Report: Everyone in Nuggets organization was ‘miserable’ before firing Michael Malone, Calvin Booth

Report: Everyone in Nuggets organization was ‘miserable’ before firing Michael Malone, Calvin Booth

While the Denver Nuggets were trying to compete for their second NBA Title in three seasons, they were a mess behind closed doors.

Early last week, the Nuggets made the bold decision to part with head coach Michael Malone–the winningest head coach in franchise history–and general manager Calvin Booth, who hadn’t done himself any favors since the team won their first-ever title in 2022-23.

Even though they were struggling post-All-Star break, the Nuggets were still in the thick of competing for homecourt advantage through the first round of this year’s playoffs.

The drama–or feud, rather–between Booth and Malone has since been disclosed, which reportedly took a wear-and-tear on everyone, according to one team source who spoke with ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Ramona Shelburne.

“Everybody in the organization was miserable,” a team source told ESPN. “That’s what Josh felt. It’s a bad vibe. You can’t operate like that. He felt that if he removed those two people, everybody could just focus on doing their job. Change needed to happen.”

The Nuggets have won all three of their games since interim head coach David Adelman took over, includng a 126-111 victory Sunday in the regular season finale, clinching the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference.

According to MacMahon and Shelburne, the move was almost made earlier in the season, too.

“Not only was this war between Malone and Booth toxic for the two men, but it had infected the entire organization,” the article read. “For the better part of two years, winning had hidden the toxins coursing through the Nuggets. Then they started losing.

“It wasn’t the first time this season that Kroenke seriously pondered parting ways with the winningest coach in franchise history and the executive who had put together the final pieces of the Nuggets’ championship puzzle. Kroenke wanted to clean house at the All-Star break, sources said, but an eight-game winning streak spared Malone and Booth.”

That’s a lot of dirty laundry aired for one of the best teams in the West with the league’s best player.

Ultimately, Malone wanted to keep the core together that helped them win the title too years ago, while Booth wanted to keep cost-controlled talent and develop the young players. Both Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Jeff Green were retainable; Bruce Brown, because of his non-bird rights, wasn’t; he was offered nearly $50 million over two years, so there wasn’t much Denver could do.

Are the Thunder the only contender in West?

Most of Denver’s young core–outside of Christian Braun, a Most Improved Player candidate–is still rather unproven. I like Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther, but there’s still much more development to be had there. We also don’t know about DaRon Holmes II, yet, even though tearing an achilles at 6-foot-10 typically doesn’t lend the best track record.

Time will tell if this was the right decision to make. It’s peculiar that it was made during the decision, but what’s done is done. The Nuggets have bigger fish to fry, and what I mean by that is trying to oust a well-coached Los Angeles Clippers team headed by James Harden and Kawhi Leonard in the first round.

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