Absolute Carnage: Why The Nuggets Fired Michael Malone And Calvin Booth

Surprising timing, but a change was long time coming.

Photo by Jongsun Lee on Unsplash

It wasn’t one thing.

It rarely is. It’s always a combination of factors. It wasn’t one loss, one moment, one word said, or failed out-of-bounds play. It wasn’t one rotation decision¹ or free agency signing.

It was all of it, and all of it was a mess.

And so on Tuesday, the Denver Nuggets fired the winningest coach in the history of the organization, their only championship head coach, and the only championship GM in frranchise history.

Michael Malone is gone.

Calvin Booth is gone.

So what now?

WHY WAS MICHAEL MALONE FIRED?

I really started to worry about a month ago. The Nuggets’ defense has cratered out of the gates, stabilized, and then slid, and slid, and slid. It had gotten worse month by month, game by game.

We had no choice but to ask Malone over and over again about the defensive struggles, even after wins. And when we would ask about the offense, he’d steer it back to the defense, because he knew it was such a problem.

But over the last month, while he still begged and pleaded and stressed it, his tone had changed. Malone was talking openly about his own failures to reach the team, that he had to do a better job of coaching guys to get the necessary effort and execution.

The defense is bad for a million reasons. You can have bad personnel if you have great effort and bad effort if you have excellent personnel. You can’t have both bad effort and personnel, and Denver had both. It wasn’t just extra plays or rotations; it wasn’t just hustle stuff. It was the mental focus on knowing who you’re guarding and how you should close out, rotate, and attack the screen.

Their defensive communication has been non-existent. Christian Braun was forced to stand up there on Sunday and say he had to be better about calling out coverages and leading the team defensively. Christian Braun is 23. The kid can’t get cheap rental insurance on a car yet. He’s going to be a great defender in this league but shouldn’t be asked to be that guy, not yet.

Malone was more resigned than I’d ever seen him in the last month. He knew they just weren’t listening, and he was smart enough to understand what that meant. He’s been here for a decade. Almost no one lasts that long.

According to sources, the players have expressed frustration with defensive scheme problems over the last several months, particularly changes to rotation decisions based on matchup instead of simplifying things.²

Frustrations have bubbled over. Aaron Gordon has been devastated by recent losses, the Wolves loss in particular, and has been frustrated with the miscommunication defensively. His animated conversation with Peyton Watson wasn’t a dispute but an example of Gordon trying to facilitate the kind of accountability that came easily for the 2023 team with veterans. He’s had similar frustrations with other team members³.

IS THIS WHAT JOKER WANTED?

Nikola Jokic did not request Malone to be fired. He was certainly consulted in recent days by ownership to assess the situation, but at no point did he signal a preference for the only coach he’s ever had to be let go. If anything, it’s my belief that Jokic likely responded that he’s a player, and that’s not his decision.

“I don’t believe Nikola Jokic will ever or would ever go to ownership to ask for anyone to be fired, and he certainly didn’t this time,” a source told The Dig on Tuesday.

Jokic is matter-of-fact about everything. He understands it’s a business, and these things happen. But it has to also be sad to lose the man he grew into a superstar with and in part because of. ⁴

But Jokic’s attitude and outward misery this season was evident to everyone. He’s having the best season of his Hall of Fame career and has never looked more miserable.

Whether Nikola Jokic was mad about a team-oriented problem, officiating, or the price of horse trading cards in Belgrade, Nikola Jokic’s reactions during the Warriors game caught the attention of ownership.

Jokic’s otherworldly season has become a stress point for Denver. They know, from front office to coaches to roster, that they are letting him down in one of the greatest seasons in NBA history, and there’s a collective guilt about it. That doesn’t help things, but Jokic expressing dismay or dissatisfaction with this season was certainly evident to ownership.

WHY WAS CALVIN BOOTH ALSO FIRED?

The first year after Tim Connelly left, the Nuggets were boosted by a new front office and new additions Booth added⁵, like hitting the afterburners after already taking off. Booth’s drafting of Christian Braun and free agency moves, along with a pre-existing culture all helped the Nuggets win their first title.

And while there was always tension between Malone and Booth for multiple reasons, after winning the title there was a sense that they could put their differences aside or at least have healthy tension to carry the team forward.

That all fell apart last year. Booth committed to his draft process, assessing that under the new CBA, the only way to carry the Jokic era forward was to bring young talent up around him. Otherwise, you fall into the trap of the Milwaukee Bucks, trying to constantly rotate past-their-prime veterans like Jae Crowder and Wes Matthews around Giannis.

The concept was good, but Booth left himself no outs. He signed second-rounders Jalen Pickett and Hunter Tyson to multi-year guaranteed deals. He signed Zeke Nnaji to a $12 million per extension that would make him the fifth-highest-paid Nugget this season, banking on his ability to be a tradeable asset as a young prospect on an affordable deal.

The Nuggets knew entering the year they were short on shooting. Booth said as much at media day. But he was unable to do anything at the deadline because he exhausted his second-round assets to dump Reggie Jackson to sign Russell Westbrook and the first-rounders had already been dealt. The young talent had no value.

Trading Michael Porter Jr. was the most obvious pathway, but sources say not only was the market cool on Porter for multiple reasons but ownership had said two months before the deadline they were against trading Porter.

But with Booth, while the swings and misses on young talent⁶ were what infuriated the fanbase as they saw a flawed, incomplete roster around Jokic, what made the situation worse was internal strife.

The situation between Booth and Malone calcified and then turned toxic last year as management wanted their young players to play to prove they were right and to improve their roster value, and Malone (and the locker room) wanted to rely on proven veterans in their championship window.

Things got so bad that there became deep rifts in the organization. You were either a Malone person, or a Calvin person per sources.

Basketball operations staff felt they couldn’t talk to one side or the other without being branded as one of those, leading to many people caught in the middle, untrusted by either side, just wanting to do their jobs. When the coach and GM both think the other one wants them fired, and they’re right?

That’s a disaster.

Booth’s interpersonal skills were a major issue. He flubbed in media availabilities, questioning Michael Porter Jr. and saying they only had “nine real guys.” ⁷

That said, Booth is a masterful talent evaluator and described by everyone who knows him as “basketball genius.” There were just parts of this job he wasn’t ready for: managing coaching egos and relationships and building organizational culture. The roster moves were the product of hubris but could have been managed with more time.

Booth built a roster that failed Nikola Jokic and created an environment that poisoned every facet of going to work at Ball Arena. Malone dug down against Booth and lost the ability to keep the players’ minds engaged like they need to be to contend.

So both are gone.

BUT WHY NOW?!

Because ownership still believes in this roster, in terms of the playoff rotation. Because they have Jokic, and want to show they will make changes no matter the timing to compete around him.

Because you get to evaluate David Adelman for at least a few weeks to see how the team responds.

Ownership, sources say, are not willing to give up on this season despite everything that’s happened. The window is always open if you have Nikola Jokic, and they are willing to do anything to change that. Ownership believed the team was headed for a first-round or play-in exit. What’s the advantage in waiting if you’re confident in that prediction?

I think that’s disrespectful to Malone and what he’s accomplished. I think it creates havoc without time to settle things down and creates a triage basketball situation. But those are the reasons ownership moved on now.

WHAT’S NEXT?

There’s still uncertainty as to who will take the reins as far as trade calls when the time arrives in the weeks or months ahead, but for now, Tommy Balcetis is the de facto interim GM as he is the Assistant GM.

Balcetis is a longtime Nuggets mainstay from the start of the Connelly era and much better suited to turning the energy in the building, but it’s still unclear who will be “running” things beyond Josh Kroenke.