The NBA is still reeling from the shocking decision of the Denver Nuggets to fire head coach Michael Malone and GM Calvin Booth with just three games left in their regular season. Understandably, much of the immediate focus has been on the present.
After winning David Adelman’s head-coaching debut on Wednesday night, the first game since Bloody Tuesday in Denver, the team sits at 48-32, good for fourth place in the Western Conference. Despite only having two games left, the standings are so tight that they could still finish anywhere from third to eighth in the final standings come Sunday.
That’s a difference between hosting a first round playoff series versus playing single-elimination basketball in the play-in tournament just to earn a seven or eight seed in the playoffs. The team’s season could be over as soon as next Friday, or they could rally around Adelman and rip off a long playoff run into June. Everything is still on the table in the next few days and weeks.
Nuggets hoping to bring back former GM Tim Connelly
Looking beyond this immediate future, no matter how this season plays out, the Nuggets are going to need a new GM. Booth made some nice moves and presided over the team’s first championship in 2023. But he has had a bad string of recent moves, mismanaged assets (especially draft picks), and never got on the same page with his head coach.
A report from The Athletic indicated that the Nuggets will discuss bringing Tim Connelly back and hiring him away from Minnesota. Connelly, of course, became the GM of the Nuggets in 2013, eventually becoming the team’s President of Basketball Operations. He built the team that got over the hump in 2023, including drafting Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr., and trading for Aaron Gordon.
Connelly established a great collaborative relationship with Malone as well and the two worked in lockstep to build one of the best teams in the NBA. But just before Connelly’s vision came to fruition, he was stolen away by the Timberwolves with a godfather offer in the summer of 2022 that the Kroenkes were unwilling to match.
Just like that, Connelly was gone, off to Minnesota. Booth took over in Denver, traded for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, among other moves, and helped the Nuggets finish the job and win the championship that Connelly had been building for years.
Meanwhile, Connelly built a team designed to defeat Jokic and the Nuggets, and they accomplished just that. His T-Wolves knocked Denver out of the playoffs last season, ending their title defense in the Western Conference Semifinals. Just under two years after winning a title, the Nuggets have lost faith in Booth and appear to be regretting their decision not to pay up and retain Connelly.
Timberwolves aren’t going to let Connelly go without a fight
The only problem for the Nuggets is that hiring Connelly will not be easy. He does have an opt-out in his contract, but the Athletic reported that Minnesota, and their new ownership group led by Alex Rodriguez and Mark Lore are expected to “do what it takes” to retain Connelly.
The Kroenkes have never been known to pay up for coaches and executives, as evidenced by the fact that they let Connelly walk out the door in the first place (and Masai Ujiri before him). Perhaps they have finally realized the error in their ways and they are ready to open up the checkbook, but at this point, it’s hard to imagine Connelly leaving his cushy post in Minnesota with a rising young superstar in Anthony Edwards.