Shams: Nuggets Fire Malone & Booth

[M2J]

[Duke4life831]

I really dont know what the next step here is.

Murray has 4 more years on his deal. MPJ has 2 more years on his deal. They really lack draft capital.

I get it, Nico Harris proved that there is always at least 1 idiot GM that is willing to make a deal that tanks his team and his career. But man is there really a team willing to go out and give assets for Jamal Murray? I feel like the only answer for MPJ is just to swallow that contract for one more year and hopefully offload him next year on an expiring deal. But again that is a year from now.

What's the fix? You dont make this kind of move without thinking there is another big move to make (obviously in the offseason). This is the kind of move signaling a big time shake up and overhaul. Denver is right back to the exact same point next year, no matter who the coach is.

I still cant get over how bad the cap situation and draft capital situation is. I feel like the only logical next move is Jokic asking out. Because he cant go to the front office and demand them to make a big move, they dont have any assets to do anything like that.

[WhatTheBuck]

Jokic just straight up QUIT on his team 3 games before the playoffs.

Are you serious?

Read on Twitter

Typical Jokic fan. Replies with stats.

If you fire a coach 3 games out of the playoffs you're basically waving the white flag.

[sp6r=underrated]

what if Malone is the one begging them to get Westbrook

Wasn't the word that Jokic wanted Westbrook?

Regardless, Westbrook's minimum contract is not any significant factor in Denver's predicament.

Ya a guy taking up less than 2% of the cap really plays no impact here. The fact that they have to play Westbrook 28mpg is the issue.

Yup, Westbrook was a good signing relative to what you're paying him. If his name was John Doe everyone would be fine with it.

It is Murry and Porter being paid like All-NBA 3rd team guys when they aren't that level and all the unplayable players on the roster.

As you said in this thread outside the Gordon signing management has floundered worse here than anything I've seen since KG in Minnesota. And they were operating on a no draft picks, death penalty situation.

[LakersSoul]

Oh my.

Sucks bad for Malone, a highly likeable guy.

But I'm glad for a new direction. It was needed.

Went from Laker's Daddy to Stay at home Daddy.

Maybe he can recommend Ham as his replacement and set them back another 2-3 years.

[ORLMagicGirl15]

You win a team’s first championship and then 2 seasons later, you get fired. What in the world????

How do you keep a coaching job in the NBA?
COY-fired
Championship coach-fired

[tsherkin]

Should've averaged 50 on 80% TS%.

45 on 73% is for quitters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's wild watching Jokic doing the thing his detractors have been clamoring for him to do for a while now (not you, scrab, obviously), taking over as a scorer, and seeing how little that impacts the team's ability to win because of how the other guys impact winning. It's frustrating. Kinda reminds me of early Jordan in a way. There is a limit to what an individual can do. Jokic is doing it, but he needs his guys to do more than they are managing right now, and that's the limitation.

[Duke4life831]

Im trying to think, has any other sport fired 2 coaches within a month of the playoffs and both teams were on their way to the playoffs? This really does feel like such an NBA thing. Hell this feels even extreme for the NBA. I dont think David Blatt was fired this late into the season a decade ago with Cleveland.

[NotaHypeJob]

David Adelman is a nepo baby, what is he supposedly good at

[Special_Puppy]

Malone always wanted to be a Popovich type coach. One franchise, multiple chips, one of the goat coaches all time with one of the goat big men of all time.

Problem is he did more talking about that than executing. I like Malone and think he’s a good coach, but he had some major mistakes and the defense/bench was simply inexcusable.

Its a talent issue. Not coaching. Malone and his coaching staff were some of the best in the league

Why did the Nuggets fall off a cliff this season? Why did they go from the 7th ranked defense to 20th ranked defense?

Is the theory that Malone became a dramatically worse coach over the course of a year? Does that even happen with coaches?

[BelgradeNugget]

Nuggets never were the same after we delivered them that ass whopping in late February. They've gone 10-12 ever since.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And I think you should thank us for getting rid of Ham and signing of JJ

[WhatTheBuck]

Should've averaged 50 on 80% TS%.

45 on 73% is for quitters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's wild watching Jokic doing the thing his detractors have been clamoring for him to do for a while now (not you, scrab, obviously), taking over as a scorer, and seeing how little that impacts the team's ability to win because of how the other guys impact winning. It's frustrating. Kinda reminds me of early Jordan in a way. There is a limit to what an individual can do. Jokic is doing it, but he needs his guys to do more than they are managing right now, and that's the limitation.

