Coach Malone

[NuggetsWY]

It took some time, but the Nuggets reached the playoffs again. Our offense improved when Malone finally learned how to use Jokic. Our defense improved greatly this past year.

My hopes & dreams for next year include:
1. Coach needs to be more flexible in so many ways.
2. One thing we've seen in the playoffs is that depth makes a difference. Last year, we had quite a few injuries early in the season and our bench did a great job. When everyone came back, Malone stopped using the bench. Sure, in the playoffs rotations are shortened but when there are injuries, the bench players need to be ready to play and clearly our bench was either not ready or our coach was unwilling to give them a chance. Playing the bench in blowouts (winning or losing) is one way to develop bench players. Another way is to rotate one or two into each game for at least 8-10 minutes.
3. When Jokic is on the floor, our offense needs movement - not plays. Let other players set picks for each other and cut towards the basket and run the baseline. If a 3pt shooter is open, Jokic can get them the ball and they need to be ready to shoot immediately. If someone is open and near the basket, Jokic can get them the ball and they need to shoot it. The only "play" that seems to work well with Jokic is his pick-n-handoff with Murray!
4. One of the hazards of having Jokic on a team is that he, and consequently everyone else, will try too hard to pass the ball and ignore wide-open shots. That can be a good thing, but it can also hurt.
5. Our defense has improved but our 2nd & 3rd rotations are not good and our guys are not good at switching bad matchups for good. We end up with bigs out high trying to cover guys that are able to easily blow past them or with smalls that are trying to stop a big one-on-one in the paint.

We've seen growth in the team and the coach. In my opinion, that has been known to be wrong, the above five areas are the coach's responsibility.

[NuggetsWY]

Tough year for making Coach of the Year but Malone came in third and it appears there wasn't a close fourth. He deserved to be considered!

[NuggetsWY]

Coach is going to have a tough year because expectations are going to be very high plus he has too much talent and will be expected to make it all work.

Who's going to be the starting SF? and that's just his biggest decision before the season.
How many minutes will Plumlee get at PF? because Grant probably needs more than he's going to get anyway.
Who's going to be the first SF off the bench?
How will he get Vanderbilt enough minutes to develop a bit and be evaluated?
How can he get Beasley enough minutes to reach the next level?
How can he get Morris at least 24 mpg (average of last year)?

How can he improve team defense? He's already said that we need to see improvement from middle-of-the-pack to top-10.

How can he take the offense from middle-of-the-pack to top-1-?

His biggest problem, IMO, hasn't changed. He tends to micro-manage when the best offense is "throw it to Jokic and then move". His micro-management seems to exclude his assistant coaches' input (from what I can see). Worse still, he's not very flexible. He has his vision and the players have to adjust to that vision (see Jokic's beginnings and how slow Malone was to take advantage of Jokic's uniqueness).

With that criticism, let us not forget that he has led the team to improvement every year. This may be the toughest year yet, if that is the standard. I've been a big critic of coach but I'm beginning to believe and will support him this year (as much as I can).

[Coeur]

He’s going to get a top 3 seed but it’s sad they aren’t giving this team a shot at the title by consolidation trades

[NuggetsWY]

Millsap, Harris, Murray; with all three out, coach is going to have to find a way to make the rest of the team work.

Will he start Craig at guard again? Will Beasley get more playing time? Will Dozier get much time? Will Jokic handle the ball even more? How about Porter's handles?

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[SkillzFromThe6]

More evidence to my theory that coach is in love with Will Barton.

Read on Twitter

[skywalker33]

More evidence to my theory that coach is in love with Will Barton.

Read on Twitter

Promoting that Barton's having one of his best seasons isn't abnormal for a coach, does bring team loyalty

[NuggetsWY]

More evidence to my theory that coach is in love with Will Barton.

Read on Twitter

Promoting that Barton's having one of his best seasons isn't abnormal for a coach, does bring team loyalty

and until lately (Jokic), Barton has been competing with Millsap for the Nuggets' MVP and since he scores more than Millsap, he gets the nod. To his credit, his defense has improved and he's adjusted his offense, somewhat, to fit in better.

[The Rebel]

More evidence to my theory that coach is in love with Will Barton.

Read on Twitter

Promoting that Barton's having one of his best seasons isn't abnormal for a coach, does bring team loyalty

and until lately (Jokic), Barton has been competing with Millsap for the Nuggets' MVP and since he scores more than Millsap, he gets the nod. To his credit, his defense has improved and he's adjusted his offense, somewhat, to fit in better.

