DENVER, CO – MAY 14: Denver Nuggets head coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth stand … More side by side before Nikola Jokic (15) is awarded the Michael Jordan Kia MVP trophy before the first quarter against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Ball Arena in Denver on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Denver Post via Getty Images
With three games left in the 2024-25 NBA regular season, the Denver Nuggets embarked upon a drastic shakeup Tuesday. They both fired head coach Michael Malone and announced that they would not be extending the contract of general manager Calvin Booth, whose deal expires at the end of this season.
According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, there was “growing tension” between Malone and Booth heading into the season “that grew into a ‘cold war.'” Tony Jones, Sam Amick and Zach Powell of The Athletic added that Malone and Booth “had been at odds over everything from roster construction to the way players were used, creating tension that started to bleed into the rest of the organization.”
“Booth wanted Malone to use younger players that he drafted and to stray away from using veterans for so many minutes,” they wrote in the wake of Malone’s dismissal. “Jalen Pickett is a good example of this, according to league sources. Booth was dismayed that Malone went with Russell Westbrook over Pickett down the stretch of multiple games last week. On a macro level, Booth and Malone disagreed on several things.”
That fundamental disagreement is a byproduct of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement. The Nuggets won’t be the only team to confront that sort of push and pull between coaching staff and front office when it comes to young players and veterans.
The Withered Supporting Cast
The Nuggets are only two years removed from winning the 2022-23 NBA championship, but they’ve been bleeding depth ever since their title season.
During the 2023 offseason, key reserve Bruce Brown Jr. left to sign a two-year, $45 million deal with the Indiana Pacers. The Nuggets could offer him a starting salary no higher than $7.8 million, so they weren’t able to come close to what the Pacers gave him. Meanwhile, fellow reserve Jeff Green signed a two-year, $16 million deal with the Houston Rockets that offseason, although the Nuggets weren’t limited in how much they were able to offer him. They just chose not to give him a similarly above-market deal.
Once Brown and Green left, the Nuggets re-signed Reggie Jackson to a two-year, $10.3 million contract with their taxpayer mid-level exception. Jackson played sparingly in their title run, but he was a key reserve for them during the regular season after they acquired him from the Los Angeles Clippers at the 2023 trade deadline. However, he shot only 33.3% overall in 12 playoff games last season, and the Nuggets had to trade three second-round picks to salary-dump him onto the Charlotte Hornets last offseason.
The Nuggets arrived at another crossroads last offseason when Kentavious Caldwell-Pope became an unrestricted free agent. He started all 152 games in which he appeared in 2022-23 and 2023-24 while averaging 10.4 points per game and shooting 41.5% from deep, but he wound up leaving to sign a three-year, $66 million contract with the Orlando Magic.
In the days leading up to free agency last offseason, Booth telegraphed Caldwell-Pope’s potential departure by saying Christian Braun was ready to replace him in the starting lineup.
“I think we’re prepared to plug-and-play, so to speak,” he said. “I think when you look at some of the teams that have been good in the past, they have to find a way to replace fourth, fifth starters, sixth man off the bench, and still keep rolling.”
Braun has been a bright spot for the Nuggets this season. The third-year forward is averaging a career-high 15.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists while shooting 57.8% overall and 39.8% from deep. That has him firmly in the mix for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award.
However, the rest of the Nuggets’ youth movement hasn’t panned out as hoped.
The Stalled Youth Movement
As the Nuggets were in the midst of their championship run, they swung a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder, dealing away a top-five-protected 2029 first-round pick for a 2023 second-round pick along with a first- and second-round pick in 2024. In the 2023 draft, the Nuggets walked away with Gonzaga wing Julian Strawther (No. 29 overall), Penn State guard Jalen Pickett (No. 32 overall) and Clemson forward Hunter Tyson (No. 37 overall) to replenish their pipeline of young talent.
Peyton Watson, the No. 30 overall pick in 2022, finished eighth on the Nuggets last season in total minutes, while Braun was seventh, trailing only Denver’s starting five and Jackson. However, Strawther, Pickett and Tyson combined to play only 715 total minutes as rookies.
Watson and Strawther are sixth and seventh on the team in total minutes this season, respectively, while Pickett is 10th at 606 minutes. Malone was more willing to lean on the trio of second-year players this year, but the Nuggets have gotten stomped in their minutes without three-time MVP Nikola Jokić.
With Jokić on the floor, the Nuggets are outscoring opponents by 10.3 points per 100 possessions. When he rests, they’re getting outscored by 7.4 points per 100 possessions.
Malone seemed to prefer veteran guard Russell Westbrook, whom the Nuggets signed to a two-year, $6.8 million minimum-salary contract this past offseason, as a stabilizing presence in the non-Jokić minutes. However, in the 729 minutes that Westbrook has played without Jokić this season, the Nuggets have gotten outscored by 13.3 points per 100 possessions. A pair of critical late-game mistakes from Westbrook recently allowed the Minnesota Timberwolves to sneak away with a double-overtime victory against Denver.
Last season, Malone addressed the challenges of balancing a win-now window with doling out minutes to young players and living with their growing pains. At the time, it seemed as though the Nuggets might have discovered the formula for any team with three max contracts on its books to survive the NBA’s new second-apron era.
However, the push and pull between front office and coaching staff wound up contributing to both of their downfalls.
“Everything had intensified between Malone and Booth,” according to Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports, “as Booth made suggestions to Malone about which players should get more opportunities, and Malone not taking those suggestions kindly.”
Had the Nuggets retained Brown, Green and Caldwell-Pope, Malone and/or Booth still might have a job. The financial restrictions imposed by the new CBA forced the Nuggets to make tough choices and cut back on their supporting cast over the past two years. When the young players whom they hoped could replace that trio didn’t pan out as anticipated, it led to destabilizing behind-the-scenes turmoil.
Every team with three max contracts on its books will deal with the same headache in the coming years (if they aren’t already). The margin for error will only get smaller for both front offices and coaching staffs, making synergy between the two increasingly important. Those that aren’t on the same page run the risk of enduring the same fate as Malone and Booth.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.
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