Clippers coach Tyronn Lue shook his head and sighed with a hint of exasperation.

Unlike in past seasons, the reasons had nothing to do with Kawhi Leonard’s tenuous health or inconsistent play. The reasons had to do with the NBA’s increasing volatility in its head-coaching ranks.

“The criteria for getting hired/fired,” Lue said. “I don’t know what it is anymore.”

Unconventional Timing Raises Eyebrows

That’s partly because of a recent trend that defies the conventional way organizations manage head-coaching and even front-office changes. In the past two weeks, the Memphis Grizzlies (Taylor Jenkins) and Denver Nuggets (Michael Malone) fired their head coach leading into the playoffs despite their respective teams already securing a post-season berth. On Tuesday, the Nuggets also fired their general manager (Calvin Booth), which doesn’t follow an organization’s conventional route with establishing the franchise’s fall guy. Typically, the franchise casts blame on either the general manager or the coach, not both.

It doesn’t require much expertise to question why the Nuggets would fire Malone less than two years after coaching the team to its first NBA championship in franchise history. Or to wonder why Denver would fire Booth two years after being considered for the NBA’s Executive of the Year award. Or why they would make either change less than two weeks before the NBA playoffs start.

The Nuggets have struggled recently because they have an injured Jamal Murray and unproven young players. They remain a viable playoff contender because they have an MVP candidate (Nikola Jokić) and quality complementary players (Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon). Regardless of the tension that Malone and Booth had over how both handled their roster, the team’s recent issues point more to outside circumstances. By making such a late-season coaching change with promoting their lead assistant (David Adelman), the Nuggets are more likely going to experience post-season hiccups than a playoff spark.

Ownership at the Heart of the Dysfunction

Dig deeper into the dynamics, and Denver’s decisions prove even more puzzling. The Nuggets are essentially blaming Booth for prioritizing younger players over veterans, despite the Kroenke family’s push to trim costs amid the NBA’s increasingly stringent roster-construction rules for teams spending above the second apron. The Nuggets are essentially blaming Malone for not elevating a flawed roster that Booth constructed.

Of course, an owner can’t and won’t ever fire themselves. They have every right to make whatever decisions they want. The NBA also deserves criticism for imposing legislation that hurts both large and small market teams’ ability to retain talent, all under the guise of maximizing competitive balance.

Even when considering all of those factors, the Nuggets’ direction still doesn’t make any sense.

The Nuggets don’t deserve criticism for trying to cut costs since the NBA’s rules provide just as much roster-construction limitations as it does with luxury taxes. But Denver shouldn’t blame Booth for struggling to find the right amount of young players that could offset its departing veterans from their NBA title team, including Bruce Brown, Jeff Green and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. The Nuggets shouldn’t blame Malone for not establishing the same consistency displayed in the 2022–23 championship season.

Failures in Collaboration and Communication

That doesn’t mean Booth and Malone are above reproach. Booth has more misfires (DaRon Holmes II, Hunter Tyson, Jalen Pickett, Zeke Nnaji, Bones Hyland) than hits (Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, Justin Holiday). Malone has often put more trust in veterans past their prime (Russell Westbrook, DeAndre Jordan) than staying patient with a young player’s successes and failures.

It surely doesn’t help dynamics that Booth became increasingly frustrated with stalled extension talks and that Malone became increasingly frustrated with Booth’s roster moves. Had both parties collaborated together, perhaps they could have thrived through better circumstances.

Consider Lue’s admission that he has weathered five years of overlapping injuries and roster changes because of his strong relationship with the Clippers’ owner (Steve Ballmer) and vice president of basketball operations (Laurence Frank).

When ownership doesn’t allow a team to keep its championship roster for reasons both within and beyond their control, they need to take ownership with mitigating the possible shortcomings. Perhaps Booth doesn’t take as much offense toward Malone’s distrust of the young players he acquired if the Nuggets simply granted Booth an extension. Perhaps Malone stays more patient with his flawed roster if ownership displays the same patience to him.

Instead, the Nuggets are the latest NBA team to make late-season changes that will create more problems than solve them.