Following the Denver Nuggets 128-109 loss vs the Portland Trail Blazers, Coach Michael Malone officially became the franchise leader in games coached at 790 regular season games. He passed the great Doug Moe who coached 789 games with Denver between 1980-1990, after already passing him in Nuggets wins coached back in November, 2024.
Malone began his coaching journey with Denver back in 2015, when he took on the role after being removed from duties by the Sacramento Kings in 2014-2015. Now that Malone is in his 10th season with Denver and he has taken the coached games lead, it is a perfect time to look at his tenure as a whole with the Nuggets.
Looking at the early seasons, Denver’s first playoff runs, the injury-riddled years, the championship season, and the post-championship hangover, we will hand out letter grades for each section of Malone’s decade as a coach with the Nuggets.
Report cards are in! How does Coach Michael Malone grade out?
The rebuilding seasons (2015-2018): B
The Brian Shaw-coached seasons in 2013 and 2014 were the dark days of the Nuggets following the competitive, yet disappointing George Karl years. This made the expectations for Malone being a new coach in Denver low, as Denver was coming off of a 30-52 season and were fully rebuilding.
Malone can immediately be praised for making the decision to make Nikola Jokic, who at the time was just a 2nd round draft pick rookie, a full-time starter for the Nuggets. The players on this team were inconsistent and less talented, but through those first three seasons, Malone was able to develop talents like Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Gary Harris, among others.
Denver ultimately fell just short of the playoffs in all of the first three of Malone’s seasons, most notably in 2017-2018, losing the game 82 battle against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Regardless, the team was clearly moving in the right direction and ended the 2017-2018 season with a playoff-caliber record of 46-36 in a competitive west.
The first playoff runs (2018-2020): A
The 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons were some of Coach Malone’s best coaching displays in his career, routinely getting the most out of a young and upcoming roster, exceeding expectations, and proving non-believers in the Nuggets wrong. Denver was seemingly ahead of schedule, securing the 2nd seed in 2019 and the 3rd seed in 2020.
In the 2019 playoffs, Malone and the Nuggets won a competitive first-round series against an experienced and well-coached San Antonio Spurs team before falling in the 2nd round to the Trail Blazers in a 7-game series. The following year, the Nuggets completed the two memorable 3-1 comebacks against Utah and LAC, before falling to the eventual champions in the Lakers.
Through this time, Malone finished 3rd in Coach of The Year voting in 2019, securing 6 first-place votes and was given huge credit for getting the Nuggets to the next level, while Murray and Jokic became stars, and the coaching staff continued to develop talent like Monte Morris, Torrey Craig, and Michael Porter Jr.
The injury-riddled years (2020-2022): B+
Despite looking like they were on track for something huge in the seasons following their NBA bubble run in 2020, the team was hit hard with injuries and adversity. First, Jamal Murray tore his ACL during the 2020-2021 season, followed by a significant injury to Will Barton. This forced the Nuggets to start Facu Campazzo and Austin Rivers in the playoffs.
The Nuggets still impressively won in the 1st round of the playoffs against Portland, but did not have enough depth or talent to compete with the Phoenix Suns in the 2nd round, who swept them, despite Jokic winning the MVP that year. Then the following season it happened again…
In 2021-2022, Jamal Murray missed the entire season due to rehabbing his ACL, but Porter Jr. also suffered a back injury just 9 games into the season and PJ Dozier also suffered an ACL injury early in the season, both missing the rest of the year. Denver fell to the Warriors in the first round but showed good fight in the regular season and Malone did well with a broken team.
The championship season (2022-2023): A-
Luckily, in the 2022-2023 season, the injury luck turned for Malone in the championship season and while different Nuggets players dealt with bumps and bruises throughout the season, their eventual playoff rotation appeared in 56+ games each and an average of 69 games, showing just how fortunate their health was.
The best part was that Malone and the Nuggets began season 46-19, which allowed them to have a massive lead in the Western Conference standings and go on cruise control in the last season to be as healthy as possible entering the playoffs. They ended the season 7-10, which left some fans scratching their head, but Malone was confident in the rotation he had.
His playoff coaching was incredibly underrated, as he had the team locked in and prepared to begin every series, going 10-1 at home in the playoffs. He made full use of their home court advantage and even trusted rookie Christian Braun in the NBA Finals, who was great in games 2, 3, and 5. His job was certainly easier in this season than most, but he still deserves praise.
The post-championship hangover: (2023-present): C+
Following the championship, Malone and Denver haven’t been able to capture the same magic that they had in 2022-2023. Last season, Malone was perhaps too rigid in his regular season rotations. The Nuggets also pushed much harder at the end of the season to try to get the 1 seed, forcing the team to look burnout come playoff time and Malone has some fault in that.
He also seemingly did not make full use of developing the young players in the regular season, such as Peyton Watson and Julian Strawther. What he saw in the starters and set rotation made sense, as they had just won a championship one season prior, but the departures of Bruce Brown and Jeff Green were noticeable come playoffs with no young guys ready to step up.
This year, Malone has been mixing up the rotations more and playing the young guys extended minutes throughout the season, which is great, but another issue has arisen. The defensive intensity of the team and overall effort has been inconsistent to say the least, in part due to losing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Malone seems to have hit a wall with getting players to fully buy in.
So what’s the verdict? Overall (2015-present): B+
Malone’s best coaching traits are his connection to players, energy, and preaching defense and not skipping steps. The 53-year-old has proven to be at his best when he is working with a team that has their backs against a wall and are hungry to prove people wrong. He also has to be commended for being incredibly vocal and fiery, as that is not Jokic or Murray’s natural state.
Malone functioned best in the years in which he had developing healthy talent on the roster, but the team had not yet reached their end goal of a championship (2018-2020, 2022-2023). These last two seasons have been the toughest of his career but it also is not entirely Malone’s fault. Expectations are at an all-time high and the front office has not always set him up for success.
What can be said is that Malone has coached through the extreme highs and injury-riddled lows and his approach has been professional, intentional, and passionate throughout. He remains a top 5-10 coach in the NBA and is the 4th longest tenured coach in the league for a reason. Like most coaches, he has his strengths and weaknesses but he is perfect for the Denver Nuggets.
Malone’s current coaching contract runs through the 2026-2027 season, so it will be especially interesting how the rest of this season as well as next season go.