Jokic is doing it all OFFENSIVELY.

DEFENSIVELY though? His team has been covering for him for years.

[NZB2323]

He won a championship when his players were healthy. Murray is injured now, and there are 4 games left. And by firing the GM, you’ve admitted you haven’t given the coach the right roster.

[WuTang_CMB]

Read on Twitter

[Castle Black]

Read on Twitter

[facothomas22]

A retool is underway with the Nuggets. Happened right before the playoffs too.

[levon]

Aaaaand here comes the media push to make Jokic a laker. Never fails.

Read on Twitter

The media is setting betting lines?

[LeBronSpaghetti]

Its a talent issue. Not coaching. Malone and his coaching staff were some of the best in the league

Why did the Nuggets fall off a cliff this season? Why did they go from the 7th ranked defense to 20th ranked defense?

Brother their backup center is Deandre Jordan. They lost a key perimeter defender in KCP. Gordon is not the same. Teams have learned how to attack the Nuggets' core. Jokic is not a great defender. There are a litany of reasons that have nothing to do with scheme.

DJ was their backup center when they won the title. And if you think giving KCP $22 mil per year was the right move, you’re even more out of touch than Booth. KCP this season is a 3 and D guy who can’t play D and can’t hit a 3.

I’m not saying the roster is perfect it’s obviously very flawed. It needs improvement. And I 100% think firing Booth was the right move and I’m not sure about Malone. But even so the team has massively underachieved despite Braun being better than KCP has ever been. We can’t pretend the coach has nothing to do with this team underachieving. Russ replaced Jackson, which is at worst a wash, but realistically it is a clear upgrade.

[MarcusBrody]

Malone wanted the team to resign KCP, who is underperforming in Orlando. Some will say it's the "Jokic effect", but KCP took a noticeable step back last season and the writing was on the wall that he wasn't going to match his 2022-2023 productivity.

But that's the whole problem with Malone, he wants to win with veterans and the young players are all on a short leash. The roster construction was problematic, but Malone refused to give it a try.

The bigger reason why he was fired was his dependence on Jokic. When Jokic was off the floor, the team fell off a cliff. That's as much on him, as it is Booth.

It had to be done. He was there for 10 years.

Yeah I think Booth gets too much hate. Is anyone really looking at what Bruce Brown and KCP's contracts and what they've done since leaving Denver and saying the Nuggets should have overpaid to keep them? Moving on from KCP to Braun was 100% the right call, and Brown has been awful, though it would have been great if Booth was able to sign a Divincenzo or Strus to replace him. If you're going to criticize him it should be for the Murray extension, but it's not exactly clear to me how they'd be able to replace him with another star had they not done that.

To me it's really as simple as: they gave up a lot to get Aaron Gordon, and as soon as they did that they put their chips in the Jokic/Murray/MPJ/Gordon core. Injuries robbed that core of 2 playoff runs, it all came together in 2023 during the title run and then ran into a team that was a matchup nightmare for them last year. Jokic being surrounded by subpar talent was more a result of bad injury luck than incompetence in the FO, because once that Gordon trade was made the talent/fit was there for 4-5 years if healthy. But also they were banking on Murray and MPJ continuing to grow as players which they never really did, though I would say that was a good bet to make at the time.

Murray extension is terrible. Nnaji is dead money. Saric is dead money. You hand out enough bad contracts and it starts to cost you elsewhere.

I mean, it's a very minor point, but I think Nnaji is the one problem more on Malone than Booth. I'd like to be paying Nnaji a few million less, but his contract is actually decreasing a bit over the next few years. Malone kept trying to play him as a small ball backup center, but he just wasn't good at it. He has looked much better playing as a power forward. His offense still isn't great, but has looked better and it looks a lot better when he gets to play with Jokic (as does basically everyone's). But it isn't a one way street with Nnaji because he is actually a good weakside rim protector and a very versatile defender. So that helps cover Jokic's defensive weaknesses, especially when teams aim to pull him away from the basket. If Zeke can get his 3p% up just a bit, I think he will be a valuable part of the Jokic and the second unit teams.

[tsherkin]

Jokic is doing it all OFFENSIVELY.

DEFENSIVELY though? His team has been covering for him for years.

He isn't the reason they are trash on D this year, and he's also far from the only star player who wasn't/isn't a defensive anchor. And the magnitude of his offensive impact is sufficient that this isn't really a reasonable critical approach of his play. It also didn't stop them from winning in 2023, though memories are often short.