Michael Malone, who coached the Denver Nuggets to the NBA title in 2023 and has led the team to eight consecutive winning seasons, was fired Tuesday in 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 become the coach for the remainder of the season.
Josh Kroenke, the vice chairman of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, said “it is with no pleasure” that the Nuggets 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.
The Nuggets are 47-32 this season with three games left but have dropped four consecutive games and are in 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 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.
