The Denver Nuggets made one of the most stunning moves of the NBA season on Tuesday by firing head coach Michael Malone, a drastic organizational change that comes within just a stone's throw of the start of playoffs.
The Nuggets are currently sitting in the No. 4 seed in the West with a 47-32 record but have dropped their last four games during a pivotal playoff push. Still, that's arguably not enough reason to clean house and get rid of Malone along with GM Calvin Booth at an extremely precarious time in the season.
Denver's ownership explained that they made the move to give the Nuggets "the best chance at competing for the 2025 NBA championship" and NBA insider Shams Charania confirmed as much, noting the team had a feeling that the 2024-25 season was already trending downward at this point.
Nuggets reporter Vic Lombardi spoke to Nuggets owner Josh Kroenke and relayed two simple goals Kroenke reportedly gave to the Nuggets following the seismic move.
"I asked Josh, 'Okay, so what are your immediate expectations for this team?' " Lombardi said on 92.5 FM, Denver's sports radio station. "And he thought about it for a while and he made it pretty simple: Play hard and have fun."
"I saw a joyless team the last few times out. I saw a team that looks stale. A team that, at times, felt like they didn't want to be there."
— 92.5 FM - Denver's Altitude Sports Radio (@AltitudeSR) April 8, 2025
Josh Kroenke told @VicLombardi his immediate expectations for the Nuggets are simple: play hard & have fun. #MileHighBasketball pic.twitter.com/MXOq6rX6Q3
Lombardi went on give his own impression of how the Nuggets have been playing in recent weeks.
"I saw a joyless team the last few times out," continued Lombardi. "I saw a team that looks stale. A team that, at times, it felt like they didn't want to be there... Once you feel like it's a job, once you feel like you're punching in, then it becomes an uphill decline. And I think that's what they saw. And when you get to that level you gotta get out."
It would appear that Kroenke was hoping the Nuggets would rekindle their spark and rediscover their joy for the game—though kicking out the team's head coach (and the only coach three-time MVP Nikola Jokic has ever played for) is a pretty extreme method of achieving those means.
Malone helped steer the franchise to its first and only NBA title in 2023 and was three wins shy of getting the Nuggets to 50 wins this season with high hopes for another deep playoff run. Whether Kroenke's risky moves pay off, both in the immediate future and beyond, remains to be seen.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nuggets Owner Gave His Team Two Simple Goals After Michael Malone Firing.
