RealGM

The Nuggets have a somewhat reasonable roster, with fairly decent depth available across all positions.

1. Defense is more about the scheme than one-on-one, although both are important. We've heard enough about your defensive expertise but the Nuggets have finished in the bottom-10 of the league for all three of your years.

2. If your team is to be led by Jokic, Harris, Murray; then let them run the team from the beginning of the year instead of waiting for the annual December announcement saying you need to give Jokic more freedom. This would include not calling so many plays (any plays) when Jokic is on the court. Save the play calling for when Jokic is not on the court. That includes in-bounds plays, please. That includes who finishes the games. If Barton is to have the most 4th quarter minutes again, something is wrong.

3. Please remember that Millsap & Thomas appear likely to only be with the Nuggets for one more year. Find some minutes to develop other players or at least get them enough minutes to figure out if any of them can be solid contributors.

4. Last year the Nuggets were 20th in 2nd & 4th quarters - that signifies your rotations aren't working. Even when you started those quarters with Jokic & Murray both on the floor, the team was not effective. It isn't just about which players. The 2nd & 4th quarters typically indicate how well a team is adjusting to their opponent - that's on the coach.

The Nuggets' worst quarter was the 1st quarter. How is that possible? Is the team not ready? Is the game plan not adequate? These questions reflect on the coach's preparation. (Although I was a football player, that was what we were taught - by our coach.)

The 3rd quarter speaks towards how a coach adjusts his game plan during half-time. Memory says we did not do well for your first two years but last year the Nuggets were 2nd in the league in 3rd quarters. That's impressive. It demonstrates that you do have some coaching skills.

You have some fairly skilled players, it is up to you to find a way to blend them into an effective team. Please prove that my doubts about you are mis-placed.

I was looking at the standings the other day and started thinking, there are many teams that make the playoffs based on talent alone, and there are many teams that make the playoffs with what I consider poor talent, and than I remembered that Karl said multiple times that Josh would regret firing him because it is harder to win in the NBA than Josh seems to think. We were lucky, Karl was a good coach, a good enough coach to almost guarantee the playoffs regardless of talent.


This team has had the talent to make the playoffs easily the last 2 years. Guys like Spoelstra, Popovich, Snyder, Brooks, and Stevens always find a way to win regardless of injuries, hell even Thibs has only missed the playoffs 1 time in his career as head coach despite some ugly teams at the end in Chicago. I know that there are fans out there that continue to preach patience, and that Malone will eventually learn from his mistakes, but the one thing in common that I have noticed about the guys that win without the best talent, is that they started doing it right away.


Under Karl there were times that I would look back at a roster a year or two or even 3 later and wonder how the hell we thought that team was so good. Go look at the roster and the minutes played for that 2005-06 season, Nene was out for the year, Kmart was in and out of the lineup, Camby was in and out of the lineup, Dermarr Johnson and Greg Buckner were starting games, yet it never crossed our minds that we would miss the playoffs. Under Malone there has not been one season I look back at and wonder how we won the games we did, in fact it is always the opposite of how did we not win more games with the talent on the team?

Hickson took shots when he left, Nurkic is still taking shots, Mozgov took a couple of shots, Gallo took a couple of shots last year, and it would not surprise me if faried and Chandler take shots at out coach this year at their media day. Every year the front office and coaches talk about the playoffs, fans expect to make the playoffs, and then the excuses start, and nothing has really changed. I read threads online from fans of other teams bitching about how Denver fans are so cocky and think their players are so great, but they think we have lost our minds because we don’t make the playoffs.

The media and front office obviously love Malone, reportedly Murray loves Malone as well, but why do the veterans that we have had all seem to not like him? Is it that they agree with some of us fans, Malone is not a good coach? If we do not make the playoffs this year than Malone will likely finally be fired, however I think if we make the playoffs despite Malone that he should be fired as well. If at the end of the year we do not win more than 55+ games and we do not win the 1st round or at least push it to 6 or 7 games than he should be fired. If we spend all season constantly changing schemes and never get a set rotation until February he should be gone. We all know we have the talent if this coach would get them to perform at max levels, if not we need someone who can.

You can't expect from Jokic, Murray or Harris, which never worked with any other NBA coach, to complain about anything. Especially Jokic, which before NBA not played US college basketball or in a competitive team in Serbia (his former club MEGA was some kind of private discount/academy of his manager which don't care about results, but only to develop and sell their players).

Veterans like Nelson, Miller, Jefferson, Arthur, Faried, are gone, so only Millsap or Plumlee worked with better coaches before, but if you look at their contracts, why they should complain about anything The same, but from different reasons, we can say about I.Thomas. And if you look at FO, Josh or TC is not pure basketball people, only Karnisovas, so if anyone fires Malone finally, I guess it will come from AK.

We are just one win shy for a playoff in 2016-17 and in 2017-18 both, but even if we reached playoff both years, I think Malone should be fired because he proved enough times that he is a bottom-5 coach on the West. So if we have a potentially 2020+ TOP5 team in the league, why put it in the hands of someone who is not even TOP10 in our Conference? FO is probably happy with his good relationship with our BIG3 young core, and want to give him chance for improvement (he is still young coach), which is wrong I think. And who other to blame because we already missed 2 playoffs, and waste such guys like Nurkic and Mudiay, and maybe Juancho and Beasley, on the wrong way.

THE J0KER wrote:. And who other to blame because we already missed 2 playoffs, and waste such guys like Nurkic and Mudiay, and maybe Juancho and Beasley, on the wrong way.

Not a Malone fan by any means, but Connelly and FO are more to be blamed, Nurkic was not interested in being anything but starter even though Jokic was and is way better and Mudiay is just bad, both should've been traded while they had some value left. Juancho had (or has?) mono, so not much he could've done anyway.

Do you have a feeling last season that Denver, in general, playing well against strong opponents, but have too many losses against not so good teams? Here is a proof we all are right about that. I calculate 2017-18 NBA regular season standings which include games between TOP9 West and TOP9 East teams only vs each other. Denver would be #3 on the West (tied with UTA and OKC), not #9. Rankings of all other teams are very similar with their real regular season rankings, the only other big exception is Washington from East which also has better results vs TOP9+TOP9 teams compared to final rankings last season. Unlike Denver and Washington, teams which obviously use last season the opportunity to be cruel vs weak teams are Portland, San Antonio, and Milwaukee.



Coach Malone (and Wizards coach Scott Brooks) should not be proud on this stats which expose too many unnecessary losses of their teams last season.