I'm sorry but what? Jokic was not playing his best, but I disagree that Barton was better than him on a nightly basis. Barton had a few good nights, but it was not nearly as many as people remember. His defense has also fallen off pretty considerably since early in the season. Millsap and Harris were both playing very well on defense, but so was Jokic, and the defense was carrying the team early in the season.

[The Rebel]

Truth is Malone does overlook the bad of Barton, but it does not surprise me that he would praise any of his players. He praises guys all the time in interviews.

I still don't think he is a top level coach, but I think he is better than he was. The issue is truly that we have to much talent, he tries to use the bench situational which you should, but guys do not seem to be able to do that. Which happens with young guys. Maybe he should just set a rotation, but then who do you cut out of it?

[TunaFish]

I'm in the camp that would have shipped Barton out early and have to admit, Malone made the right call. Barton has played the best I have ever seen him play this season. Although he has no chance to be an allstar, the Nugget's front office, coaching staff and head coach deserve all the credit for sticking with him.

I still think he is more valuable coming off the bench.

[SkillzFromThe6]

Truth is Malone does overlook the bad of Barton, but it does not surprise me that he would praise any of his players. He praises guys all the time in interviews.

I still don't think he is a top level coach, but I think he is better than he was. The issue is truly that we have to much talent, he tries to use the bench situational which you should, but guys do not seem to be able to do that. Which happens with young guys. Maybe he should just set a rotation, but then who do you cut out of it?

When he has a bad game (which he's had many), he doesn't get benched. But when Paul Millsap or Gary Harris have a bad game, they're quickly benched. Smh.

[NuggetsWY]

I was watching the Heat-Celtic game and heard the announcers call Spoelstra "one of the best coaches in the league today" and it reminded me of when he was announced as a head coach and his first couple of years. I didn't believe he would ever be a good coach - much less a great one.

I am beginning to hope I have under-estimated Malone too.

[skywalker33]

Does anyone besides me think (hope) that Malone gets canned if we lose in the 2nd round of the playoffs again ? He just feels pig-headed by not giving MPj any PT, surely causing some dissension in the locker room as well

[The Rebel]

Does anyone besides me think (hope) that Malone gets canned if we lose in the 2nd round of the playoffs again ? He just feels pig-headed by not giving MPj any PT, surely causing some dissension in the locker room as well

I think he survives if we lose in the 2nd round, but I think he could be gone if we lose in the 1st round, and at this point I am not so sure that we win a series this year.

[THE J0KER]

Malone is here to stay! When he was no-name coach he survives two back-to-back wasted seasons (one win shy from playoff in both cases) by his own mistakes, and now he has some name and reputation around NBA. The only way I see his job will be in danger already this year is if the Jokic-Murray-healthy team lose TOP4 seed status before the end of the regular season and then being trashed in the 1st round of playoff in just 4 or 5 games, which is very unlikely to happen unless teams chemistry completely goes to the hell. But I hope Josh or TC or both will finally alert him to control himself in damaging the team's assets. Nurkic and Beasley are great draft picks, arguably TOP10 talents from their class but they didn't contribute to this team even close to their potential and both at the end are traded literally for nothing already at 22. And now we watch the same movie with Porter, TOP5 talent of one of the best draft-class? This must stop!

[The Rebel]

Malone is here to stay! When he was no-name coach he survives two back-to-back wasted seasons (one win shy from playoff in both cases) by his own mistakes, and now he has some name and reputation around NBA. The only way I see his job will be in danger already this year is if the Jokic-Murray-healthy team lose TOP4 seed status before the end of the regular season and then being trashed in the 1st round of playoff in just 4 or 5 games, which is very unlikely to happen unless teams chemistry completely goes to the hell. But I hope Josh or TC or both will finally alert him to control himself in damaging the team's assets. Nurkic and Beasley are great draft picks, arguably TOP10 talents from their class but they didn't contribute to this team even close to their potential and both at the end are traded literally for nothing already at 22. And now we watch the same movie with Porter, TOP5 talent of one of the best draft-class? This must stop!

Malone survived his 1st couple of seasons because this team was coming out of the Shawful years and was rebuilding, nobody even expected us to compete for the playoffs his 1st couple of years. His 3rd year winning 46 games and missing the playoffs due to an overtime loss was also very forgivable. The issue now is that the front office has made it very clear that they feel this team should be a contender this year, if we take a step back than they will be looking at Malone pretty hard.

