It’s refreshing to have a GM who is brutally honest and forthcoming. Calvin Booth certainly fits that bill. Since the beginning of his tenure in Denver, he has always stepped to the podium and presented a blunt analysis of his team, sometimes to a fault.
He has never been shy about telling the media how he feels about different players and sharing his goals, his criticisms, and everything in between. As a fan and media member, it’s an amazing level of insight into the team and how the front office thinks.
But in terms of actually running the Nuggets to the best of his ability, Booth is failing, in part due to his insistence on oversharing. While his quotes are insightful and come as a breath of fresh air compared to some teams that never even face the press, they don’t always align with the team’s best interests.
Booth announced his trade offers to the world for no reason
Booth started this trend early in this season when he all but announced the team wouldn’t be bringing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope back in free agency and clearly he didn’t learn from his mistake. On Thursday, after the NBA trade deadline had passed, he chose to hold a press conference.
As usual, he was very honest and forthcoming, but again, gave away too much information from the front office. This time, he brought up Zeke Nnaji and Dario Saric by name and announced the team was shopping them for upgrades.
Calvin Booth says the Nuggets were dangling Zeke Nnaji, Dario Saric, and draft assets in potential trades:
— DNVR Nuggets (@DNVR_Nuggets) February 7, 2025
"We weren't close to doing anything with anybody in our rotation." pic.twitter.com/oujp4taLT9
In and of itself, this is pretty innocuous. Anyone who was paying close attention knew that the team would need to use the contract of either Zeke or Dario to get anything done. Those guys aren’t currently in the rotation and they have the 5th and 6th highest salaries on the team. Trying to move them was a clear move so it’s not like BOoth is revealing some big secret or anything.
But again, he’s giving away information that he doesn’t have to. Perhaps the players figured it out, but why did he have to announce it publicly for the world and the team to hear? Now the Nuggets have two players who know they were being dangled at the deadline but had no value.
What is the point of sharing this information? If anything, it creates a competitive disadvantage as now every team in the league knows exactly what the Nuggets were thinking. Again, it’s not a huge deal, but there’s simply no reason for it. Other teams don’t do this kind of thing and it doesn’t look so great when the past few seasons have been littered with mistakes by the front office.