For the past few years, the Nuggets have seemed like one of the least dramatic organizations in the NBA. They’ve been humming along with the same head coach since 2015, a strong core of players that had been together for several years and won a championship together, and a lineage of executives who had worked their way up and been promoted from within.
By all accounts, they were one of the model franchises in the league. But sometime in the last year or so, that all started to shift. The issues were buried under the surface, at least publicly, for a long time. Winning, and specifically the greatness of Nikola Jokic, can go a pretty long way in masking serious problems. Clearly.
The breaking point was last Tuesday when Josh Kroenke and the Denver ownership group shocked the NBA world by firing head coach Michael Malone and GM Calvin Booth, cleaning house in one fell swoop with just three games remaining in the team’s regular season.
Why did Kroenke wait so long to pull the plug?
The most baffling and inexplicable part of these moves, by far, was the timing. The situation had clearly run its course and by now we’ve learned that behind closed doors, things were pretty toxic inside the building. Kroenke expressed as much in his press conference and said that he had wanted to make the moves for a long time.
Kroenke said there were multiple times when he almost pulled the trigger, including at the All-Star break, but he was dissuaded by the team’s winning streak. Obviously, this is a results-based business, but it’s about the process right now in Denver.
The Nuggets have the best player in the world, the best player in franchise history, and one of the all-time greatest players on their roster and he’s in his prime right now. The team can’t afford to hesitate, to be indecisive, or to be swayed by fluky regular season winning streaks against bad teams.
Kroenke knew how bad things had gotten between Booth and Malone and how toxic the locker room had become. And yet he waited. As soon as he realized this was over he should have acted and ultimately he wasted precious moments of Jokic’s career.
Increased involvement by ownership a huge concern
The Kroenkes have been far from perfect as owners, but they have been adequate. For the most part, they’ve hired people and stayed out of the way, but it feels like Josh is starting to get more involved. Hopefully, these recent moves are just a franchise reset, people will be brought in, and the operation will keep running.
But the concern is if Josh wants to get more involved in the basketball side of things and day-to-day decisions. We’ve seen time and again how much damage a meddling owner can do to a franchise, even when well-intentioned (see Mat Ishbia).
The Nuggets have been building well because of guys like Masai Ujiri, Tim Connelly, and Calvin Booth; not because of Josh Kroenke. If he doesn’t realize that, the team could be in big trouble. There are a lot of directions the Nuggets could go with their next executive hire or promotion. But let’s just hope that that person is the one making the decisions and not the owners.