Also in the NBA the front office cannot tell the coach who to play, it just does not work and ends up giving the front office a terrible reputation when coaches inevitably leave.

Rumors were out at the trade deadline that Stan Kroenke made MPJ untouchable, I do not remember a time that Stan made the decision that a guy was untouchable ever. That never has been reported for another Nuggets player to my knowledge in Stan's time of owning the team. That goes back 20 years.


Given that it is Stan that loves MPJ, the expectations for this team heading into the season, and Malone's obvious issues with so many guys who have left here and I would not be surprised if Malone is fired this summer.

[Manolito]

Atkinson is available for next season, I do clearly prefer him to Malone

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[The Rebel]

I have been going over and over this crap in my head for days, we all know the reasoning behind the deal but it still sucks, all of us have not been happy about the deal, and the team seems to be imploding.

I knew that Juancho and Jokic were tight, and they have mentioned on broadcasts a couple of times over the years how close Murray and Beasley were, but that cannot be a cause of the real issues

One thing that Beasley brought was a shooter that could spread the floor. Everybody knew he could shoot and how dangerous he was, so he was always guarded when he stepped on the court. Last season we went on a tear when he and Juancho were starting, Jokic played well and overall we won a lot of games. This year with Barton out and Harris missing those games we saw the same thing, all the sudden the entire offense works better. I think Malone underrated the floor spreading ability of a dangerous shooter for this offense, in fact I think Malone has always underrated that aspect of our offense.

Most teams build around dominate scorers that need defensive guys around them to shoot 3s and play defense. They get a couple of guys like that, and the entire team is easy to build and a defensive coach will get the most out of them. The issue is that Jokic is a reluctant dominate scorer but he can easily be your top scorer if he had some space to operate in, and we do not really have one of those on our roster. Murray is more of a 3rd guy type, Harris can be a 3rd guy, Barton is a solid 3rd guy, but none of them outside of Jokic are even a true 2 for a championship team.

We all knew Beasley had that chance, but his defense was never going to satisfy Malone, and now MPJ is never going to satisfy Malone either. Jokic and Murray are great with Jokic as your number 1 and Murray as your 3rd, Harris and Grant make a very good 4th and 5th best guys.

Malone is a defensive coach, that has a true belief that you can only win with a great defense, and having a couple of decent scorers on the roster. The issue is that it does not work like that unless you have the Pistons type defense, and we are never going to have that with Murray. I doubt he is ever as good as Chauncey was, and we do not have anybody like Ben Wallace. We can be a very good defense, but we will never be a great defense.

Now you have to remember that Malone's dad was an assistant coach with the bad boy Pistons and the Riley era Knicks. Those were great defenses, in today's NBA you cannot play defense like that. You have to have an offense that can score at will.

I don't think there is anybody on our roster the last few years that isn't a better defender, and Malone gets credit for that, but our offense really is not that great. Why would it be when both of the offensive assistants they brought in with Finch and Price lasted 1 year and left pretty quickly. Our offense is pick and roll, a big man ran pick and roll, a back screen play, iso, and Jokic post up. We have lost all the cutting and off ball motion because teams are packing the paint.

I believe it was Malone pushing the front office to go after Jrue Holiday, he fits as a defensive player that has shown ability to be a true number 2, although I really think he is a better 3rd guy on a championship team. I also believe the rumor that Stan Kroenke said MPJ was untouchable after the front office caved to Malone and tried to get Holiday. I believe that our front office panicked after Stan said no and tried to salvage some kind of value out of Beasley and Juancho, and got players they thought Malone would play, plus a shooter off the bench, and a future asset to keep Stan somewhat happy.

I do not think this team is ever going to fit what Malone is trying to do. If he refuses to see how a clogged lane kills the entire offense and leaves it to guys to get hot from 3 to win games than he is a big part of the problem. We can get by with Grant changing out for Millsap or MPJ for BArton, but we all know that Malone will not do it.

I think Jokic especially is frustrated right now, as you cannot even get a pass through the lane, he is double or triple teamed every time he gets near the lane, and nobody is moving. I think Jokic being frustrated along with issues that Barton is having is a huge part of the reason our defense sucks as well.

I think it is time to move on, not because he is a bad coach, but he is not a fit for this roster and is not a great coach. A guy like Popovich figures out how to adjust to his team, and Malone still does not know how to do that.

[skywalker33]

So do you think Malone is a bit embarrassed now, finding all he had to do to get another star was to put Barton on the bench ??