When the Nuggets made the shocking decision to fire head coach Michael Malone and GM Calvin Booth with just three games remaining in the regular season, it seemed like that was it for the team’s 2024-25 season. They had been up and down all year, but struggled to ever truly hit their stride, and were infuriatingly inconsistent for much of the year.
Malone had lost the locker room, and Booth’s roster simply wasn’t talented or deep enough. By cleaning house in the final week of the season, Nuggets ownership was sending a clear message that the season was a failure and that big changes were needed, with more to come.
Josh Kroenke and the rest of the Nuggets’ leadership group preached that these changes were about this season too, and that they still believed this team could contend, but it seemed more like wishful thinking and platitudes than a genuine belief.
Firings have sparked Nuggets in playoffs
And yet, here we are, 10 games into the Nuggets’ playoff run, and the team looks as good as they have all season. They hold a surprising 2-1 lead over the Thunder and have stolen homecourt advantage away from the team that dominated the regular season, finishing with a 68-14 record and winning the West by 16 games.
But Denver has been up to the challenge and then some so far, and for a variety of reasons, they’ve clearly been reinvigorated after the in-season firings. In a way, the moves served as a wake-up call to everyone in the organization.
Ownership was showing that they weren’t content with the results and that everyone was now being studied under a magnifying glass, and as a result, everyone has stepped up.
Nuggets’ players and coaches rallying around single cause
I’m not sure the players necessarily wanted Malone gone, but it’s clear that the move has brought everyone closer together, and they’ve rallied around David Adelman, a longtime Denver assistant. Adelman has brought a new voice, some tweaks to the rotation, and some schematic changes, but the new voice and energy seem to have made a huge difference.
You can also see it with the players, looking no further than the star, Nikola Jokic. Jokic seems more engaged than ever and has been much more of a vocal leader, almost looking like a coach on the floor at times. We didn’t see that with Malone at the helm, but Jokic has taken on a bigger role in terms of leadership and his overall involvement and sense of responsibility.
The rest of the players take their cues from Jokic, and seeing him take on this new demeanor has created a heightened sense of urgency in the locker room. You can see it every time the team takes the court, and the results have been shocking. Whether this is actually what the Kroenkes envisioned when they made the changes, we’ll never know, but just over a month later, they certainly look like geniuses.