On Monday, Denver Nuggets president Josh Kroenke met with media to discuss the franchise's surprising decision to fire head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth with merely three games to go in the 2024-25 regular season. While expanding further on his statements from the time of the dismissals, Kroenke got frank about the pain of the situation to reporters.
"I want to start off initially by just saying thank you to both Calvin and Coach Malone," Kroenke said in his opening statement. "It was an incredibly tough decision for us for a lot of levels, but at the very end of the day it was a very tough decision because of the amount of respect that I personally have and we as an organization have for (what) both those gentlemen did for us while they were here. Brought us our first championship, help us establish a new culture and new standards that will continue to move on into the future.
To be frank, neither of them deserved it. And for that I apologize."
#Nuggets boss Josh Kroenke says coach Michael Malone and GM Calvin Booth “did not deserve” to be fired. Said he needed to be better. Good to see him taking accountability. pic.twitter.com/ZfXLW95ctg
— Troy Renck (@TroyRenck) April 14, 2025
As Kroenke noted, the names of Malone and Booth will be inscribed in the franchise history book forever. Malone is the winningest coach in Nuggets history and Booth played a part in constructing the roster that brought the team its first-ever championship.
However, deserving or not, Kroenke clearly felt it was time for a change. Denver won all three of its games immediately after the news, so maybe he was onto something.
The Nuggets will host the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the Western conference playoffs, beginning on Saturday, April 19.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Nuggets President Says Michael Malone, Calvin Booth Didn't Deserve to Get Fired.
