Updated at 12:47 p.m. on Tuesday, April 8, 2025.
Michael Malone is out as the Denver Nuggets head coach.
Malone, who coached the Denver Nuggets to the NBA title in 2023 and has led the team to eight consecutive winning seasons, was fired Tuesday, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Malone is the winningest coach in franchise history and the NBA Finals championship is the only title in Nuggets history. He's been with the team since 2015.
Also out in the stunning move: general manager Calvin Booth, whose contract will not be renewed, said the person who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the team had yet to publicly announce the dismissal. Booth was the GM during the championship run two years ago, he's been with the team three seasons.
David Adelman, the team's lead assistant coach, will serve as the interim head coach for the remainder of the season — potentially including the NBA playoffs. This will be his first head coaching opportunity.
Josh Kroenke, the vice chairman of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, said “it is with no pleasure” that the Nuggets made the change at coach.
“This decision was not made lightly and was evaluated very carefully, and we do it only with the intention of giving our group the best chance at competing for the 2025 NBA Championship and delivering another title to Denver and our fans everywhere,” Kroenke said.
ESPN's Shams Charania originally broke the news Tuesday.
The team is still likely to go to the playoffs this year with three games left in the regular season.
The Nuggets are 47-32 but have dropped four consecutive games and are in a logjam of teams fighting for home-court advantage in Round 1 of the playoffs. Denver won the title in 2023 and lost a Game 7 at home in the Western Conference semifinals a year ago to Minnesota.
The four-game slide comes despite Nuggets star Nikola Jokic — a winner of three of the last four NBA MVP awards — having a historic season, averaging 30 points, 12.8 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game. But even that wasn't good enough for Denver to enter the final week of the season certain of even having home court in Round 1.
After the most recent loss, a 125-120 defeat to Indiana on Sunday, Jokic was asked his biggest concern with the team right now.
“I don't know. Maybe we just, maybe we just ... I don't know, actually,” Jokic said.
The Nuggets are hoping a shakeup might provide the answer.
Malone had the fourth-longest tenure of any active NBA coach, behind only San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich, Miami’s Erik Spoelstra and Golden State’s Steve Kerr.
Malone won 471 regular-season games in Denver, 39 more than Doug Moe for the franchise's all-time coaching lead.
“While the timing of this decision is unfortunate, as Coach Malone helped build the foundation of our now championship-level program, it is a necessary step to allow us to compete at the highest level right now. Championship-level standards and expectations remain in place for the current season, and as we look to the future, we look forward to building on the foundations laid by Coach Malone over his record-breaking 10-year career in Denver,” Kroenke said.
Malone had consistent success in Denver
The Nuggets finished with losing records in his first two seasons and posted winning records in his next eight years with the club.
This season’s postseason appearance will be the team’s seventh in a row; it has not clinched a playoff berth yet this season but is assured of finishing no worse than in the play-in tournament.
Starting with the first playoff appearance under Malone in 2019, the Nuggets got out of the first round six times in seven chances. They made the Western Conference finals in the Walt Disney World bubble in 2020 and then rolled to the championship by winning 16 of 20 playoff games in 2023.
Malone coached two seasons with the Sacramento Kings before Denver. At 53 years old, Malone is likely to be in demand by other NBA teams, in a league that sees relatively high turnover in the head coaching ranks. Malone has coached the NBA All-Star game twice in 2019 and 2023.
It is the second time a postseason-bound team has fired a coach in the last two weeks. Memphis parted ways with Taylor Jenkins late last month, replacing him with Tuomas Iisalo on an interim basis.
Booth came to the Nuggets in 2017 as an assistant general manager and was promoted to GM in July 2020. He signed his most recent contract with the club in 2022.
Kroenke credited Booth “for helping put the final pieces in place for the roster that delivered Denver and our fans their first NBA championship.”
“Calvin’s knowledge of the game, his passion for scouting, and his long history as a player and executive in the NBA helped lift our organization to new heights which we will continue moving forward,” Kroenke said.
The Nuggets play Wednesday at Sacramento.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Tim Reynolds/AP Basketball Writer reported on this story.
CPR's Alejandro Alonso Galva reported on this story.
