So would it really be so bad ?

[The Rebel]

I don't think Malone is worst NBA coach, nor TOP5 worst, but if we look at Western Conference only, he is arguably bottom-5 there (out of 15), so why Denver with so talented young core should risk anything with him anymore? He is still young coach which can improve a lot in near future, but for the Nuggets he already has done couple unforgivable things like starting every single season with team's best player Jokic on the totally wrong way until the middle of December. Also, he tried too many times things which are already proven that will not work, and also too many times he tried without any rational reason to change some things which previously worked almost perfectly. So he should learn his lessons in some less talented team than current Denver is, which under better coach would play playoff last season and this season would be a good bet to reach TOP5 after the regular season and 2nd round of the playoff.

I agree Ettore Messina would be a very interesting solution for Nuggets next season. Another name which I prefer is David Fizdale, without big reason fired from Memphis this season. He is a real expert for the defense, not just self-promoted like in Malone case, and he used very properly Marc Gasol last season, which is a good sign because Nikola Jokic is a unique NBA center, and Marc Gasol is one of the rare centers which has some similarities with him.

I agree that Malone isn't the worst coach in the league, he has issues with not being able to adjust his vision to the players he has. That is a fatal flaw, but does not make him the worst in a league where you have guys like Ty Lue and Jeff Hornecek.

Fizdale was fired because he could not get along with his stars, not a good sign considering Marc Gasol has no history of issues with coaches.

[THE J0KER]

I agree that Malone isn't the worst coach in the league, he has issues with not being able to adjust his vision to the players he has. That is a fatal flaw, but does not make him the worst in a league where you have guys like Ty Lue and Jeff Hornecek.

Fizdale was fired because he could not get along with his stars, not a good sign considering Marc Gasol has no history of issues with coaches.

If benching ONCE without reason team's best player in the 4th quarter is a legit reason for demission, Malone would be fired 50+ times so far

I think behind this decision is problems between Fizdale and Memphis FO, not Fizdale/Gasol. Early this season when Grizzlies realize that Conley injury is really bad they decided to tank badly the rest of the season, and David Fizdale is not a good solution for such role for sure.

[Richard Miller]

I agree that Malone isn't the worst coach in the league, he has issues with not being able to adjust his vision to the players he has. That is a fatal flaw, but does not make him the worst in a league where you have guys like Ty Lue and Jeff Hornecek.

Fizdale was fired because he could not get along with his stars, not a good sign considering Marc Gasol has no history of issues with coaches.

There are other things too (though probably on the management as well) - not being able to integrate Nurkic in any way and running his value into the ground, and ditto for Faried.

[skywalker33]

Todd Romero of Altitude Sports says he thinks Malone gets a pass due to Millsaps injury, reasoning we be a 50 win team if he didn’t go down with injury

[Darklight]

I hate to say it, but yes it would really be bad for the Nuggets to miss the playoffs.

Right now there is some buzz building around the team, missing the playoffs and doing it by falling apart at the end of the season is going to kill that. That will hurt the bottom line next year and help convince Stan to go cheap.

It is fairly obvious to everyone who watches the Nuggets that Malone has major issues and is hurting this team. Even his apologists on Reddit are backing down these days. If Josh and Connelly had any balls they would fire him regardless of how the season ends up, but it far from a given that they fire him either way.

One way or the other this team has to make changes this summer, coaching and roster, but I have lost faith that they will do anything other than **** it up by doing nothing.

Rebel, what is this buzz you are talking about, is it from the media, locals or that we got an allstar in millsap? This team shouldn't be hyped up until malone is gone nothing will change, if we get good potential coach (messina) and he plays the offense we had last year since december 15 and plays through jokic while giving him the right mentality, fixing our defensive issue and improve our dreadful pnr defence and we add the right pieces, get rid of some player (chandler,faried) and improve this imbalanced roster then this team will deserve hype until then this team is hardly worth much hype but only those who follow this team closely would know that. We should try to avoid luxury tax so we don't get into repeater tax. As long as we make the right moves, we will start performing up to our potential, the hype will come and people will catch on.

Speaking of the denver subreddit man the apologist there are mad and delusional especially that lurking guy (the mod) I swear it feels like he would defend any move the nuggets make even if they are detrimental and awful, he can't take any critism about the nuggets you would think he is the owner of the team the guy is so butthurt never seen a bigger apologist when it comes to a nba team or player some may say EG14000 AKA the jokic prophet but EG atleast had advance stats backing him.

