The Surprising Firing of Michael Malone, and Too Many Late Season Coaching Changes in the NBA

April 8th, 2025

In 2023, Denver Nuggets’ head coach, Michael Malone was on top of the world. He led to their first NBA championship over the Boston Celtics, helped his superstar point center Nikola Jokic also win his first NBA title, and Malone was regarded as arguably the best coach in the NBA heading into the postseason. He showed mastery in execution, defense, and helping his team maximize their strengths and come together to win the title, and it seemed as if Malone would be the Nuggets’ head coach for a very long, long time.

But any avid NBA fan can tell you that the life span of an NBA head coach isn’t very long, and nothing is ever certain for an NBA head coach, especially nowadays, and things can change very, very fast.

Michael Malone did a tremendous coaching job in 2023 to lead the Denver Nuggets to win an NBA championship two years ago. But today, he was fired by the Denver Nuggets, and the winningest coach in Nuggets’ history is out of a job. Right now, the thinking is….why? The lack of clarity and the apparent rashness of this move from the ownership makes this sudden dismissal all the more infuriating. (Photo: AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)

In the NBA, things change quickly, and two seasons is apparently a very long time in this league nowadays. Just today, Michael Malone and his GM Calvin Booth were fired by ownership, just merely weeks heading into the 2025 NBA Playoffs. So what happened? It’s hard to know for sure, but this is extremely surprising, and it seems like a rash move that the ownership made.

And admittedly, the coaching carousel that has gone on in the NBA is frustrating, especially when the Denver Nuggets and the Memphis Grizzlies have actually been playing very solid basketball this season, so there didn’t seem to be any real valid reasons for the changes to take place. And furthermore, Malone’s sudden dismissal is a massive, massive gut punch to the Denver Nuggets’ fans and to the Denver community, as this move hit hard, and could sting for years to come.

As you may know, The Ringer put out an article hinting at the discord between Calvin Booth’s vision of adding young players to the team’s bench, and Michael Malone wanting to have more experienced veterans to help his team, and this seemed like the beginning of the end for Malone in his time with the Nuggets.

After the 2023 NBA championship win, the Nuggets failed to re-sign Bruce Brown, even though Brown had a great defensive presence for his team, and was a vital contributor in the 2023 NBA Finals to get them their first championship, and they let Brown walk and sign with the Indiana Pacers instead. And even though Brown didn’t put up nearly as strong numbers since then, Brown was a very important role player on Denver, and they didn’t replace him with another player that could reliably step up in the postseason.

Then, an offseason later, they chose to let a 2023 starter go, as they failed to re-sign Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and they let him walk and sign with the Orlando Magic. The Nuggets decided to rely on some of their younger players in Christian Braun, Peyton Watson, and other young players that they drafted, but it seems that the coach and management not being on the same page really has hindered their inability to reach the optimal level of effectiveness.

Still, Denver is slated to be an upper-tier playoff team, as they are currently 47-32, and are 4th in the Western Conference. And given that Michael Malone has a winning postseason record and has helped the Nuggets win a championship as recent as in 2023, the timing is very off to say the least, and the firing of Malone will be something that the ownership will end up regretting.

In a series of surprising moves that have happened late this season, Malone will end up joining Taylor Jenkins as the latest of recently fired, but extremely qualified NBA head coaches, and both he and Jenkins should wind up being NBA head coaches next season. This season has been a whirlwind, with Doncic being traded to the Lakers, Jenkins fired and Tuomas Iisalo hired as the interim, with his assistant and coaching guru Noah Laroche also being let go by the Grizzlies, perhaps in a bid to change up their offense once more and to appease their superstar point guard Ja Morant to give him more pick and rolls, and now Denver ended up firing Michael Malone.

There are many good things about the NBA, as the game is played at a faster pace, there are more threes and more wide open spacing, but the constant changing of NBA head coaches is not one of them. The firing of Michael Malone is a bad look for both the Denver Nuggets and the league, and it gives off the impression that NBA coaches are disposable, when in fact, Malone is still a very good coach, and is one of a few coaches that are alive today to have won an NBA championship as a head coach, and that he did it over Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown’s Boston Celtics team in 2023, which should go for something. The Denver Nuggets didn’t give Michael Malone enough time, and it didn’t help that he and management did not on the same page as to who should be on his roster. Michael Malone will be missed, and hopefully he will land back on his feet as an NBA head coach, and hopefully, he’ll be an NBA head coach sooner than later.