Less than two full years after winning the Denver Nuggets their first ever NBA championship, the team has fired head coach Michael Malone, according to multiple reports.
Malone, who had been with the Nuggets since 2015, had the team in the position to make the playoffs in the 2025 season.
In a subsequent move, Denver also is set to fire general manager Calvin Booth – who had been with the franchise since 2017 and in the GM role since 2020.
The timing of these moves is bizarre. At the time of their firings, the Nuggets sat fourth in the tightly contested Western Conference and in an automatic playoff spot with just three games remaining in their season.
They sat 17.5 games back on the Oklahoma City Thunder. That put them half a game behind the third place Los Angeles Lakers, but only half a game ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies – which sat all the way in eighth place.
Malone, the Queens native and son of former NBA coach Brendan Malone, has been coaching basketball since 1993.
This move comes just over a week after a similarly shocking move when the Grizzlies fired head coach Taylor Jenkins. Memphis was, and still is, in position to make the playoffs.
According to NBA reporter Mark Stein, Jenkins and Malone being axed is the first time in NBA history that two teams with winning records fired their head coaches with less than ten games left in the regular season.
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