[_Joker]

Right now we should play to our strengths IMO.

I realise it will be a bit like how we played under coach Karl, which probably won't hold-up in finals. But the way we defend without the ball should not impact on how we run our offense IMO, and we are clearly a more effective team when we play a fluid style through the Joker.

[skywalker33]

I wouldn't mind the motion offense but not sure Malone would know how to run it effectively.

[NuggetsWY]

I wouldn't mind the motion offense but not sure Malone would know how to run it effectively.

Best way to run a motion offense is to keep Malone in the lockerroom.

[The Rebel]

Todd Romero of Altitude Sports says he thinks Malone gets a pass due to Millsaps injury, reasoning we be a 50 win team if he didn’t go down with injury

Hastings and Boykins went out of their way to avoid questions from Julie on whether they thought Malone had done a good job or not last week. Then Boykins came up with this crap that the coach only makes the difference on 8-10 points a game when she pressed.

That may be true with a good coach, but playing the wrong lineups and forcing your team into a system that does not fit their talents is going to cost you more than that. Add that to the 8 ppg and Malone has cost this team too many wins.

Malone should be fired regardless of what else happens, the only reason this team has not won 45+ games at this point of the season is Malone trying to force this team into a system that does not work with these players. There are just too many issues with his coaching on this team, but at the end of the day I believe they are going to give him another year even if we miss the playoffs. Another year of this and the Nuggets will ruin the entire rebuild, but that is what I see them doing. We are already doing extensions, we already used all the cap space, and the future picks are gone, this team is now built, either it works or we start looking at another rebuild and Malone is holding this team back.

[skywalker33]

Well, seems to me this is the SECOND YEAR IN A ROW that Malone has gotten this team to underachieve, great job coach

[U hova]

Rockets Bzdelik might be interesting, but I don't want a defensive coach at this point.
Hire someone that'll play to Denver's offensive strengths - ideally we'd hire an assistant that'll figure out a defense after our offense is established. I really want Finch back. He's what made our offense great last year, and a run-down version of that is what gave us our latest boost before Malone started calling plays again.

If we're looking at the Pop coaching tree, we don't even need to look at Messina - Mike Budenholzer might be available in the near future. He established one of the league's best offenses with Horford Millsap Korver and Teague, a line-up not too far off from our own starting 5.

[skywalker33]

Rockets Bzdelik might be interesting, but I don't want a defensive coach at this point.
Hire someone that'll play to Denver's offensive strengths - ideally we'd hire an assistant that'll figure out a defense after our offense is established. I really want Finch back. He's what made our offense great last year, and a run-down version of that is what gave us our latest boost before Malone started calling plays again.

If we're looking at the Pop coaching tree, we don't even need to look at Messina - Mike Budenholzer might be available in the near future. He established one of the league's best offenses with Horford Millsap Korver and Teague, a line-up not too far off from our own starting 5.

Really think that’s a big part of Malone’s failures, he’s been trying to make the team fit his scheme rather than making the scheme fit the players strengths, gonna cost him his job (I hope)

[MidMountain]

Well, seems to me this is the SECOND YEAR IN A ROW that Malone has gotten this team to underachieve, great job coach

Before the season I predicted 45-50 wins. We are on pace for 44 1/2. That not far off and better than I would expect given Millsap's injury.

[NuggetsWY]

Rockets Bzdelik might be interesting, but I don't want a defensive coach at this point.
Hire someone that'll play to Denver's offensive strengths - ideally we'd hire an assistant that'll figure out a defense after our offense is established. I really want Finch back. He's what made our offense great last year, and a run-down version of that is what gave us our latest boost before Malone started calling plays again.

If we're looking at the Pop coaching tree, we don't even need to look at Messina - Mike Budenholzer might be available in the near future. He established one of the league's best offenses with Horford Millsap Korver and Teague, a line-up not too far off from our own starting 5.

Really think that’s a big part of Malone’s failures, he’s been trying to make the team fit his scheme rather than making the scheme fit the players strengths, gonna cost him his job (I hope)

Scott Hastings did say the Nuggets need to stop focusing on defense and focus on offense because if you have a motion offense that is true and constant motion, it wears out the other team and leaves them too tired to be efficient on offense. I tend to agree.

He also pointed out how costly the turnovers are. I agree on that. If you make a turnover, that's two points gone and they get two points (turnovers usually lead to easy buckets). So they are 4 point loses. We are currently 7th worst in the league.