David Adelman's exclusion from decorated list speaks volumes about Nuggets coach

I don’t think anyone seriously expected David Adelman to win the NBA’s Coach of the Year Award, which was won by Joe Mazzulla of the Celtics on Tuesday night, but he probably should have received a little more consideration. DA took over last season with a week left before the playoffs and gave it an admirable go in an impossible situation.

The team rewarded him by naming him the head coach this season, and all things considered, the first-year HC handled things pretty spectacularly. He inherited a roster filled with new faces all throughout the rotation and had to deal with injuries to Aaron Gordon, Nikola Jokic, Christian Braun, Cam Johnson, Peyton Watson, and others all year long.

Denver never felt whole, but Adelman managed the group superbly and led them to a 54-28 record and a three-seed in a loaded Western Conference. And yet, 12 of the 30 coaches received at least one top-3 vote for Coach of the Year, and Adelman was not among them.

Adelman clearly not respected around the league

Again, nobody was expecting him to win, but a few votes, even for third place, would have been nice and well deserved. It’s one thing for guys like Mazzulla, JB Bickerstaff, and Mitch Johnson to be ahead of DA. But Tyronn Lue, JJ Redick, Jordan Ott, and Tiago Splitter all finished with worse records in the same conference.

Whether or not Adelman is the right guy for this job or not going forward remains to be seen, but it’s clear what the voters think of him: not much.

When Adelman was promoted to head coach, it was hard not to think the Kroenkes were being cheap and promoting from within, instead of doing a full search and bringing in someone with a proven track record who could lead this championship-ready core. The voters may not think much more of DA, as they were clearly unimpressed by his regular-season body of work, obviously giving most of the credit to Jokic and the players.

Adelman must be on hot seat going forward

What’s worse is that the voters were proven right as Adelman was badly outcoached by Chris Finch (who also didn’t receive a single vote) in round one of the playoffs, making some puzzling decisions and offering some bizarre quotes.

I don’t want to be too harsh on a rookie coach who was in a tough spot, but the Nuggets need much better, and they don’t have time to live through Adelman’s growing pains. Jokic isn’t getting any younger, and his window is rapidly closing with other juggernauts ascending in the West.

If Adelman isn’t up to the task, the front office needs to figure that out very quickly. It’s already going to be hard enough to get back to the top of the mountain with the coming roster crunch; they can ill afford to compound their issues and waste another year of Jokic’s prime with a coach who’s not up for the challenge at this point in his career.

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